BORN AGAIN THROUGH HIS WORD. 1st Peter 1:22-23 The redemption we need to escape from sin's bondage was not an afterthought in God's mind. This was set in motion before the creation of the world. Both the law and the coming of Christ were part of God's plan rather than an act of desperation to salvage lost men and women. Both Jewish and Gentile believers can be confident that our faith and hope in God are part of His whole redemptive purpose.
We are purified in our souls when we read the word of God, obey its instruction, learn its lessons, and act on its commands. We are cleansed from our sins when God saves us, but it is not right to separate our beliefs from our obedience. True faith obeys what the Spirit of God teaches us. When we obey the truth through the Spirit, He purifies our hearts and enables us to love others.
There is no room – no place for pretense. The “unfeigned,” sincere love is “phileo,” the love of family, which seeks the best for those who are near and dear to us. The Holy Spirit has taught the truth, and I have some sense of the value of love for the people of God, who are also purified by obeying God’s Word. We share our lives in the good times and the bad, knowing God can prosper us or take all we have to make us like Christ, who, with a fervent love, laid aside all He had so He could give what we needed most and supply it, when for us He bore our sins and died.
Purity in mind, heart, and life, and sincere love, are impossible without being born again by the Spirit of God. The new birth gives us a new kind of life – eternal life, which is the life of God that He has gifted us with when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. This new nature and the new life and attitude it gives us are evident when we “pass from death unto life,” and it is natural to “love the brethren.”
Then there comes the charge to which God intends us to respond: choosing a high-intensity love that results from obedience to the truth of God. It is our responsibility to constantly intensify our love for the Lord’s people in the family of God. That kind of love is deep, mature, intense, strong, and earnest, despite obstacles and circumstances, even if it is not reciprocated.
We are commanded to love one another fervently with “agape” love, which holds a person in high regard to the extent that we are to love each other as Christ loved us. We are to be holy, fear God, and love one another. When we respond by obeying the truth, we demonstrate sincere love for believers. The basis of that love is the new birth. The seed is the Word of God: incorruptible, enduring, full, and forever.
This brand-new kind of love comes from our new birth, and the new birth comes from the character of the seed, the incorruptible word of God. That seed is in character with the incorruptible “precious blood of Christ.” Anything that comes from God lasts, and the seed of the word of God, which the Holy Spirit uses to produce faith in those who read and believe it, has the solid assurance of new and eternal life.
Sincere love leaves no doubt about its reality. It involves giving with no strings attached. There is a sacrifice that shows we recognize and understand others' needs. Christ's love for us is the template for our love for others. Attention is not focused on what I can get out of some action or relationship. Truth, on the other hand, has a way of generating moral purity and Christ-like love that cannot be denied.
The word of God is one of the two means by which we are brought to new birth. The Holy Spirit of God is the other. When these two come together, life is generated in the human soul, and those who were dead in trespasses and sins are now alive in the power of Christ's life given to us. The information from the word of God, together with the direct action of the Spirit of God in convicting us of sin, revealing Christ to us as the sacrifice for sin, and regenerating us, produces eternal life.
The power of the Gospel-seed is imperishable because, by its very nature, it is a living and enduring message. We are redeemed by the incorruptible blood of Christ, so we have an incorruptible inheritance. We will have an incorruptible body and an incorruptible crown to give to our incorruptible King, whom we serve. All of this is made possible when we come alive by the incorruptible word of God, "that lives and abides forever." All possessions, accomplishments, and people will fade and disappear, but God's will, God's word, and God's work are permanent.
The “word of God” in this passage of scripture isn’t merely words on the pages of the Bible, but a specific term meaning the spoken words of the Lord, a message from God to us. The three incorruptible things in this chapter: the incorruptible inheritance, the incorruptible redemption, and the incorruptible word, enlighten us to the new nature we have that will never lose its value. When
God does something, He does it right – perfectly, and it lives and abides forever. It is settled in heaven, and its duration and value are eternal.
Love was the reason Christ stayed on the cross. Love is now the reason we will not be lost forever. That same love should be shown to others. The evidence of love is seen in how I respond to my brothers and in how much I’m prepared to give so they might know I love them in Christ. By my love, I can show that what happens to them is important to me. It is by fervent love that they are enabled to see the Spirit has worked in me as He worked in them, and we are one together because we are one in Him.
Life comes from the death of a seed when it is planted. I cannot describe it all; I take certain things for granted. God has implanted a life-force within seeds. When moisture and warmth are added, life takes its course, bringing forth a life that’s much greater, designed and maintained by an intelligent Creator. That life-principle is in nature and in the realm of the soul – the seed of God’s Word is planted by the Spirit, and it brings forth a new life that lives on forever – it is a work of God, not of human endeavor. The seed is planted when the Gospel is preached, and the light of the Spirit breaches all barriers.
Life comes forth – at first it seems small. But any plant is little before it grows big and tall. That seed, incorruptible, has life hidden in it – and when the Spirit of God works from it, life is bidden to come forth, breaking bands that long have held the life of the seed that now is revealed. The new life produced is not some passing fad – it has stirred the man’s soul, and now he is glad. A new life eternal from the seed that did spring. Faith in that Word that God planted now grows – and the new life begotten by incorruptible seed now shows.