The Well-made Man

Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”  (Matt. 5:48) 

Whoa, could He really mean that—that it is possible—or really required? 

Yes, I am confident he meant what He said.

Firstly, let us understand the word ‘perfect.’  As used in the ancient Greek the word is understood to mean ‘complete,’ ‘finished,’ or ‘fully developed.’ It does not mean, prior to the work of life, flawless from the get-go. 

It requires the refiner’s fire and it requires time.

The well-made man has symmetry.  He is teachable and therefore taught; his education is preventative and gives him weapons to slay ignorance and pride.  He is familiar, by reading, with the great minds because he then obtains some of their mind.  He has eyes to see, and ears to hear, and a heart to understand what is presented to his senses and his spirit. He has a reverence for nature and recognizes his place in the universe.  He seeks the divine order and strives to solder his connection to all of mankind whom he recognizes as brothers and sisters.  He comes at challenges from a higher ground and has the key to their solution for he measures all things from a perspective tinctured with divinity. 

He realizes he is not yet a man at age 21 or 41 or 81.  He knows at every age he must keep pushing against the walls of his tough chrysalis and struggle to let the creature (meaning ‘God’s loved creation) emerge.  Hence, he is impatient with mediocrity in himself and constantly works at disengaging from him all the attractive  or encumbering impediments that slow his progress .  He is to convert, quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson, “the Furies into Muses, and the hells into benefit.” 

And then, as the risen Christ told Joseph Smith, “all these things (adversities, tribulations, sufferings) shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.” 

Finally, in the end,  such a man will indeed be a ‘well-made man,’ yea even a ‘perfect man,’ and he shall have joy for God will be with him forever and ever. 

This the scriptures teach and this I believe.