“Come Unto Christ and Be Perfected in Him”
The fact of the matter is that no man or woman except Jesus—not even the greatest Apostle or the mightiest prophet—has ever traversed this mortal sphere perfectly, without flaw. Only the Son of the Man of Holiness stayed on the strait and narrow path perfectly. But he commands us to be perfect. Is is too late for us, given that we have already sinned? No, for perfection is a process, a lengthy process which begins here and continues hereafter. The key principle to be remembered by the disciple of Christ is that perfection is in Christ.
Our Lord offers to make us perfect, meaning whole, complete, and finished. Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith (see Hebrews 12:2; Moroni 6:4), seeks to perfect us in the sense that he makes us whole and complete. Without him we are nothing and can do nothing of eternal value (see John 15:1-5). With him we are complete. As Nephi explained, above and beyond all we can do we are saved by the grace—the enabling power—of Jesus Christ (see 2 Nephi 25:23).
Stephen E. Robinson has described the process as follows: “Perfection comes through the Atonement of Christ. We become one with him, with a perfect being. And as we become one, there is a merger. Some of my students are studying business, and they understand it better if I talk in business terms. You take a small bankrupt firm that’s about ready to go under and merge it with a corporate giant. What happens? Their assets and liabilities flow together, and the new entity that is created is solvent....”