Spiritual Bank Account

Think of your righteousness as the money in a bank account. You have a bank account, and Christ has a bank account. The more righteous your are, the more money you have in your account. Anything in the positive is considered perfect, as it is without blemish. Because we are human, imperfect and subject to sin, our account will always be in the negative, because our righteousness will never make up for our sinfulness. As it says in the Scriptures, to Christ (or compared to Christ, since He was and is perfect), our works are as filthy rags. Nothing we do can or will ever make restitution for the wrongs we've done in the eyes of God.

Now think about Christ's bank account. He never sinned. He was perfect in every way. His righteousness is as the righteousness of the Father Himself. He has an infinite amount of money, or righteousness, in His account.

By ourselves, we will always be in the negative. But when we come to Christ, when we believe and do His teachings, it's as if He is joining His account with ours. We then have a joint account with Christ, so long as we continue to follow Him and do His teachings. His account, which is infinite, is then added to our account, which was negative, bringing it positive, not infinite as His, because we had the negative to make up for, but it is far in the positive, making our account without blemish, or perfect.

This is what it means to be perfect in Christ. His righteousness is accounted to us, according to our faith and willingness to follow Him, and we are perfected, not of ourselves, but through Him.

BRAD