being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by [the] living and abiding word of God.
Peter has just told his readers to love one another. Here he gives the reason. They have a second birth, and its source is not the perishable kind behind their first birth. So what is this seed? What does the word do? And why does "living and abiding" matter for the person born from it?
The language of birth is not a figure for improvement. One writer takes it at full strength:
It is really the bringing into existence of a new being. When you were born into this world, a being was born into it that had not existed before. If you are born again, you are born a second time; born of God, you are a child of God now, which you were not before.
So what exactly is new? One writer starts by setting aside a common description of it:
Some describe the new birth as a change worked in a man by the Spirit through the word of God on his faculties, so that they no longer serve self and Satan but serve Him. But that describes the effect rather than the cause. Scripture is abundant and clear that God gives a life to the believer. Christ is this life, as the old life is from Adam fallen. That life acts through our faculties on objects revealed by God, objects far beyond those of natural life.
Peter's first readers had a proud family line, and this phrase strikes at it. Older translations render "perishable" and "imperishable" as "corruptible" and "incorruptible":
Israel boasted in their natural family line, but this was corruptible seed. New birth is of incorruptible seed, the word of God — a seed filled with life, pure, vital, and eternal, abiding forever. Of course God is the source of it, yet the believer obeys it in the very fact of being born again by it: he is a child of obedience.
The contrast also settles what this birth secures. Natural descent brought blessings that could run out:
The believer is not born of the flesh to enjoy temporary rights and blessings, as a Jew was. He is born of an incorruptible seed, a principle of life as unchangeable as the word of God Himself.
Peter pictures the new birth as sowing. The picture shows who acts first:
Here the New Birth is like a seed falling into the ground. The seed has life in it. The power of life in the seed lays hold in the soil. The soil does not lay hold on the seed. The word of God in the power of the Spirit lays hold of the man.
Why does the word carry such power?
The word is the revelation of what is in God, in His nature and character, His love, His ways, in short all that He communicates. And this is what God uses to quicken.
Those two words describe the child as well as the seed:
That which is born partakes of the nature and character of that which gives its birth. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." It is equally true that what is born of incorruptible seed is incorruptible. And what is born by the living and abiding Word of God is living and abiding. That enduring Word of the Lord has reached us in the gospel message we have believed.
Peter is drawing on the prophet Isaiah, who levels every human distinction:
The Jew was grass, the Gentile was grass — all flesh was grass. And "the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever." Nothing on earth abides but the word of God. It is living and abiding... What comfort, to know we are the children of what is living, incorruptible, and abiding!
The verse begins with "since." The new birth is the ground of Peter's call to love:
They are our brothers. So let us love one another earnestly from a pure heart. But this rests on another principle, vital at its core. It is a new nature that acts in this love.
- Source — Birth, not repair. A being exists now that did not exist before, and God gives it a life the old one from Adam never had.
- Seed — What Peter rules out is as pointed as what he affirms. Natural descent is perishable seed, and no family line survives the sowing.
- Means — The word carries life into a person as a seed carries it into soil. The seed lays hold of the ground, not the ground of the seed.
- Nature — A child takes after its source. A living and abiding word gives a living and abiding life.
- Result — All flesh is grass, and only God's word abides. Children of that word love one another out of the new nature it gave them.
Because all flesh [is] as grass, and all its glory as [the] flower of grass. The grass has withered and [its] flower has fallen;
Peter has just said that new birth comes from a word that lives and lasts forever. Now he proves it with a line from the prophet Isaiah about grass. If everything human is this short-lived, what will still be standing when the grass has withered?
The verse says "all flesh." That covers every person, and it exposes something people admit less easily than sin.
The grass grows up in the morning and flourishes; in the evening it is cut down and withers. The flower attracts the eye. It charms us for a moment, then fades away forever. That is what man is — all men, without exception; for "all flesh is like grass." Man is not only sinful, unclean, and corrupt; he is also weak and does not last, for he passes away. Rich or poor, high or low, in this there is no difference... Many will freely admit that they are sinners, and still try to hide from themselves how frail they are by nature, and how weak they are toward the things of God.
Grass and its flower are not the same thing. The flower stands for what people most admire in each other.
Yes, "all flesh is as grass, and all its glory as a flower of grass." There is a difference. Some people are much finer than others: refined, tender, generous, brave, affectionate, and religious in a natural way. There is not only the grass in general, but also its flower. And people are quick to admire, and even adore, what is so pleasant to their eyes, their imagination, and their feelings. But nothing is truly right where God does not have His rights.
This verse is not a stray thought about how short life is. It stands next to the previous verse to show that the believer's life has a different source than his first birth did.
If the precious blood of the spotless Lamb has redeemed us, then we are born of the incorruptible seed of the word of God. That word lives and abides forever. For the flesh is only grass, the glory of man like the flower of grass... The believer is not born in a natural way, to enjoy temporary rights and blessings, as a Jew was. He is born of incorruptible seed — a principle of life as unchangeable as the word of God Himself. The prophet had told them so when he comforted the people of God. All flesh — the nation itself — was only withered grass.
This line is God's estimate of man. One writer calls it the starting point of gospel preaching — the thing a person must first agree with.
The question between God and every soul is this: is man as bad as God's testimony says he is? Gospel preaching starts from God's own declaration: "All flesh is grass." Take man at every level of moral and intellectual improvement, and he is still grass.
The same writer points to a man God Himself commended, and to what he said when he saw God:
By God's own account, Job was a man of remarkable integrity and uprightness... But when he comes to stand before God, he says, "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Here Job learned that as flesh he was grass.
If nothing human lasts, what does? And can a person share in it?
The passage here is from Isaiah 40, and everything there is grass... Israel grass, the Gentiles grass, all of us grass; all perishable, none abiding at all. Is there anything on earth that will last? Yes, the Word of God will last; it will stand. If you are born of that, you will abide forever; if not, you will perish away from the presence of God altogether.
The same test applies to arguments raised against the Bible:
If all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass, then what are the arguments of unbelievers worth? They are as worthless as withered grass or a faded flower. The men who put them forward, and those who are swayed by them, will find that out sooner or later.
- Grass — the verdict covers every person: rich or poor, high or low, refined or not, "all flesh" withers.
- Flower — the flower is man's glory, the part people admire most; it charms the eye and then fades.
- Start — gospel preaching begins where a person accepts God's estimate of himself. Job learned it only when he stood before God.
- Seed — this verse stands beside new birth to sharpen the contrast: a natural birth that withers, a birth from incorruptible seed that lasts.
- Abides — nothing on earth lasts except the word of God; born of that word, you abide with it forever.
but the word of [the] Lord abides for eternity. But this is the word which in the glad tidings [is] preached to you.
Peter ends his opening chapter by setting two things side by side. Everything human fades. The word of the Lord does not. And that lasting word is not shut away in heaven: it is the very message his readers heard preached.
Peter borrows the picture from the prophet Isaiah. One writer traces it back there and lets no group escape it:
The passage here is from the fortieth of Isaiah, and everything there is grass. Israel grass, the Gentiles grass, all of us grass; all perishable, none abiding at all. Is there anything on the earth that will abide? Yes, the Word of God will abide; that will stand. If you are born of that, you will abide for ever. If not, you will perish away from the presence of God altogether.
This sweeps in the finest people too, the ones others admire most:
Some people are much finer than others: refined, tender, generous, brave, affectionate, and religious in a merely human way. There is not only the grass in general, but its flower. And people tend to admire, and even adore, what is so pleasant to their eyes, their imagination, and their feelings.
Isaiah first spoke these words while God was comforting His people. One writer calls that remarkable:
Do you think you have a better nature than your neighbour, or your neighbour than you? God says all flesh is grass, and He says this when comforting His people. It is not the way you and I would comfort each other, to tell each other that we are utterly worthless. That is the way, however, that God takes to comfort a repentant people. It is an immense comfort to discover that God knows I am worthless, and that He expects no good out of me.
Isaiah wrote of grass that withers. Peter writes of grass that has withered. Not every translation keeps that difference, but one writer marks it:
The words concerning the grass and the flower of the grass are a quotation from Isaiah. But the quotation is changed a little. In Isaiah we read: "The grass withers, the flower fades." Here it is, "The grass has withered and the flower fallen." That is how faith must look at the world and all its glory: withered and fallen, with no attraction left for the heart that knows God. But those who are born again are joined to what abides for ever — the Word of the Lord, preached in that ever blessed Gospel.
Peter says the word "remains forever." One writer tests that against the collapse of kingdoms and the end of the world itself:
Consider God's special care to preserve His truth; whatever is lost, God looks to His truth. Kingdoms have been overturned, and churches too. Through all these great revolutions and changes, God has still preserved His truth. Think of that great and dreadful burning of heaven and earth. The elements will melt with heat and the world will come to its fatal end. Even then truth will not suffer the least loss.
What survives the fire is the message the preacher handed you. So the life it produced in you carries its character:
That which is born partakes of the nature and character of that which gives its birth. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." In the same way, what is born of incorruptible seed is incorruptible. What is born by the living and abiding Word of God is living and abiding. And that enduring Word of the Lord has reached us in the gospel message that we have believed.
This is why Peter presses the point so warmly on people scattered and under pressure:
This is the very word that was preached to them with all its glad news, that they might know that they had through it received a new nature as incorruptible and everlasting as His word Who communicated both. He would have his brethren know it theirs now without a shade of uncertainty.
The verse also sets the shape of gospel preaching — the hard half first, then the half that saves:
Gospel preachers, we have our work to do, and let us not shirk it. We must cry out, even when the message is unwelcome. All flesh is as the grass, passing and withering. All the glory of man is as the flower of the grass. The best is no better than the worst, for at the great test of the cross we plainly see that there is no difference: the rulers of this world crucified the Lord of glory. We must proclaim this. But our work and words would be hopeless if they ended there. Thank God, we have something else to tell. The word of God lives, it throbs with life, and abides for ever, it is imperishable. And that word is about Christ.
- Grass — every human distinction withers, Israel's included. Even the flower, man at his finest, falls.
- Comfort — God says this while comforting His people. It is a relief to learn He expects no good from you.
- Withered — Peter puts it in the past tense. Faith already sees the world's glory as fallen, not fading.
- Abides — nothing has worn the word out. The final burning of heaven and earth will not cost the truth the least loss.
- Preached — that same imperishable word reached you as good news about Christ. The life it gave is as lasting as the word that gave it.