7  Supernatural Love  (1 Peter 1:22–25)

Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word which was preached to you. (1:22–25)

An anecdote from the early 1900s beautifully illustrates how Christians ought to be grateful for what Christ has done for them. While on a three-story scaffold at a construction site one day, a building engineer tripped and fell toward the ground in what appeared to be a fatal plummet. Right below the scaffold, a laborer looked up just as the man fell, realized he was standing exactly where the engineer would land, braced himself, and absorbed the full impact of the other man’s fall. The impact slightly injured the engineer but severely hurt the laborer. The brutal collision fractured almost every bone in his body, and after he recovered from those injuries, he was severely disabled.

Years later, a reporter asked the former construction laborer how the engineer had treated him since the accident. The handicapped man told the reporter: “He gave me half of all he owns, including a share of his business. He is constantly concerned about my needs and never lets me want for anything. Almost every day he gives me some token of thanks or remembrance.”

Oftentimes believers—unlike the grateful engineer in the story—forget that on Calvary there was a Substitute who caught the full impact of their sinful weight and rescued them as they hurtled toward an eternity in hell. God poured out His wrath on the perfect Sacrifice (1:19; cf. Heb. 4:15; 7:26–27), His sinless Son who “was pierced through for [their] transgressions, He was crushed for [their] iniquities; the chastening for [their] well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging [they] are healed” (Isa. 53:5; cf. 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 1:3–4; Heb. 10:9–10; 1 Peter 2:24). Christ sacrificed Himself for all who believe, and each certainly ought to be consumed with demonstrable gratitude to Him for that love, prompting each to manifest love to Him above what is natural. Beyond that love for the Savior is the mutual love shared with all others who have been rescued from eternal death. The apostle Peter calls it sincere love of the brethren.

In this passage, one can pose four basic questions this text answers to explain this supernatural love: When were believers enabled to love? Who are believers to love? How are believers to love? And why are believers to love?

WHEN WERE BELIEVERS ENABLED TO LOVE?

Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls (1:22a)

Scripture repeatedly makes it plain that the unconverted person is far from having the ability to demonstrate genuine love (John 5:42; 1 John 2:9, 11; 3:10; 4:20; cf. Job 14:4; Ps. 58:3; John 15:18, 25; Rom. 8:7–8; 1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 3:5). Jesus told the Pharisees, “Woe to you Pharisees! For you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love of God; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others” (Luke 11:42). They were concerned with the minute details of external religion and yet did not (and could not) manifest God’s love (cf. John 5:42; 1 John 3:16–17). In contrast, Jesus declared that love unmistakably marks believers: “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35; cf. John 14:21; 2 Cor. 5:14; 1 Peter 1:8; 1 John 2:5; 4:12, 19; 5:1).

It was at salvation that believers received the capacity to demonstrate supernatural love (Rom. 5:5). When they evidenced obedience to the truth (were saved), they also purified their souls. Purified (hāgnikotes) is a perfect participle that describes a past action with continuing results. Not only did God cleanse Christians’ impure past (cf. 4:1–3; Heb. 9:22–23), He also gave them new capabilities for the present and future (2 Cor. 5:17; cf. Rom. 6:3–14; Col. 3:8–10; 2 Peter 1:4–9). Ezekiel looked forward to this spiritual reality when he prophesied of what God would do for believers under the new covenant:

On the surface, purified may seem to refer to a human work; on the contrary, it refers to a fully divine work. The prophet Ezekiel made that clear in the passage just cited, and in his letters the apostle Paul also lucidly affirmed that salvation’s purifying work is God’s:

In this passage, Peter assumed but did not refer to faith, which the New Testament so necessarily associates with salvation (1:9; Acts 14:27; 15:9; 20:21; 26:18; Rom. 3:22, 25–28; 4:5; 5:1; Gal. 2:16; 3:11, 24, 26; Eph. 2:8; Phil. 3:9; 2 Thess. 2:13; 2 Tim. 3:15). But, along with the purging from sin that comes through saving faith (Acts 15:8–9), he did refer to the obedience to the truth, an inherent element of the faith that saves (cf. John 3:36; Rom. 10:10; Eph. 2:8–10; Heb. 5:9; 11:1–34). So Peter did not overlook faith in relation to salvation; he merely defined faith. He reiterated for his readers the truth of 1:2, where he affirmed that they were saved “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood” (see the discussion of that verse in chapter 1 of this volume). Clearly obedience can be a New Testament synonym for faith. Other passages affirm this fact. To the Romans Paul wrote, “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?” (Rom. 6:16; cf. 1:5; 6:17; 15:18; 16:19, 26; 2 Cor. 9:13).

Faith is not a human-initiated work of obedience (Eph. 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God”), but if genuinely given by God it will result in believers’ regularly obeying the truth (cf. James 1:22–25; 2:14–26; 1 John 2:3–6; 3:7–9, 24) and manifesting God’s love to others (cf. 1 John 2:10–11; 3:10–11, 14–17; 4:7–8, 16, 20).

WHO ARE BELIEVERS TO LOVE?

for a sincere love of the brethren, (1:22b)

At salvation, believers become members of Christ’s body, the church, which then becomes the target for their new, Spirit-empowered capacity for love (Rom. 5:5; 1 Thess. 4:9; 1 John 3:14, 23; cf. John 15:12; Phil. 1:9; 1 John 3:18; 4:7–8; 5:1–2). This love of the brethren (Philadelphia) is to be sincere (anupokriton, “unhypocritical”). Knowing the danger of hypocrisy, Paul admonished the Romans, “Let love be without hypocrisy” (Rom. 12:9). Sincere love is the prevailing standard for believers (Rom. 12:10; 2 Cor. 6:6; 8:8; Phil. 2:1–2; Heb. 13:1; 1 John 3:11, 18), superseding all earthly limitations and considerations (cf. 1 Cor. 10:23–30). God can use the loving unity of believers to attract a lost world and awaken it to its need for salvation (cf. John 13:34–35; 1 Cor. 10:31–33).

HOW ARE BELIEVERS TO LOVE?

fervently love one another from the heart, (1:22c)

The well-known New Testament verb agapaō expresses the ideal kind of love, that which is exercised by the will rather than emotion, not determined by the beauty or desirability of the object, but by the noble intention of the one who loves. Fervently (ektenōs) is a physiological term meaning to stretch to the furthest limit of a muscle’s capacity. Metaphorically, the word means to go all out, to reach the furthest extent of something (Luke 22:44; Acts 12:5; cf. Acts 26:7). That is how Peter used it in 4:8 when he wrote, “Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.” God wants believers’ love to stretch way out so it graciously forgives and covers sin among believers (see the full discussion of this verse in chapter 21 of this volume).

Such strong love, however, does not derive from some external, legalistic requirement (cf. Ps. 40:8; Rom. 8:2; Gal. 5:1). On the contrary, Peter told his readers that this love is an attitude compelled from within, from the heart (Prov. 4:23; Matt. 22:37–39; Eph. 4:32; 1 Tim. 1:5; cf. Rom. 12:10; 1 Cor. 13:8, 13; Gal. 5:14; 1 Thess. 1:3; Heb. 6:10), because it is a fruit of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Paul told the Galatians that if they lived by that Spirit, they would see His fruit in their lives:

WHY SHOULD BELIEVERS LOVE?

for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word which was preached to you. (1:23–25)

Believers are to love one another to the fullest extent because it is consistent with new life in Christ. The apostle John wrote, “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments” (1 John 5:1–2; cf. 3:14; 4:7).

It is almost as if Peter anticipated his readers’ asking why they should love the way he had commanded them. He therefore told them they should be expected to love that way because they had been born again. The perfect tense of the participle anagegennēmenoi (have been born again) emphasizes that the new birth occurs in the past, with ongoing results in the present. One of those results is that believers will show love for one another.

Paul defined this transformation as a death with subsequent new life in Christ:

The truth of that text is actually a “dry” one. That is, Paul is not speaking of water baptism, but of spiritual immersion into Christ Jesus, symbolized by water baptism. Immersion into Christ means believers are placed into His death, by which they die to the old life and God considers them as participating in Christ’s resurrection, by which they share new life in Him. Thus the new birth entails a complete, radical, decisive transformation that has to be described in the extreme terms of death and new birth (2 Cor. 5:17). Believers “put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Eph. 4:24; cf. Rom. 6:6; Col. 3:10). Those who are born again go from being godless, lawless, and selfish (Rom. 3:9–18; 8:7–8) to manifesting genuine repentance, trust, and love. The Holy Spirit enlightens them to discern spiritual truth (1 Cor. 2:14–15; 2 Cor. 4:6) and empowers them to serve the law of God (truth contained in His Word) rather than the law of sin (Rom. 6:17–18).

The new birth is monergistic; it is a work solely of the Holy Spirit. Sinners do not cooperate in their spiritual births (cf. Eph. 2:1–10) any more than infants cooperate in their natural births. Jesus told Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8; cf. John 1:12–13; Eph. 2:4–5; Phil. 2:13).

Seed represents the source of life. Everything that comes to life in the created order begins with a seed, the basic life source that initiates plant and animal existence. But nothing in the material world has the capacity to produce spiritual and eternal life. Thus God did not effect the new birth using seed which is perishable. In contrast to how an earthly father initiates human birth with his corruptible seed, God initiates the spiritual birth with an imperishable seed. Everything that grows from natural seeds is a sovereign creation of God (Gen. 1:11–12), but it all eventually dies (Isa. 40:8; James 1:10–11). However, sinners born again of God’s Spirit gain eternal life. That is because He uses the imperishable seed of the living and enduring word of God. Peter’s words echoed what James earlier wrote to his readers about the new birth, “In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures” (James 1:18; cf. Rom. 10:17).

To strengthen his point, Peter quoted from Isaiah 40:6, 8, which contains a familiar biblical principle about life’s transience (cf. Job 14:1–2; Pss. 39:4; 103:15; Matt. 6:27, 30; James 4:14). All flesh refers to all humans and animals, and grass refers to the wild grass of the typical Middle Eastern countryside. The phrase glory like the flower of grass denotes the beauty of that scenery in which colorful flowers (cf. Matt. 6:28–29) occasionally rise above the grass. So Peter noted that whether something is as common as grass or as uniquely lovely as a flower, it eventually withers or falls off—it dies. Human life is brief in this world. People pass away like dry grass under a withering east wind. In their graves, the poor and illiterate of no influence are equal to the wealthy and highly educated of great influence (cf. Job 3:17–19). In Christ, however, whether people are common or uncommon, they will never deteriorate or die spiritually. Instead they are like the word of the Lord which endures forever.

That saving word is the gospel, as Peter’s choice of words indicates. He used rhēma for word (rather than the usual logos, the more broad reference to Scripture), which denotes specific statements. Preached is euangelisthen, from the same root word that means “good news, ” or “the gospel.” He is referring, then, to the particular message of the gospel, that scriptural truth which, when believed, is the imperishable seed producing new life that also endures forever.

Though believers possess new life in Jesus Christ and the capacity to love in a transcendent, godly manner, the continued presence of their unredeemed flesh (cf. Rom. 7:14–25) causes them to fail to love as they should. Thus, as in all matters of obedience, the New Testament contains a number of other exhortations for believers to genuinely love (John 13:34; 15:12; Rom. 12:10; Phil. 1:9; 1 Thess. 3:12; 4:9; 2 Thess. 1:3; 2 Peter 1:7; 1 John 3:23; 4:7, 21). Those are admonitions for the church to do what it, by God’s grace and power, is already capable of doing. The call in this text is for saints to manifest an undying love for fellow believers, which is consistent with an imperishable new life in Jesus Christ by the power of the gospel word which is itself imperishable.