“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.” (1 Peter 1:22 [NASB])
Peter, when he wrote his letter to the Christians of Asia
Minor, which is Turkey today, did not, with the beginning clause, say they
could love fervently in their own strength. He understood the sin nature of
each person. Peter knew no person was holy, but all are sinners. This means
each person could love no other person with the fervency and purity of God without
being changed by faith in Jesus Christ. A person loves oneself more than other
people. Still, Peter did not say it was impossible to love with a pure heart.
Instead, Peter reminded these Christians how they could understand they could
love fervently from their hearts.
Peter, in this chapter, appears to give many commands on how
to be a Christian and assurances to realize one is a Christian. Yet, if we carefully
read the complex sentences of this chapter, we will understand how we can know
we have a pure heart with which to love other believers. Going backwards up the
verses in the chapter, Peter said believers have their hope, conduct, and faith
in God.
How can people realize their hope is in God? From verses twenty
to twenty-one, Peter listed ways a person can recognize this in themselves. He
said if a person believes in Jesus Christ as the Savior sent from God as
planned from the foundation of the world, and that God raised Him from the dead
and gave Him glory, then you can know your faith and hope are in God. Because
this believing person is in a faith relationship with God because of Jesus, the
person is being made more into the likeness of Jesus and has the love of God living
in him or her.
Notice, within verses seventeen through nineteen, Peter
wrote about a second attribute of Christians. Peter said believers conduct
themselves in reverent fear of God while on earth because Jesus purified them
with something more precious than gold or silver. Christians act and think right
because of the reverent fear/awe they have for God, because He is righteous and
judges fairly. Jesus purified them with His own blood by dying for their sins. His
great love gave the greatest sacrifice. Christian lives should copy Jesus’
love. They can show His love through the power of the indwelling Spirit of
Christ. A Christian conducts his or her life in a way that reflects Jesus, His
love and sacrifice for God and other believers.
Peter said people can be holy because Jesus, their Savior,
is holy (vs. 16). Verses thirteen through sixteen remind the Christians in Asia
Minor of the holiness, purification, Jesus gives each person who believes in
Him. Believers can, with the Spirit’s help, prepare their minds for action,
keep sober in spirit, fix their hope completely on the grace Jesus gave to them
at His revelation, and conform themselves into the image of Christ. By Jesus,
they will be holy in their behavior. Holy behavior is living as Christ lived,
in love and service to people. People who live like Jesus, act upon the faith
God gave them to believe in Jesus Christ for their salvation and have His Spirit
in them to transform them into His image and exuding His attributes. Holy
living expresses itself in pure and fervent love.
Peter explained this hope, reverent conduct, and holiness
given by belief in Jesus Christ enable believers to love each other. These
attitudes and actions come from Jesus’ attributes. Since these Christians to whom
Peter wrote obeyed the truth and had their souls purified by faith in Jesus,
they had available within them the capacity to love brethren sincerely. Pure
(holy) and fervent love from their heart occurred because they were born again
through Jesus. John reiterated this in 1 John 4:7-14 when he wrote Jesus
enables believers to love each other because love comes from God.
John, in 1 John 4:9-10, leads us to understand more about
God’s love. He said because of God’s love, He sent His Son into the world “that
we might live through Him.” God loves people before they love Him. He showed it
by sending His love to all people through Christ. Jesus’ love is not just for
believers. His love is for all people. Jesus died for all people. John stated
this in John 3:16 when he said, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have
eternal life.” [NASB] Jesus loves all people. As His disciples, Christians have
this same attribute of love from Jesus. Believers are to love all people. Just
as Jesus’ love is pure and fervent, the love each Christian has from God to love
other people is pure and fervent.
As children of God, Christians are to love fervently,
passionately, and purely. They can do this because their faith in Jesus
purified them, made them holy (1 Peter 1:13-16). Just as He is holy, He makes believers
holy. Christians live in reverent awe of God, the one who redeemed them
with His Son’s own blood as the sacrifice for their sins. Because of this great
love of Jesus, they can love others with the love that flows from Him to them
through His indwelling Holy Spirit. Christians can love all people because of
their hope in God. Because they know God loves them, which they will see
when Jesus returns to take them to His kingdom, they can show this unending
love they received from Christ to all people. Peter explained each of these
three points in 1 Peter 1:22-23.
“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.” (1 Peter 1:22-23 [NASB])
Jesus came to the world to save all who would believe in
Him. John 3:16 explains that. Jesus’ standard of love is the standard for each
person who lives. This love is sincere and fervent and based on holiness, faith,
and hope. It comes from the source of love, God. Love is one of God’s
attributes. What should the extent of our love be? Jesus’ life and death
modeled the answer to that question. He taught His disciples about it. Jesus
said in John 15:12-13, “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just
as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his
life for his friends.” [NASB] Should anyone read John 15:13 to mean Jesus said
to love Christians only, Matthew 22:37-39 records Jesus’ deeper understanding
of love. He said in these verses, “You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great
and foremost commandment. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor
as yourself.”
Jesus loved and still loves fervently. Nothing can separate
people from His love. Jesus loves purely. He is holy and no evil taints His
love. Jesus loves completely, to the giving of His life so others can live. He
gives each Christian, through His Spirit who dwells in him or her, His superabundant
love so they can live out His love by loving each person they meet. Jesus does
not restrict His love to certain people because of their skin color, politics, accent,
physical attributes, income, health, education, or any human-defining category.
God makes each person in His image. Jesus came to love and redeem all of us.
Jesus’
love is fervent, holy, and unending.
Our
love for all people should be the same.
Jesus makes it possible for people to love as He loves by their
becoming His disciples. Will you accept the redemption for your sins He offers
to you? Today is your time to think about how you live life. Do you love all
people equally without prejudice and stereotypes? Jesus does. He died for every
person who has lived to give unending love and salvation to them. Jesus loves
you and died for you. What will you say to Him today?
