I have to honestly admit that there are a handful of truths in Scripture, together with a few exhortations or commandments, that terrify me. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe them or that I deliberately disobey them. It simply means that either I don’t understand them: they are, quite simply, mind-blowing, or it means that I feel utterly inadequate and impotent when it comes to doing what they tell me to do.

Let me come straight to the point. 1 Peter 1:22 terrifies me. Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s a wonderful passage of Scripture. I think it is inspired and authoritative and as a born-again believing Christian man I am morally obligated to obey it.

But when I think of what it really means, when I think of all that is entailed by it, when I think of what it requires of me and how it would affect my life, it terrifies me. Have you ever truly thought deeply about what it means for you to love people who aren’t very lovely? Or has the word “love” been so thoroughly gutted of its meaning and undergone such a massive re-defining that it carries little weight with you these days?

Have you given much thought to what is involved in loving people who ought to love you in return but won’t? Have you considered what is required of your soul for you to love someone “sincerely”, as Peter says here in v. 22? Have you explored the ramifications of what is entailed by a love that is “earnest” or, as some translations render it, “constant”? And what does it mean to love someone from a “pure heart”?

Perhaps I would answer those questions differently than you would, but this terrifies me. It terrifies me because I know how prone I am to disregarding other people, how easily I find it to look upon them as an inconvenience, a burden, a bother. And knowing that this kind of love requires remarkable self sacrifice and effort and a price that will in all likelihood never be repaid, is a scary, scary thing. Am I alone in feeling this way?

The command to love one another earnestly from a pure heart is the fourth exhortation that Peter has given us here in chapter one. After the first 12 verses of affirmation and exaltation in what God has done for us in Christ, Peter turns to issue several moral and ethical commands. The first was in v. 13 – “Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” The second is found in v. 15 – “as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.” The third is in v. 17, where Peter tells us to “conduct” ourselves “with fear” during the time of our sojourn on earth.

Before we look at this command and what it means for us, you need to see that it is sandwiched in between two reasons why we are to love. In other words, the command to love is grounded in two truths, one in v. 22 and the other in v. 23. It’s important, because if you don’t see this you’ll always live in fear of loving others and you’ll probably struggle to find the strength to do so.

(1) We are to love one another because that is the goal of our souls having been purified by faith in the gospel (v. 22). We have not been saved and purified by faith so that we may live in quiet isolation from one another but so that we might be released from selfish obsession with ourselves and empowered to give sacrificially on behalf of others.

Here we see the corporate nature of our new life in Christ. Illustration: Consider the word “saint” in the NT, perhaps the most common word used to describe Christians (not “holy” so much as “set apart” and “consecrated” for God’s possession and use). It is used 61x, 60 of which are in the plural! Only once, in Phil. 4:21 is the singular used, and that is in the phrase, “greet every saint.” The concept of a solitary saint simply doesn’t exist in the Bible.

Or consider the word “priest.” I believe strongly in what is known as “the priesthood of all believers,” but are you aware that there is not a single instance in the NT in which a Christian is designated individually as a priest. It is always plural, or the corporate entity “priesthood” is used.

Yes, you are a saint. Yes, you are a priest. But you must never think of yourself as a saint or a priest independently of other saints and priests. Only as we think of ourselves as members of one another, as a body, as a people, as a family of faith, will we ever be able to heed and obey Peter’s command to love one another.

(2) The second reason given for loving one another is found in v. 23 – “since you have been born again,” or “because you have been born again” by an imperishable seed, namely, the Word of God.

But how does my being born again or your being born again by the seed of God’s Word implanted in our souls affect our love for one another?

Consider the natural, physical answer to that question. Each of us here was born of a physical seed from our physical fathers and mothers. Because we are born of their seed we necessarily, to a large degree, take on their characteristics: whether physical appearance or personality traits or genetic makeup or whatever. Our natures are shaped to a large extent by the nature of those by whom we were begotten and born. My sister looks more like my dad and I look a lot like my mother.

The same holds true in the spiritual realm. We were born of God. He begat us by his Word, through his Spirit. Therefore, we are permanently stamped with his nature. John put it this way: “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God” (1 Jn. 3:9).

Since it is God’s nature and joy and desire to love, those born of God must also love. We are members of a spiritual family and thus share a common spiritual nature and affinity one for another. If I were to tell you that I didn’t love my sister, you would regard that as abnormal or as unconscionable or as morally repugnant. So, too, not to love one another in the body of Christ is unnatural and perverted! The fact that we all share a common spiritual parentage, namely, God our Heavenly Father, is the ground and the source and the cause of our loving one another.

By the way, isn’t that typically the major reason why non-Christians are unimpressed with us, namely, that we fail to love one another? Is it not one of the primary objections to the credibility of Christianity that people who claim to be spiritually brothers and sisters in the same family always seem to be fighting and bickering and dividing and disliking each other? Shame on us!

Now that we understand something of the reason or grounds for loving one another, we need to look at what it actually means, both positively and negatively. Let’s start with the positive.

Peter highlights three features or characteristics of this love.

First, it must be “sincere” (v. 22a). In other words, it won’t work to put on a face that says “I really love you” all the while your heart says, “You’re a jerk and I can’t stand the sight of you and I’m only doing this to avoid the disdain of others who expect me to love you.” If the outer expression of affection isn’t matched by an inner enjoyment of the person you say you love, it’s useless.

Second, it must be “earnest” or “constant” (v. 22b).

This word points to energy, constancy, fervency; nothing half-hearted or weak or self-serving; a love that is concentrated and focused and faithful; a love that will tolerate no excuses; a love that asks everything from me; a love for others, quite simply, that is just like the love with which Jesus Christ loves me. Are you sufficiently terrified now? If you’re not, you are self-deluded and utterly out of touch with the selfishness and depravity of your own heart.

Third, it must be “from a pure heart” (v. 22c). My sense is that this points to what we hope is achieved by our loving another: their good and God’s glory. Love from an “impure” heart is love that is pursued for personal gain. I’ll love you because I think it might lead you to give me in return what I want. I’ll love you because it will get me a promotion at work. I’ll love you because that’s what is expected of me and I don’t want others to think I’m less than spiritual. That is love from an “impure” heart.

I can’t motivate you to love others in this church family by telling you that they deserve it, because they don’t. And neither do I. I can’t motivate you to love others at Bridgeway because everyone here is inherently loveable. They aren’t. And neither am I. In the final analysis I can only urge you to love others as Peter says because as undeserving and unlovely as you and I are, God loved us and demonstrated that love by giving his Son as the sacrifice for our sins all the while we were his vicious and vile enemies. I hope that’s reason enough.

But note carefully that the Word of God by which we were begotten or born again also has a destructive power in our lives. It not only constructs or builds love in a heart that is prone not to do so; it also destroys and dismantles and uproots those things that are antithetical to love. Peter mentions them in 2:1.

Before we look at them, look at the imperative translated, “put away” (v. 1a), which was often used of disrobing or removing garments (see Rom. 13:12; Eph. 4:22,25; Heb. 12:1; James 1:21; 1 Peter 2:1). Thus, we are to put aside or strip off old sinful habits like a set of tattered, worn-out clothes.

There are five things we must avoid, five feelings or activities or characteristics of how people live that we must discard and destroy or love will never flourish. I am going to focus on the first two of these five, the command to put away malice and deceit because these are the most difficult and also are foundational to putting away the other three.

First, Peter tells us to put away “all malice” (v. 1b).

Malice is the source for all other vices. It is, in a manner of speaking, the main topic, the heading, the spring from which all these other expressions of non-love flow. They are the evil fruit of this rotten tree; they are the bitter waters from this wicked well.

My first reaction to this is: “O.K., Peter, I agree with you about slander. That is a verbal action over which we can exercise a measure of control. We can choose not to speak ill of someone or to use inappropriate language. Whether or not we do so is up to us. We can just keep our mouths shut!”

But how can you tell us to put away malice and envy? Those don’t feel like choices. They are simply states of mind, passions of the heart. Are you really telling us to stop being angry, to cease feeling wrath, to terminate malicious thoughts, and to stop feeling envious of others?

If I may be allowed to speak for the apostle, Yes, that is precisely what he’s commanding us to do! We are responsible before God to do whatever is necessary to eliminate these affections or emotions from our souls. Again, it isn’t simply the outward expression of anger or certain physical actions that reveal our wrath and malice. WE MUST CONFRONT AND CONQUER THE INNER IMPULSE.

This is the point Jesus was making when he said, “You have heard it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother [or more literally, says to him, “Raca!”] will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire” (Matthew 5:21-22).

By “insult” (i.e., saying “Raca”, an Aramaic term meaning “empty[headed]”) Jesus refers to the mocking of an individual’s intelligence. This isn’t merely a casual reference to a person’s IQ or the equivalent of our calling someone a “nitwit” or “blockhead” or “boneheaded dufus.” He has in mind an angry and dismissive belittling that is designed to embarrass and humiliate. Worse still is the word translated “fool” (Gk. “moros”) which is an attack on the dignity or metaphysical value of the person. It’s bad enough to call someone an idiot, but something worse to call them a “worthless” idiot.

Jesus isn’t saying that people aren’t “fools” or that there is never occasion on which we are justified in saying so. He himself called people “fools” or “foolish” (Mt. 7:26; 23:17; cf. Lk. 11:40; 12:20), as do several OT authors (see Psalm 14:1; 49:10; Proverbs 1:7,22,32) who warn us to be cautious of our involvement with them. But in these texts the person is a “fool” because of their stubborn rebellion against God. In Matthew 5 Jesus has in mind the deliberate and angry undermining of a person’s dignity. He is describing that demeaning, denigrating disdain and malicious contempt for another human being

Peter isn’t suggesting there is no place for anger at sin or injustice or cruelty. Nor is he saying that we should immediately forgive and forget apart from repentance. It goes without saying that he is by no means undermining the importance of church discipline. Rather, he is talking here about the malice or anger that erupts and lingers within interpersonal relationships in the body of Christ.

Although Peter doesn’t address the underlying cause of these emotions, it’s important that we understand our own motivation. Why do we feel such things in the first place? In most instances, it’s because of an “entitlement” mentality. Someone defrauded us or failed to respect our “rights”. Things haven’t gone our way and we blame them for it. Or we have been violated or treated unjustly. That may well be true, but does it justify “anger”, “wrath”, or “malice”?

Paul isn’t talking about psychological repression but spiritual mortification. So, how does one “put to death” and “lay aside” malicious feelings toward others? I know of only one way: by meditating on the magnitude of mercy shown us in the cross of Christ. We must ponder deeply what Christ endured for us rather than fixate on what others have done to create discomfort or pain. That is to say, focus on what Christ has done “for” you and not on what others have done “to” you. As we labor to saturate our minds with what Christ has done on the cross, it will gradually, ever so progressively, swallow up and erase the pain of what others have done to us. This is the power of grace. This is the power of Spirit-anointed truth.

Second, we are to put away “all deceit” (v. 1c).

This is simply Peter’s way of saying the same thing Paul did in Colossians 3:9 when he commanded the Christians in Colossae: “Do not lie to one another” (Col. 3:9a). So easily written. So easily recited. So easily ignored.

I don’t want to commit another sin of the tongue by giving myself to overstatement, but it’s hard to imagine a more destructive force in the body of Christ (or in marriages or in routine relationships) than verbal deceit and lying. Virtually everything else we do to and against one another can be healed, but deliberate, conscious, pre-meditated deception is perhaps the most devastating of all.

Something truly sacred is shattered when we lie to one another. The confidence we have in another person, so essential for life in the body of Christ, cannot be easily repaired. The safety we feel because of a shared commitment to the truth is violated when deceit is embraced. It makes us feel vulnerable and tentative in our relationship with others.

Paul goes a step beyond Peter by adding the phrase: do not lie “to one another” (Col. 3:9a). This shows that “the exhortation has particular reference to believers in their relations within the Christian community. This, of course, in no way suggests that Christians could take the question of truth less seriously when speaking to outsiders” (O’Brien, 188). But both Peter and Paul specifically have in mind our obligations toward one another in the church. In Ephesians 4:25, the reason for this exhortation is not simply because lying is sinful and thus an offense against God, but because “we are members one of another” (v. 25b). We must remember that “fellowship is built on trust, and trust is built on truth” (Stott, 185).

When someone deceives us and lies to us we feel abandoned by them, even abused. Someone can be guilty of any number of sins and we can forgive them when they repent. But rebuilding trust in someone who has deceived and misled us is a monumental task.

So, why do we do it? What makes deceit or lying such a powerful temptation? What do we hope to accomplish by means of a lie that seems to trump all the reasons why we should tell the truth? There are countless answers, no doubt, but I want to focus on three.

(1) One reason we lie is that we simply don’t trust the truth to get us what we want. In fact, telling the truth may be costly and painful and lead to hardships we’d rather avoid. Perhaps the underlying problem is greed and telling the truth will cost us business or lead to the loss of a job. Lying on one’s tax return is certainly one example of this (and, in the minds of some, so easily justified).

(2) A related factor is power. People frequently lie to gain an advantage over others that would rarely if ever occur had they chosen to be honest, forthright, and humble. This power-grab may be in the form of authority in the local church or a promotion at work or prestige among one’s peers, regardless of age or context. And why is such power so appealing that it would prompt one to lie to gain it? Simply because we’ve bought into the false belief that personal value and worth is based on the perception of others and the sort of achievement that wins the applause and approval of society at large. If our identity were more wholly wrapped up in Christ and who we are in him, we would be less tempted to lie to gain from people what only he, ultimately, can give.

(3) Perhaps the most powerful energy behind deceit and lying is pride. We lie to protect ourselves from whatever embarrassment the truth might bring. The truth would expose us in our weakness and sinfulness and failures. So we lie to make ourselves appear to others different from what we really are. People are terrified that if those whose respect and acceptance they can’t live without were to see them stripped of every façade and false front, they would suffer irreparable loss. Not so much financial loss, or even of power, but loss of status, respect, honor, praise, and the simple enjoyment we want people to have whenever they are in our presence.

The thought of people knowing the truth about us or seeing what we know but are ashamed to confess, drives us to lie in any number of ways, whether by direct verbal prevarication or by the creation of a public image that bears little correspondence to our true, inner selves.

Tragically, even the church has created a value system in which being perceived as competent, right, highly favored by the leadership, and most important of all, “anointed”, is prized more than humility and brokenness and service and poverty of spirit. In this sort of atmosphere, telling the truth becomes an obstacle to advancement. Authenticity and honesty threaten the image we project to those whom we want to impress or whose favor we desire.

Related to this point is the powerful temptation to lie to cover our sin. We want to be thought of by others as spiritual, as truly committed, as lovers of God, and the truth would reveal that we aren’t quite what we promote ourselves to be.

But is it really all that serious? Well, yes. In Revelation 21:8 (cf. also 21:27), John provides a partial list of those whose “portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8b). They include “the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, . . . murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, AND ALL LIARS” (Rev. 21:8a).

As if to make the point even more pointedly, John virtually repeats himself in Revelation 22:15. Those who are outside the gates of the New Jerusalem, who will never gain admittance, include “the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, AND EVERYONE WHO LOVES AND PRACTICES LYING” (NASV).

Third, we are to put away “hypocrisy” (v. 1d). I’ve already touched on this in my comments on the word “sincere” back in 1:22.

Fourth, we must put away “envy” (v. 1e).

Envy is a desire for some privilege or benefit that belongs to another with resentment that another has it and you don't. Envy is the fruit of dissatisfaction with God. Did you hear that? Envy is the fruit of dissatisfaction with God. If God were truly enough for you, you wouldn’t feel the need to have what others enjoy. If God were sufficient for your soul, you wouldn’t feel driven to resent people for possessing what you don’t.

See Psalm 73:2-3 and then vv. 25-26!

Fifth, we must put away “slander” (v. 1f).

Slander is most often motivated by the desire for revenge and self-enhancement, often driven by the deeper desire to deflect attention from our own failings. The worse light we can put another in by slander, the less our own darkness shows.

We could include under the general heading of slander such things cynical remarks, judgmentalism, contemptuous talk, condescending speech (with a patronizing attitude), sarcasm that cuts and degrades, mockery, ridicule, etc.

Why is it so important to guard our speech? Because (1) words are the test or revelation of our character (cf. Isa. 6:5-7), and (2) words are the basis of judgment (cf. Mt. 12:36-37).

What kind of speech should we seek to cultivate?

Encouragement, truth, words that build confidence in others, words that remind others of their identity in Christ, praise, reassurance (esp. following failure), comfort, sympathy, instruction, rebuke for sin, loving criticism, warning of impending danger, etc.

Literally, Paul says in Ephesians 4:29 that we are to speak so as to “give grace” to those who hear. Many contend that this simply means “to do a favor” or “to confer a benefit.” But could Paul mean that our words are vehicles or channels for God’s grace to others? Does speech have the power to communicate God’s grace to those in need? Before speaking, ask yourself four questions:

Finally, we must also see the connection between these negative vices in v. 1 and what follows in vv. 2-3.

If you want to experience desire for God's Word; if you want your desires to grow; if you want to taste fully the kindness of the Lord, realize that as our satisfaction in God's kindness rises, the controlling desires of malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander are destroyed. And the reverse is true: as you resist them and lay them aside, desires for God grow stronger and more intense.

Peter's point is: don't think that they can flourish in the same heart. The desire to taste and enjoy God's kindness cannot flourish in the same heart with deceit and hypocrisy.

And verse 1 makes it clear that this emotional, affectional treasuring of Christ changes the way you act: “Put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.” When you treasure Christ above all you never need to be deceitful. Why would you? You never need to pretend. Why would you if you have an infinite all-satisfying treasure? Why would you envy anyone? In Christ is hidden every treasure you ever could want. Why would you slander and be malicious? What craving for revenge does Christ not overcome? Treasuring Christ is the Spirit-given power to be free from the dominion of sin.

Conclusion: What does it mean to love another believer in the family of faith?

• Sympathizing with them in their grief
• Serving them at inconvenient times
• Rejoicing with them in their triumphs and success
• Assisting them in their labors
• Bearing with them in their weaknesses
• Admonishing them in their errors
• Rebuking them in their sins
• Delighting in them as fellow followers of Jesus
• Never ashamed of them for how they appear
• Sacrificing for them in their need
• Praying for them
• Embracing them for who they are, but loving them too much to leave them there
• Doing for them whatever it is that Christ has done for you: forgiveness when they are repentant, putting their needs above your own,