For the Audio Version on Spotify, click here - 1 Peter 1:22-2:8
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 with sin, have now been purified
when we responded to the preaching of 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
– “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 perish 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 (the
Word of God made flesh) 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 – the Word made flesh.
1 Peter 2:1-3
“Therefore, laying
aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, 2 as
newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may
grow thereby, 3 if indeed you have tasted
that the Lord is gracious.”
After telling us to love one another
sincerely, fervently and with pure hearts, Peter then goes on to tell us how we
should not live. He tells us to change the way we live, and to turn away from
certain ways that are not conducive to loving one another, and he actually
mentions a few sinful ways of living that we should turn away from.
The first thing he tells us to turn
away from is malice, which is a
desire to harm someone. When we love someone, we don’t seek to harm them in any
way – verbally or otherwise. The second thing he says we need to stay clear of
is all deceit, where one seeks to
make believe what’s not true as though it was. Deceit can be in words, actions
or attitudes and that’s why he uses the words, “all deceit.” He adds to the list of things to avoid, by including hypocrisy – pretending to possess a
higher standard of Christian living that’s not really true, but a mere
pretense. When we truly love someone, we don’t deceive them or pretend we’re
someone we’re not – we remain true to who we are with them. He goes on to add envy as something to stay away from. We
never envy someone we truly love – we rejoice with them instead. Envy is an
evidence of the lack of love for the person we envy. The final thing he says we
need to stay away from is evil speaking.
Speaking evil of others is certainly not an evidence of love for that person,
and so if we claim to love one another, speaking evil of them should not even
cross our minds, let alone be on our lips.
He then adds a suggestion that will
certainly help us in our endeavor to lay aside these unhealthy practices, and
instead put on love for one another. He says that just as a new born infant
desires or craves its mother’s milk, which is pure, (unadulterated), we too
need to have a craving and a desire for God’s unadulterated Word, so that we
may grow in our new-found faith in Jesus. He adds that if we have tasted and
found that the Lord is gracious then we need to seek to listen to, read and
obey His word, so we may grow in our relationship with Jesus. We were called,
not to remain stagnant in our faith in the Lord, but to grow in maturity, so we
may reflect Him in every area of our lives.
1 Peter 2:4-5
4 Coming to
Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen
by God and precious, 5 you also, as
living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to
offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Peter then encourages us to come to
Jesus, whom he refers to as the living stone, who was rejected by the builders.
In fact Jesus Himself referred to Himself as such when in Matthew 21:42, he quoted verbatim from Psalm 118:22, which says, “Have you never
read in the Scriptures: ‘the stone which the builders rejected has become the
chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s
doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes”?
Jesus is not just the stone, but the living
stone, because though He died, He rose from the dead, and is alive forevermore.
He
goes on to add another detail about Jesus – the fact that He was rejected by
men. When Jesus came into the world to live among men, He first came to God’s
chosen people, the Jews, but instead of welcoming Him and putting their faith
in Him, they rejected Him, and did not consider Him the Messiah who was to come
into the world. John 1:11 says, “He came to
His own, and His own did not receive Him.” Not only was Jesus
rejected by men back then, but sadly, even today, while millions put their
faith in Him, there are several more millions who reject Him as the Messiah,
and so don’t put their faith in Him to get saved from God’s wrath and eternal
separation from God.
Peter
goes on to say that though Jesus was rejected by men as the Messiah, He was
chosen by God and precious. People might have thought Jesus to be an impostor
and not the real Messiah, but God had chosen Him to be the One through whom the
whole world would have an opportunity to be saved from a lost eternity. He was
not only the chosen One, but He was precious to God. In fact on 2 occasions (at
the Baptism of Jesus in Matthew 3:17,
and in Matthew 17:5, at the
Transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain) God the Father spoke in the hearing
of people to say, “This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased…”
Peter
then goes on to then make a connection between us as believers in Jesus and
with Him, the living stone. He says that we too are living stones, and adds
that we are being built up into a spiritual house. In this spiritual house,
Jesus is the most important living stone – the capstone, and we are also living
stones, because we now believe in Him who is alive and so now we have a new
life that will never end. (Though our bodies will die, our souls are born again
and will never die). By including this detail about us as believers, Peter is
reminding us that we need to live a new life that reflects Christ in every way.
He
then goes on to say that the purpose behind us being included in this spiritual
house is that we might be a “Holy priesthood, to
offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” In the days of the
Old Testament, dead animal or bird sacrifices were offered to God in various
ways. But now after Jesus offered Himself up as the ultimate sacrifice for the sins
of the whole world, we who believe in Jesus, no longer need to offer up
sacrifices to God. But in gratitude to God, we now live our lives as living
sacrifices unto God, where we please the Lord in the way we live our lives. Our
living sacrifices are acceptable to God, only through Jesus Christ, not any
other man or woman. In fact, that’s exactly what the Apostle Paul also said in Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which
is your reasonable service.” Paul encourages us to live our lives in ways that are pleasing to God,
and he calls this a reasonable service, meaning that this should be the
appropriate response for all that God has done for us through His Son Jesus
Christ.
1 Peter 2:6-8
6 Therefore it
is also contained in the Scripture, “Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious,
and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.” 7 Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious;
but to those who are disobedient, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief
cornerstone,” 8 and “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.” They stumble, being disobedient to the
word, to which they also were appointed.
Peter goes on to quote from Isaiah 28:16, which says in effect,
that God has placed in Zion (referring to the people of Israel) a chief
cornerstone, elect (chosen) and precious (referring to Jesus), and says that
whoever puts their faith in Him, will by no means be put to shame. God is faithful
and will never promise something and go back on His word, and put us to shame.
Jesus has promised salvation to all those who put their trust in Him, and He
will not disappoint us – He will deliver what He promised.
Peter goes on to say that not only is
Jesus precious to His Father, but he is also precious to those of us who have
put our faith in Jesus. Now that we realize who Jesus is we should never trade
anything for our relationship with Him. But to those who refuse to put their
faith in Jesus, and who are disobedient to Jesus - the Cornerstone (most
important person) in the spiritual house (The Church), He will come across to
them as one who causes them to stumble over (rather than a stepping stone) into
the family of God. Instead of Jesus being the One through whom they enter the
family of God, He will be the One who will be like a rock of offense to them. The
reason they stumble, is because they chose to disbelieve and disobey God’s Word
when the Gospel was preached to them, and they therefore forfeited their own
Salvation. Peter goes on to say that they were appointed to stumbling, meaning
that if one disobeys God’s Word or rejects the Gospel, then there’s no other
option available to them but to stumble and forfeit their own Salvation.
If you were blessed by this study, please share it with others
God bless you and have a good day or night
Michael Collins
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