Becoming like Him: Christlike attributes, service, and sacrifice

The Greek word behind "perfect" in Matthew 5:48 is teleios, and it does not mean flawless. It means complete, fully grown, having reached the end for which a thing was made, the way a tree that has grown to full height and bears fruit is teleios even though it is still a tree that can grow further. Aristotle used the same word centuries earlier to describe something that has fully realized its purpose. Christ is not commanding instant, permanent flawlessness. He is naming a direction and a destination: become what you were made to become.

This matters because a wrong reading of "be ye perfect" has genuinely damaged people, leading some to believe every mistake is a sign of failure rather than a normal part of a process Christ Himself frames as gradual, attribute by attribute, in 2 Peter 1:5–7. The Restoration's addition in 3 Nephi 12:48, where the resurrected Christ adds the words "even as I," only strengthens the point: He is describing a completed journey He walked Himself, not demanding an instant leap no mortal, including Him in mortality, ever made in a single step.

Teleios. The Greek word translated "perfect" in Matthew 5:48; complete, mature, fully arrived at its intended end, not flawless.

The natural man. King Benjamin's term (Mosiah 3:19) for the fallen human tendency toward selfishness, that must be put off, not merely managed, through Christ's Atonement.

Christlike attributes. Preach My Gospel, chapter 6, names faith, hope, charity, virtue, knowledge, patience, humility, diligence, and obedience as qualities of the Savior's own character to be actively sought, not passively hoped for.

Consecration. The dedication of one's time, talents, and means to God, of which tithing is a specific, commanded portion (Malachi 3:8–10).

• c. 30 A.D.Christ teaches "be ye therefore perfect" in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:48), using the Greek word teleios, meaning complete or fully grown.
• A.D. 34The resurrected Christ repeats the teaching to the Nephites and adds two words: "even as I" (3 Nephi 12:48), explicitly including His own completed mortal journey as the model.
• 1611The King James Bible translates teleios as "perfect," a word that by then, in English, already carried a stronger connotation of flawlessness than the Greek original intended.
• 17th–20th centuriesEnglish-speaking Christian preaching increasingly reads "be ye perfect" as a command to flawlessness, producing centuries of guilt-driven, all-or-nothing religious striving in various traditions.
• 1986President Boyd K. Packer teaches that true doctrine, understood, changes behavior faster than a study of behavior does, redirecting emphasis back toward understanding attributes rather than merely policing actions.

The command never changed. What changed was how one English word, carrying more weight than its Greek original, shaped centuries of how people heard it.

Tithing and fasting can start to feel like a checklist, a religious tax paid to stay in good standing, rather than the "school of becoming" this lesson describes. That risk is real and worth naming plainly, because Malachi 3:8–10 is often taught with heavy financial framing, and the warning about "robbing God" can land as guilt rather than invitation.

The corrective is in the text itself. Malachi's promise is not only about money returned; it is windows of heaven opened, a blessing so large there will not be room to receive it. And 3 Nephi 12:48's addition, "even as I," reframes every sacrifice, tithing included, as training in becoming like a God who gave everything, not a fee for continued membership. A person who tithes only from obligation and a person who tithes from genuine consecration perform the identical outward act; the attribute being built is entirely in which one it actually is.

King Benjamin, on what must be put off:

"The natural man is an enemy to God... and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love."Mosiah 3:19

The resurrected Christ, adding two words the mortal Sermon on the Mount did not include:

"Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect."3 Nephi 12:48

And Mormon, closing his sermon on charity with a prayer, not a command:

"Pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love."Moroni 7:48

The Catechism describes the call to holiness as universal, achieved through the works of mercy, the sacraments, and cooperation with grace across a lifetime (paragraphs 2013, 2447), with the saints held up as those who most fully lived it. Holiness, in this framework, is the pursuit of union with God and readiness for the beatific vision described in Lesson 4.

The strongest thing a Catholic friend will say: The saints devoted entire lives to becoming holy through suffering, service, and prayer. What more could becoming like God possibly require beyond that kind of total devotion?

A fair answer: very little, honestly; the saints' devotion to Christlike attributes is close to identical to what Peter describes in 2 Peter 1:5–7. The difference is the destination the devotion points toward: for Catholic theology, holiness prepares a creature for eternal communion with an uncreated God; for us, the same attributes prepare a child of God to become, in Peter's words, an actual partaker of the divine nature.

Most Protestant traditions teach sanctification as the ongoing process by which the Holy Spirit produces good works and Christlike character in a believer already justified by faith, careful to keep this process separate from and never contributing to salvation itself (Westminster Confession, chapter 13). John Wesley's Methodist tradition goes further, teaching "Christian perfection," a state of being wholly devoted to loving God and neighbor, attainable in this life through grace.

The strongest thing a Protestant friend will say: Wesley himself taught Christian perfection as complete love, not sinlessness, which sounds almost exactly like what you're describing. What is actually different?

A fair answer: genuinely, not much, at this stage of the process; Wesley's teleios reading of perfection and ours line up closely. The real difference surfaces at the destination, not the method: we teach that this becoming, if it continues faithfully, ends in exaltation, joint-heirship with Christ (Romans 8:17), a claim most Protestant theology stops short of making regardless of how far sanctification progresses.

2 Peter 1:4: "That by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature."

Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2013: "All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity."

John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, 1777: Christian perfection is "loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength," not the absence of mistakes or ignorance.

The natural pushback: "So are you saying I have to earn perfection?" Correct the premise directly. Try: "No one earns it. Grace does the actual changing; what I do is keep showing up and asking for it, the way Mormon describes praying with all the energy of heart. The attributes are gifts I position myself to receive, not achievements I manufacture alone." That keeps grace and effort in the right order instead of turning discipleship into a performance.