1 Peter 1:22-25 - Spiritual Teflon
- Chad Werkhoven
- 1 hour ago
- 4 min read
Your soul's been coated with spiritual teflon!
1 Peter 1:22–25 (NIV)
22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 24 For,
“All men are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
25 but the word of the LORD endures forever.” (Isaiah 40:6-8)
And this is the word that was preached to you.
Canons of Dordt
Point 5 - Perseverance of the Saints
Article 7: Renewal to Repentance
God preserves in His saints when they fall
his imperishable seed
from which they have been born again,
lest it perish or be dislodged.
Also, by His Word and Spirit
he certainly and effectively renews them to repentance
so that
they have a heartfelt and godly sorrow for the sins they have committed;
they seek and obtain,
through faith and with a contrite heart,
forgiveness in the blood of the Mediator;
they experience again the grace of a reconciled God;
they through faith adore his mercies;
and that they from then on more eagerly work out their own salvation with fear and trembling.
Summary
At first glance, Peter's opening statement here seems downright heretical: Now that you have purified yourselves... Literally translated, Peter writes, now that you have made your soul holy... . Taken by itself, this clause seems completely contradictory to the gospel, in that it makes it seem like it's up to you to make yourself holy, when all year long we've read about how incapable we are as sinners to accomplish this on our own.
If it's up to you to purify yourself, then it's up to you keep yourself purified. That would mean that after each and every sin you commit - both the monstrous sins we've read about these last few weeks and even the 'peccadillos' (little sins, most of which don't even get noticed by anyone other than God) - you would need to begin the purification process all over again. Even if you could somehow accomplish this, you'd never be fully purified, for even the pride resulting from accomplishing that would be a stain.
But the second half of the sentence makes sense of the first half. You've certainly have made your soul holy, but you've done so simply by obeying (literally: listening to) the truth. In other words, you've heard the gospel's promise and put your faith in it. And because of this, as Peter wrote earlier in this opening chapter, you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls (v9).
So the only action you've taken to purify yourself is to completely trust in the fully accomplished work of your Savior, Jesus Christ. He took your filthy sin and replaced it with His pure righteousness and holiness.
Dig Deeper
Peter's description of what it means to be born again is one of the key passages from which we build this comforting doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Peter writes that your new birth doesn't stem from perishable seed, as did your first birth, but rather from imperishable seed.
The Legacy Standard Bible's more literal translation helps make it clear why this verse is so foundational for the doctrine of perseverance: for you have been born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible. It's as if your soul has been coated in spiritual Teflon; each time you sin, you drag your soul through the mud, but because it's been reborn from incorruptible seed, it remains pure!
Peter also makes clear how it is that this spiritual teflon gets applied: it's through the living and enduring Word of God. There is power in God's Word! It literally changes the composition of a person's soul from corruptible to incorruptible.
To support this, Peter quotes Isaiah's famous claim about the enduring power of God's Word, which forms the basis of the phrase that closes out each episode of the podcast version of these posts. Whatever glory we can muster quickly fades away, but the Word of the LORD endures forever! Nothing - not even all of your indwelling sin - can ever undo the soul purifying work that God's Word has done in you.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, whose powerful Word is living and enduring;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that, having been purified, you will love one another deeply, from the heart;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: John 17
