Stack Exchange, quite rightly, does not tolerate overt criticism of stated points of view but in this case I am invited by the OP to analyse, and to affirm or destruct, the argument of an answer. I shall therefore do exactly that and address my remarks to the answer itself, not to the answerer.
Also, at the outset, I want to make it clear that I wholly agree with James Strong who states, in his concordance entry for teleios, perfect, the following :-
Teleios Strong 5046 :
the perfect state of all things, to be ushered in by the return of Christ from heaven, 1 Corinthians 13:10;
The answer takes an adjective ’perfect’ from James’s phrase ’the perfect law of liberty’ and then proceeds also to take the definite article (which belongs to the noun ’law’). In so doing, an attempt is made to turn ’perfect’ into a noun. This is neither agreeable to the English language nor is it agreeable to what James has stated in Greek.
‘The perfect’ is a proper way to speak of persons, personifying the adjective as though it were the people it describes. The saying actually means ‘the perfect persons’ and the ellipsis (the missing word) is permissible. Blessed are the perfect, one might say. But it is definitely not alright to noun an adjective as though it were a thing, in and of itself. It must attach to something. That is to say, someone must attach it, using grammar.
The nomos of liberty is what James is saying is perfect. He does not say anything else is perfect. Nor is he using that adjective as a thing. He is describing another thing - the law, nomos. To wrench the adjective away, then rip away also the article, and to then pretend that one has carried away a thing that James was describing is just wrong. One has left the thing he was describing, which was nomos.
Nomos has a great breadth of meaning as BDB, Thayer, Liddel & Scott and Young all attest to. ‘Ordinance, law, custom’ and even a mere attribution, that is to say, something that simply belongs, are all covered by the word. So demonstrate the lexicons - especially my thousand page, 1864 American edition of Liddel & Scott - in more detail than I can here report.
Liberty is what James draws attention to. The dependability of liberty. The constancy of liberty. The customary state of liberty. He is not drawing attention to a system of regulation, a book of words, a collection of ideals and exhortations and standards and requirements - all catalogued into an archive of statements.
No, quite the opposite. He states the nomos, the custom, the regularity, the dependability of liberty itself. Given liberty, one needs no other law. One is free. That, argues James, is how liberty works, in a dependable fashion. If the Son shall make you free, John 8:36, ye shall be free indeed, says also Jesus.
And Paul affirms it, Romans 8:2, for the nomos of the Spirit (that of life in Christ Jesus) hath made me free from the nomos of sin and death.
And this way of liberty, this custom of being free, this attribute of being unencumbered, is perfect. Whoso observes it, closely, and continues in such a sabbath of rest (not erring into a way of legal works) shall be blessed in his deeds (of faith and love).
So the answer, blinkered to anything other than legalities, has absconded with ‘perfect’ and ‘the’ thinking that it has encapsulated James’s concept, because the answer saw ‘law’ and assumed there was a code of conduct embedded in it.
Having wrenched away the adjective and torn away the article, the answer thinks that the concept ‘stated code of conduct’ came with it. But that concept wasn’t there in the first place. For that is not perfect which the answer has attempted to imply was in James’s words.
The writer to the Hebrews makes that plain, for the law (that is, in context, the commandments delivered by Moses in the old covenant) made nothing perfect, Hebrews 7:19, but [effected] the bringing in of a better hope. No, and it never will perfect anything which is why it was superseded by a better Testament. Nor is that what James is implying - the perfecting (supposedly) of humanity by a stated, organised and structured system of administered commandments.
So the answer is left holding ‘the’ and ‘perfect’. Ever so vaguely embarrassed, by what the answer now realises is inadequate, the answer throws up some bullet points to try and convince us that this whole thing is legitimate.
James/resurrection; mirror/glass darkly/brasen sea/priests ; . . . Etc.
But first would have to be proved that James, the brother of John, wrote the epistle titled ‘James’ some time after the Diaspora and some time before Herod executed him. Otherwise it is James of Alpheus, brother of Jude, who was not the principle witness of the resurrection.
And the looking glasses of the women were chosen because glass had not been invented - yet - and the concept observed in Revelation 15:2 - of a sea of transparent glass - had to be demonstrated on earth, somehow, so brass was used instead and the concept of transparency was implied by the women seeing, in the midst of “glass“, the image of . . . . a woman. Gold like glass, are such feminine counterparts of the Lamb.
But if the answer thinks that priests must stop, on their way to minister to Almighty God, to check their outward appearance and hairstyle in a mirrored surface, then the answer has completely missed all four of my own bullet points . . . .
1) of worship to him who looketh not on the outward appearance, I Samuel 16:7, nor needs any to brush up at a mirror before approaching him who is invisible, for he looketh on the heart of the would-be worshipper and offerer of priestly service
2) of abounding wisdom that foresees the invention of glass before men on earth got round to it
3) of the delightful aspect of the Bride, now seeing in a glass darkly, with whom the Lamb shall be forever in loving union, but only after he returns to perfectly complete all things
4) and of the transparency of those who are without guilt before the throne (and therefore who are without guile) who are plain and honest in all that they do
. . . . missed it all completely, and now left standing, holding ‘the’ and ‘perfect’ without a sentence with which to convey them and without a concept to which to attach them.
Thus follows an attempt to attach said items (pilfered from James) to something pilfered from John.
To wrench away the capital letter ‘W’ from John 1:1-4, and to apply it to ordinary ‘word’ is, well, I must refrain from comment.
Logos is that which was in the beginning. It is an aspect of Person. It is not the whole Person, just one aspect. Then the aspect is personified. But that still is not the whole Person. The algorithm, if one might be permitted to say, by which all things were made, is something that is within - and is part of - a Person. Further revelation reveals that the order of creation, the structure of creation, the layers and cyclical movements of creation - that which is clearly observable in everything about it and in it - is all within Him.
The whole creation is what it is - because He is whom He is.
And God was the Logos.
To wrench away ‘W’ from him who is The Word; and then to apply it to a rule, a standard, a code of conduct, a system of doctrine, a catalogue of words which defines how men must behave - is just an appalling misunderstanding of what logos means usually and of what Logos means especially.
This whole effort attempts to merge, as did the Serpent, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with the Tree of Life, such that Eve could not discern one from another and was deceived into thinking that only one existed. Thus is Christ made distant and thus is a code of conduct placed in the midst of Eden.
The answer then invites us to follow a code of conduct ‘in the here and now’ - specifically in ‘the here and now’ - not only detracting from the hopeful looking for Christ in the future, but also detracting from following him presently, preferring to draw attention to a code of conduct dressed up as something other than it really is (legal works) by means of a misplaced capital W.
What is perfect ? What is the ‘that’ to which Paul refers ? What do they long for who see, now, through a glass darkly ?
Do they long to be face to face with a code of conduct ‘in the here and now’ ?
Does that even make any sense ?
Let the Bride speak, she who longingly observes (not fully, but partially) the face of the Bridegroom (she in the house of habitation, he outside, not yet resident) watching from her window, Song of Solomon 2:9, as she sees him spying at her through the outside lattice (through a glass, darkly). Oh how lovely is the way of a man with a maid ! Proverbs 30:19.
He watches her, through the lattice, letting her know he is there that she may catch just a glimpse of him - just a glimpse, in time, ere they are together for ever. He that loveth me […] I will love him and will manifest myself to him, John 14:21.
But soon there will be no more lattice - and she shall see plainly, face to face.
Those who have loved him not in this life shall cry out to the mountains to fall upon them and hide them from the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, Revelation 6:16. But the Lamb’s wife, she who saw him, even but ever so dimly, in time, shall see him plainly, face to face, for ever.
Then let the Bride speak (in verse, as is the original Hebrew of Song 8:14) :
Be thou a roe that leaps up high;
make haste, my love, make haste,
as swift young hart on spices’ mounts.
O haste, beloved . . . Haste !
And let the admirable James Strong have the last word :
the perfect state of all things, to be ushered in by the return of Christ
