Matthew 5:48 - A WORD OF GOD Sanctification: Whole or In Part?

Olson, Thomas L.  "Matthew 5:48 -- A WORD OF GOD Sanctification: Whole or In (sic) Part?"  All Theology Is Christology: Essays in Honor of David P. Scaer.  Fort Wayne: Concordia Theological Seminary Press. 2000.  79-100.

In Matthew 5:48 Jesus commands believers to be "perfect."  They are to be as God is perfect.  In what way does God require "perfect" sanctification?  Most Christians confess that they will never be perfectly holy, at least not on this earth.  So we tend to say that sanctification is partial, never complete.  Yet Jesus seems clear in his demands.  What will we do?  According to Romans 6:14, the believer is no longer under law but under grace.  Does this make us "perfect" and "complete," all appearances to the contrary?  Certainly the repentant sinner strives for sinlessness, but not in respect to the Law.  We cannot be sinless in respect to God's Law, but we can be faithful in respect to Christ.  Maybe this is what makes us "perfect?"

Olson delves into a Hebrew word study based on Deuteronomy 18:13.  He uses a good deal of Hebrew text, which I can unfortunately not read.  The thrust of Olson's argument in this portion of the article is that God's making people perfect is rightly applied to those who faithfully follow God, describing their relationship with God but making no reference to their relationship with other people.  The idea is a vertical relationship, not a horizontal one.

Olson's conclusion, then, is that in salvation, in being recipients of God's washing through baptism into Jesus' name, we are by nature "whole" "perfect" and "complete."  The relationship we have through Christ's purchase of us, exclusive of the horizontal relationships we have with this world, makes us complete.

Olson rules out a concept of "progressive sanctification" because it indicates we will grow in our holiness as time goes by.  He equates this with the idea of "progressive justification" which would require us to earn our own justification.  Rather, he indicates that sanctification is entirely the work of the Holy Spirit, is applied to us at one time, and we then, as Christians, pray to know God's truth better.  Yet that increasing knowledge of God's truth does not make us any more sanctified.  It simply tends to bring our behavior and horizontal relationships more into line with the vertical relationship which Jesus has addressed by his death on our behalf, thus justifying us and declaring us to be holy and complete.

So what do you think?  We all seem to have this idea that sanctification has an ongoing element.  Is this a needless splitting of theological hairs?  Does Olson manage to make Matthew 5:48 and other passages work this way when they would not make sense otherwise?

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Dave Spotts
blogging at http://capnsaltyslongvoyage.blogspot.com and http://alex-kirk.blogspot.com