1 Peter 1:22-2:8 Series

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1 Peter 1:22-25

22 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, 23 having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, 24 because “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, 25 but the word of the LORD endures forever.” Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you.

After telling the believers to live their time on earth in fear (reverence / respect) for God, Peter then says that we need to have sincere love one another, and he gives a reason for that. He reminds us that our souls, which were marred by sin, have now been purified when we responded to the Gospel that was preached to us through the Holy Spirit.

When referring to the kind of love we need to have for one another, he says that it needs to be sincere, fervent and pure. It’s easy for us to fake love and concern with mere words, and that’s perhaps why the Apostle John says in 1 John 3:18, “My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.” Peter says that our love needs to be sincere as opposed to insincere. None of us likes to receive insincere love from people, so let’s not give that kind of love to others either.

The second thing he says about the love we share with one another as believers, is that it should be fervent, as opposed to lacking in fervor, warmth or emotion. When we love people fervently, it deeply impacts them, in fact, that’s the kind of love we ourselves like to receive from others. So let’s ensure that our love for one another is fervent, and not unpassionate or unemotional.

The third thing he talks about the love that we are to share with one another, is that it needs to come from a pure heart. When the word, ‘heart’ is used it refers to the seat of our desires, intentions, and motives. So Peter seems to be saying that if we love someone, we need to ensure that our love has clean, sincere and genuine desires and motives. It means that the motive behind the love we show for people should not be selfish, but rather have the other person’s best interests in mind. Here again, it seems like he’s telling us that our love should be real and not fake or with ulterior motives, else the only person we’d be loving would be ourselves and not the other.

He continues to give reasons why we should love one another sincerely, fervently and with a pure heart. It’s because we’ve been born again – something we should never forget. We’re no longer the same people we were before we came to know Christ – we’ve been born again through the Holy Spirit, when we put our faith in Jesus. The Apostle John said in John 1:12-13 – “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” He goes on to mention how we were not born again, and how we were born again. He says that we were not born again by the seed of man – which he refers to as corruptible, meaning that physical birth is corruptible, and will end in death, but we were born again by seed that is incorruptible, meaning that the life that we now have will last forever and never end.

When Peter uses the word, ‘seed,’ he’s referring to Jesus, who was “The Word made flesh.” (John 1:14). The Apostle Paul refers to Jesus as the seed in Galatians 3:16, which says, “Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ.” Peter goes on to say, “Through the word of God which lives forever and abides forever.” This again is a reference to Jesus, who lives and abides forever. Jesus was never created, and will never die either – He is eternal.

Peter goes on to quote from Isaiah 40:6-8, which compares human life with the Word of God. He says that human life is as temporal as the grass of the field, and man, in all his splendor, is merely like a flower that blooms and then fades away, but the Word of God endures forever. So in other words, he’s saying that putting our trust in man or in the splendor of riches is futile, because it will all fade away one day, but putting our faith in Jesus is the best thing we can do in life, because He will never fade or perish, and so our hope is in Someone solid and firm forever. He goes on to say that the Gospel message that was preached to them, and us is all about Jesus.