“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart” (1 Peter 1:22). So now for the first time, we get a glimpse of what this new conduct might look like, what holiness might look like, what the new passions, what fruit, the new passions of hope and joy are going to produce.

“Love one another earnestly from the heart” (1 Peter 1:22). Still hasn’t said anything about the outsiders yet, that’s coming. Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable” (1 Peter 1:23). Sound familiar? “Through the living and abiding 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, but the word of the Lord remains forever.’ And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:23–25).

Born Again in 1 Peter

All of that right there is about being born again. So now in 1 Peter 1:3, these are the only two places. First Peter 1:3: “[God] according to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” And now 1 Peter 1:23: “You have been born again.” And now he’s got a whole new complex of ideas: “Not of perishable seed but of imperishable.” Namely, I think it’s namely, through the living and abiding word.

Nothing was said like that in 1 Peter 1:3. God calls you to be born again through the resurrection unto a living hope. Nothing about your participation in that process of hearing a word, and now that’s what’s going on here. You have been born again “through the living and abiding word” (1 Peter 1:23). And I think the fact that he calls the word “living and abiding,” it’s alive, it lasts forever is to say, “This is a hope. We’re not moving away from the theme of hope.”

If the word that has caused you to be born again, the seed that has come in there and germinated and produced this new baby is living and abiding, you’re going to live and abide. That’s the DNA: live and abide forever. So this is hope — massive hope.

And then he contrasts it with all the flesh. “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but” — back to the word — “the word of the Lord remains forever” (1 Peter 1:24–25). And then he nails it. This word is the good news that was preached to you.

You say, “Okay, so how did I get born again?” First Peter 1:3 says God did it. God calls me born again. It says the resurrection of Jesus turned the new birth into a living hope, new birth. And this says it happened through your hearing the gospel. God does not cause anyone to be born again apart from the word of God.

Which is why I don’t believe in baptismal regeneration — meaning by baptizing a child, the child is born into the family, born again into the family. Because I don’t think the child can do what this verse says is done in the new birth. “Since you have been born again through the word which abides forever.” And here’s what I mean. That word is the good news that was preached to you. So you heard it. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of God” (Roman 10:17). And when you heard it, God awakened you to see it, know it, love it, embrace it, and you were born again.

The Miracle of Hearing the Gospel

So there’s a miracle of God piece, and there’s a human hearing the gospel piece, and these are not separable. One from 1 Peter 1:3, one from 1 Peter 1:23–24. And therefore, if you don’t know right now if you’re born again, you’re not left with nothing to do. You can’t make it happen. God is the one who makes it happen. But you can listen to the word.

You can go to the word. I’ll give you a story. I was in Germany and it was Easter Sunday, and they were having baptisms and testimonies on Easter Sunday morning in this German church. And they told the story of this woman who’s going to be baptized on Sunday, that she was a Jehovah’s Witness and distraught and never having assurance. And she knew these Christians didn’t think her views were correct. And they said to her, “Just read the word. God will show you.” So she was thinking she would commit suicide on Good Friday.

And she said, “I’ll give it one more chance.” She opened her Bible to the Gospel of Luke, knelt down at her bed, read the Gospel of Luke straight through. And she was testifying. I’m listening to this. She was testifying Easter Sunday morning, two days later that God saved her. God opened her eyes to see through the word, not preached this time, but just the good news read, she was born again.

She had read the Bible a hundred times, but God used the word to do it then. Everybody was just off the charts happy, because they had dealt with her for a long time. So if you, like her, are not born again and are desperate, then open the Bible every day, and don’t let go of it until God shows up to make it precious to you.

Obedience to the Truth as Faith in the Gospel

We’ve skipped over 1 Peter 1:22, which has some interesting questions in it. “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for” — a very important word — “a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from the heart.”

Take a look at this verse, then we’ll take another break. “Purified your souls by your obedience.” What are we to make of that? Sounds backwards, doesn’t it? Christ comes in, purifies the soul, and the result of a purified soul — a spirit in dwelt soul, a sanctified soul — starts to produce obedience.

I think the answer lies in the word “truth” here. I think this truth is this good news. And obedience to it is faith. And I don’t think I’ll take the time, but I’ve got four verses. Two of them from 1 Peter and two from Paul that shows that there are numerous times in the New Testament where the proper response to the good news is to obey it. Which doesn’t mean start keeping the Ten Commandments.

It means, what does the good news require? Faith! Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. How do you obey the good news? Believe. So I think what this is saying is “having purified your souls by faith in the gospel.” So this obedience means faith, and truth means gospel.

And here’s a contextual confirmation of that. “Because you’ve purified your souls by obedience to the truth, for a sincere love of the brethren.” That means love, which is the sum of all obedience, is the result of obeying the truth, which means obeying the truth can include love. Are you with me?

This says, “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for love — for brotherly love — therefore love one another.” Well, if you are being purified by your obedience to the truth so that you can love, the love can’t be the obedience. Which confirms, no, obedience is faith! Faith in the word releases you for love.

Galatians 5:6: “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.” Or 1 Timothy 1:5: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” So I think obedience to the truth is faith in the gospel. That purifies your soul, and out of that new purity you love each other, not the other way around.

Summary of 1 Peter 1

See if there’s anything to stick in here before we take a break. Summary, and then we’ll take a break. This is my summary of chapter one.

God exists. He has had great mercy. He, foreknew Christ. All these numbers refer to the verses. He chose us. He manifested Christ in history. Christ shed his blood for us. (These are in causal order. This is how linear I am. These are all in one line.) He was raised from the dead. The gospel of his saving work was preached to us. God calls us to be born again through the word. Thus we saw, in our new birth, our new awakening, we saw the beauty of Christ, we saw our unfading inheritance, and thus we escaped from our former ignorance. Through the work of Christ, we believed in Christ and in God the Father.

And in this faith, the glorified joy streamed into our hearts. These new passions replaced old passions, which were rooted in ignorance. This faith and hope and joy have now been tested by fire and trials. And as fruit of these new refined passions, obedience to Jesus, obedience to the Father, have replaced the old feudal ways of our fathers. And we now love each other earnestly from the heart. And in the next unit, we’ll get far enough in our last session so that the whole picture of Peter’s impact on society can be clear.