Love One Another Deeply

In 1 Peter 1:22–25, the apostle gives a command to those who have been born again and are living holy lives. What is that command? Love one another deeply.

Every true Christian has experienced the divine miracle of regeneration. He is no longer dead in sins. God has made him alive with Christ; now, he is a new creation with a new mind, a new will, and a new set of affections. And with his new mind, a true Christian will delight in God’s commandments. He wills to do the will of God with great joy and he has new power of the Holy Spirit so that he may do what God wants him to do. Such a person will say with Paul, “I can do all things through him who gives me strength continually” (Phil. 4:13). A true Christian now hates sin, which he loved before, and he now loves to do righteousness, which he hated before. A true Christian has experienced a fundamental, radical transformation.

A true Christian is God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for his people to do. His passion is to please God in life and in death. For a regenerate Christian, loving God with all his heart and loving the members of God’s redeemed family as himself, is his true happiness.

A true believer thrives in obeying his heavenly Father.  In his first epistle, John uses the word “obey” seven times (1 John 2:3, 5, 29; 3:7, 22, 24; 5:3). For example, John writes, “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands” (1 John 2:3). He also says, “But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him” (1 John 2:5).

Those born of God show their love for God by keeping his commandments. If obeying God is misery to you, you are not a Christian. And if this is true of you, I urge you to cry out to God today to raise you up from the dead. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

We want to look at five points from this passage (1 Pet. 1:22–25).

1. The High Cost of Our Salvation

First, we must know the high cost of our salvation. God is holy, so his children are to be holy, separate, and different. He paid the highest price to redeem us—not perishable silver or gold, but the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. Christ died on the cross for our sins, in our place.

God loves us, and so we love him and every member of his holy family. Paul describes God’s holy family: “Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all” (Col. 3:11). The mark that characterizes God’s family is not superficial love, that is, love in word only; it is sacrificial love, the love with which Christ loved the church.

When a man asked Jesus, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus spoke about such love, saying, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matt. 22:36–40). Elsewhere Jesus declared, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34–35). John also wrote about such love, saying, “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:19–21). And Paul says, “Hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Rom. 5:5). Such love is the first fruit of the Spirit: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23).

2. Moral Purification Is Our Duty

The second point is that we have a duty to purify ourselves: “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth . . .” (v. 22). The Bible says, “Without holiness no one shall see God.” Antinomianism (lawlessness) is of the devil. The devil negated God’s law in Eden by saying, “You will not surely die” (Gen. 3:4). Today, antinomians are especially found in evangelical churches. Their destiny was pronounced by the Head of the church in Matthew 7:23: “Depart from me, you lawless ones.”

But by grace, we are to purify ourselves by obeying the truth of the gospel revealed in the Bible. How can we be cleansed morally? First, the blood of Jesus cleanses us. John writes, “If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:6–7). Additionally, God’s word cleanses us. Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).  He also told his disciples, “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you” (John 15:3).

We are saved to obey Jesus Christ, whom we confessed as Lord (1 Pet. 1:2). We were sons of disobedience (Eph. 2:2). Because of Christ’s redemption, we have become sons of obedience. Those who do not obey Jesus Christ are not Christians.

Peter speaks of “obedient children” (1 Pet. 1:14), that is, “children of obedience.” True believers are characterized by obedience to Jesus Christ, whom they confessed as Lord. So Peter says, “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.” Modern evangelicalism uses the word “contextualization,” which, in reality, means to conform to the pattern of this world. That is not what the apostle is urging us to do.

Obedience is not optional for Christians; it is indispensable. It is the very character of God’s people. Paul speaks much of this in his epistle to the Romans. He writes,

• Romans 1:5: “Through him and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith.”
• Romans 6:17: “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.”
• Romans 15:18: “I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done.”
• Romans 16:19: “Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.”
• Romans 16:26: “but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him.”

As Jesus sent out his apostles to the world, he said to make disciples and teach them “to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). Peter himself declared, “We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him” (Acts 5:32).

A Christian is a person to whom the Holy Spirit has been given; therefore, he will obey the Holy Spirit. Paul writes, “Those who are being led by the Holy Spirit, they and they alone are the sons of God” (Rom. 8:14, author’s translation). So the Hebrews writer says about Jesus, “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him” (Heb. 5:8–9).

Keep in mind that it is by God’s free grace that we obey. John writes, “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another” (John 1:16). Paul writes, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8). He also says, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” (2 Cor. 12:9).

We work out God’s will because God works in us both to will and to do his good pleasure. God’s people are not lawless but law-abiding people. Greater obedience to God’s truth results in greater moral purity and sanctification. Such obedience of truth results in sincere affection for the brothers (philadelphia), for the people of God’s family.

We are God’s regenerated, justified, and adopted family. We call God our heavenly Father, and we can come to the throne of grace with confidence to receive mercy and grace to help us in our time of need. In God’s family, there is no discrimination, only love. Paul writes, “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household” (Eph. 2:19). He also says, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (Gal. 6:10).

There must be brotherly affection in the family of God. But that is not the highest degree of love. So the third point is a command to love one another deeply.

3. Command to Love Deeply

The apostle Peter issues his first specific command in this epistle: “Love one another deeply, from the heart” (v. 22). In other words, he was saying, “Yes, you have brotherly affection resulting from your obeying the gospel. But now I command you to grow up in love. In other words, as a result of the Holy Spirit’s work, you must love one another deeply from the heart.”

This word “deeply” (ektenôs) appears in Luke 22:44 in regard to Jesus: “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly.” In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus did not fall asleep; he prayed more earnestly. The apostles were sleeping, but Christ was praying. We find this word also in 1 Peter 4:8: “Above all, love each other deeply [ektenôs], because love covers over a multitude of sins.” Paul writes similarly, “Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more” (1 Thess. 4:9–10).

My wife and I were brought up in the revival that took place in South India, in the state of Kerala from about 1925 through 1950. When God poured out his Spirit, we experienced revival and we saw true sacrificial love. As a young boy, I saw God performing mighty works, especially saving people of all backgrounds. And I particularly saw people loving one another sacrificially, performing loving deeds, such as those John writes about: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” (1 John 3:16–17). I pray that God would help us today to experience such revival so that we may understand and practice sacrificial love in God’s family.

The standard of love is Jesus and his death on the cross. Do you love your brothers and sisters enough to lay down your life for them? Do you love the gospel enough to die for it?

About the early church we read, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need” (Acts 2:42–44). No one told the disciples to do these things. That is the love of God’s family. We also read, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need” (Acts 4:32–35).

Jesus rebuked the church of Ephesus for falling from the height of their first love: “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place” (Rev. 2:4–5).

We must love as Christ loved us and died for us. Are we ready to sacrifice for the people of God, even ready to die for the cause of Christ? Jesus told the church of Smyrna, “Be faithful even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10). That is agapê love, the love of God that will not let us go. It is deep, sacrificial love. It is the love Jesus spoke about: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

4. The Power of Indestructible Life

God gives us the power of indestructible life: “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God” (v. 23)

How can we practice this self-sacrificing love? After all, we are children of Adam and, by nature, sinners. As such, we all die, for Paul says in Adam, all died (Rom. 5:12). All have sinned; thus, all must die, for the wages of sin is death (Rom. 3:23; 6:23). We come out of the womb dead to God and dying in our bodies. Then how can we love God and God’s people sacrificially, as Christ loved his church and died for her?

Paul writes, “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). “All” there means all the elect of God, not every person. It is not teaching universalism, which is a heresy.

Jesus Christ himself makes us alive by spiritual resurrection through rebirth. Jesus said, “I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.” In place of eternal death, we receive eternal life through regeneration by the word and by the Spirit.  Regeneration is God’s immediate, monergistic, miraculous action. It is an action that is a greater miracle than raising Lazarus from the dead. Regeneration is a work of the Spirit that comes to us through the preached word. And the result is a new heart—that is, new mind, new will, and new affections. When we are regenerated, we are fundamentally changed. Now we love what we hated before, and we hate now what we loved before. We are given a new heart and new power of the Holy Spirit. As a result, we now can understand and enter into the kingdom of God, which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

This regeneration precedes repentance and faith (i.e., conversion). The regenerate are God’s elect. They are given divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). (PGM) They have a new mind, a new will, and new affections. They are new creations, as Paul declares: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Cor. 5:17). John says, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:12–13). Those who have been regenerated are not born of perishable human seed, which only produces dying people, as described in these verses:

• 1 Chronicles 29:15: “We are aliens and strangers in your sight, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.”
• Job 14:1–2: “Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.”
• Psalm 39:4: “Show me, O Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life.”
• Psalm 49:10–11: “For all can see that wise men die; the foolish and the senseless alike perish and leave their wealth to others. Their tombs will remain their houses forever, their dwellings for endless generations, though they had named lands after themselves.”
• Psalm 90:12: “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
• Psalm 146:4: “When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.”
• James 4:14: “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”

But those born of the Spirit by means of the imperishable, living, and abiding seed of the word of God will live forever. So we read,

• John 6:63: “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.”
• Romans 1:16: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.”
• Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
• 1 Thessalonians 2:13: “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe.”
• Isaiah 55:11: “My word that goes out from my mouth . . . will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

The word of God saves and the word of God kills. It is a double-edged sword. Paul writes, “As you hold out the word of life—in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing” (Phil. 2:16). We are holding out the word of life every time we preach the gospel. The word of God is living; thus, it makes alive the dead. Jesus commanded the buried, dead Lazarus to come out, and he came out. And elsewhere we read that by his word, he created all things (Ps. 33:6, 9).

The power of the word of God is the power of the owner of the word, God himself. The word is living and enduring because God is living and enduring. God is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being. In Daniel 6:26 we read, “For God is living and enduring forever” (Septuagint).

5. What Is a Fallen Man?

In verses 24 and 25, Peter contrasts fallen man to the living and enduring word of God: “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flower of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.”

What is a fallen man? Fallen man—whether rich and famous, scientist or philosopher, king or queen, president or prime minister, brilliant, artistic, beautiful, man or woman—all fallen people are all dying flesh. What about a hundred billion dollar man? If such a person does not believe in God, he is a fool (Ps. 14, 54). Jesus said, “What does it profit if you gain the whole world and lose your soul?” (Matt. 16:26).

The Holy Spirit likens fallen human beings to grass. What about all the glory man likes to clothe himself in? It is like the glory of the grass; it only lasts for a moment. In the Greek text, Peter is saying the grass is already dried up and the flower has already fallen. Compared to eternal God, man is nothing. He is dried-up grass and fallen blossoms.

We all come out of the womb dying, and we continue to die until God regenerates some who are his elect people by his living and enduring word. Those he regenerates will live forever in his presence in joy unspeakable and full of glory. There is eternal death for the unbelieving, but eternal life for the regenerate who believe in Jesus Christ, the only Savior of the world.

God chooses the poor, the foolish, the lowly, the despised, the weak, and the nothings of this world to be rich in salvation, in eternal life. We are God’s objects of mercy prepared for glory everlasting. He came by us dying sinners, as we read in Ezekiel 16, and commanded us to live, and we lived. He came by our tombs, as he did to Lazarus, and spoke a life-giving word: “Lazarus, come out!” And the dead man came out alive, walking and leaping and praising God.

In his Son, God loved us in eternity. In time, Christ came to us through the minister of the gospel who preached the gospel to us. Isaiah says, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” (Isa. 52:7). And we heard and believed the gospel by grace. We called upon God as the publican did: “Lord, have mercy upon me, a sinner.” God justified us, forgiving all our sin, and we went home justified.

Jesus has given us eternal life. Jesus was given over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification (Rom. 4:25). There is no salvation outside of Jesus. There is no trap door, no escape hatch, no other way of eternal salvation. Peter told the Sanhedrin, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Jesus himself said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

In the name of Jesus, I pray for you and command you to repent and believe in Jesus the redeemer, that you may be saved and enjoy eternal life and security. Paul writes, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:1–2). He also says, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38–39). Jesus told us in John 17:23 that God loves us as he loves Jesus Christ himself.

Remember the transitory nature of this life. Soon we will lose our power, our fame, our wealth, our brilliance, and our beauty, and no one will remember us. John writes, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its lusts pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:15–17).

So God counsels us to lose all, if needs be, even our lives, to gain eternal life. The rich young ruler kept his wealth and went to hell. He refused to obey the counsel of Jesus.

Everything dies except God and his word, and those born of God by the seed of the word of God, the gospel. This gospel is coming to you right now. Pay attention to the preached word by God-sent ministers of the gospel. Cry out right now, “What must I do to be saved?” God will answer through the pastor, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, and your household.” And to those who are already saved and living a holy life by obeying the gospel, I counsel you to do what Peter is telling us in this passage: “Love one another deeply as Christ loved us and died for us.” As Jesus himself said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

We are God’s family. Let us love one another in such a way with the love that will not let us go.