Purified Your Souls

1Peter 1:22-24 Seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides for ever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower thereof falls away

‘Purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently” seven experiences of Christians are mentioned here: Purity of soul; obedience to the truth; yieldedness to the Holy Spirit; love without hypocrisy; love with fervency; purity of heart and the new birth by the Word (1:23; 1Tim. 1:5).

Psalms 24:4 teaches: “He that has clean hands, and a pure heart; who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.” These are the type of people that will inherit the earth and multiply and replenish it forever (Gen. 8:22; 9:12; Dan. 2:44-45; 7:13-14, 18, 27; Luke 1:32-33; 2Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21:3-7, 21-27; 22:1-5). Four qualifications are mentioned: Clean hands (Ps. 15:1-5); a pure heart (Ps. 51:7; Mal. 3:2-3; Matt. 5:8; John 15:3); no idolatry (vanity, 1Cor. 6:9-11; Gal. 5:19-21; Heb. 12:14), and being truthful (Rev. 21:8).

Matthew 5:8 says: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” One receives a pure heart when born again (2Cor. 5:17; Eph. 4:24; 2Thess. 2:13; 1Jn. 1:9; 2:29; 3:5-10; 5:1-4, 18).

‘Being born again’ many Scriptures say that when one is born again and in Christ, he “receives power to become a son of God” (1:12); he has “crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Gal. 5:24); “his sins are blotted out” (Acts 3:19); “he is washed, sanctified, and justified” (1 Cor. 6:9-11; Rev. 1:5); “he has turned from darkness to light and from the power of satan to the power of God” (Acts 26:18); “he has salvation” (Rom. 1:16; 2 Thess. 2:13); “he is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:22-24); “he is God’s elect” (Eph. 1:7; 1 Pet. 1:2-4; Col. 3:12); and “he departs from all iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:4, 19-22).

‘By the word of God’ two agents of the new birth: the Holy Spirit (John 3:3-5; 1Cor. 6:11) and the Word of God (John 3:5). Water is used in a figurative sense of salvation (John 4:14; Isa. 12:3), of the Spirit baptism (John 7:37-39), and of cleansing by the Word of God (John 15:3; Eph. 5:26). Since men are cleansed and born again by the Word (Jas. 1:18; 1Pet. 1:23), it is clear that being born of water means being born again by the Word of God.

‘All flesh is as grass’ this is quoted from Isaiah 40:6-8. This was the message the voice of the vision told him to cry: People are like grass which withers soon and is gone, but the Word of the Lord shall stand forever (Isa. 40:6-8; Psa. 119:89-91; Matt. 5:18; 24:35; Mark 13:31; John 10:35; 12:34; 1Pet. 1:25).

‘As grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass …’ this is the 4th New Testament prophecy in 1Peter. Earthly seeds and reproductions will soon perish, but the Word of God is eternal (Jas. 1:11; 4:14).