Since the Master's instruction to his disciples was, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," it is clear that he was urging upon them the necessity of acquainting themselves with certain fundamental rules leading to perfection; in other words, he was asserting the practicability of bringing out in their lives man's spiritual birthright of heavenly harmony—an inheritance which he proved, by his mighty works of conquering sin, sickness, and death, to be the rightful estate of "the sons of God."
In this connection it is of special interest to study Jesus' instructions on this subject, with a view to discovering what metaphysical requirements or basic qualities of thought he outlined as practical guides to attaining perfection. In the nineteenth chapter of Matthew, when discoursing on the impossibility of gaining eternal life while the pleasures of the senses were deemed necessary adjuncts to happiness, Jesus identified the method of arriving at perfection with that whole-hearted consecration to spiritual things in which a fleshly concept of self and earthly attractions are willingly surrendered for those that are real and enduring. In the sixth chapter of Luke he pointed to humility—forgetfulness of self in loving service to others—as a requisite component of perfection. In the seventeenth chapter of John we read of his praying that his beloved disciples and thosewho should believe on him "through their word" might "be made perfect in one," thus defining perfection as spiritual unity—consciousness of divine sonship with the Father discerned through Christ, Truth.
When, as recounted in the thirteenth chapter of Luke, the Pharisees attempted to drive Jesus out of Jerusalem for fear Herod would kill him, his reply to them established the fact that perfection is commensurate with that spiritual altitude of thought known as the resurrection and ascension; it further declared the necessity of righteous activity—doing the works—before this exalted state of mind could be attained, and it also intimated the powerlessness of evil to thwart this spiritual advancement. Jesus said, referring to Herod: "Go ye, and tell that fox, Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem."
