God’s living and enduring Word

1 Peter 1. 17-23 www.biblegateway.com NRSVA

Last week we saw that the writer of this letter seems to have known John’s Gospel, so it comes as no surprise when he alludes to it again as he quotes the words of Jesus in John 13.34, ‘Love one another’. He also alludes to a passage in St Paul’s letter to the Romans, who also quotes those same words of Jesus and goes on to link them with ‘genuine mutual love’ in Romans 9.10. The fact that the two phrases occur side by side in 1 Peter 1.23 suggests that the writer may, on this occasion, be borrowing from Paul. This idea is further reinforced when he goes on to allude to 1 Timothy 1.5, when he says ‘love one another deeply from the heart’. But he is definitely referring to ideas gleaned from John’s Gospel when he talks about ‘being born anew of imperishable seed’ (John 1.13 and 3.3).

What we’re discovering here is that the letter juxtaposes ideas from earlier Christian writers to show what a genuine Christian looks like. They’re someone who models the love of Jesus in their own life because ‘the living and enduring Word of God’ (John 1.1) is with them to bring them into a new life which makes this possible.

And Jesus is God’s ‘living and enduring Word’ because, after he rescued us from a ‘futile way’ of life (Romans 8.20) through his death on the cross, ‘God raised him from the dead’ so that our ‘faith and hope’ might be ‘set on God’.

The writer of 1 Peter is doing Bible study here, taking passages from other parts of the New Testament - particularly from Paul and John - to help us understand what Jesus means for us today.

Comments

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