Born of Imperishable Seed
22 Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth through the Spirit in sincere brotherly affection, love one another from the heart fervently, 23 having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God, which lives and remains forever. 24 For, “All flesh is like grass, and all of man’s glory like the flower in the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls; 25 but the Lord’s word endures forever.” This is the word of Good News which was preached to you.
The command to love is grounded in the kind of birth that produced the family, and the seed is identified as something the readers heard.
Verse 22 states an accomplished fact before it asks for anything: souls already purified by obedience to the truth, with a genuine affection for the brotherhood as the result. Only then the imperative — love one another fervently, from the heart. The word for that love is the deliberate kind rather than the felt kind, and it is asked for on top of an affection the letter says is already there.
Verse 23 gives the reason, and returns to the perishable and imperishable contrast for the third time in the chapter. They were born of seed that cannot decay, through the word of God, living and remaining. If the family was produced by something imperishable, the obligations inside it are not seasonal either.
Verses 24 and 25 then quote a passage on the shortness of everything human Isaiah 40:6–8 — flesh as grass, human glory as a flower that falls — and the quotation is doing more than adding solemnity. It supplies the contrast the argument needs: only one thing in the citation endures, and it is the word.
The final clause is the surprise. That enduring word is identified as the good news preached to you. The seed that outlasts grass and flowers turns out to be the sermon these congregations actually sat and listened to.
settled What this mark means