23 Because you have had a new birth, not from the seed of man, but from eternal seed, through the word of a living and unchanging God.
For the word of God is living and full of power, and is sharper than any two-edged sword, cutting through and making a division even of the soul and the spirit, the bones and the muscles, and quick to see the thoughts and purposes of the heart.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who through his great mercy has given us a new birth and a living hope by the coming again of Jesus Christ from the dead,
Whose birth was from God and not from blood, or from an impulse of the flesh and man's desire.
Jesus said in answer, Truly, I say to you, If a man's birth is not from water and from the Spirit, it is not possible for him to go into the kingdom of God.
For this body which comes to destruction will be made free from the power of death, and the man who is under the power of death will put on eternal life. But when this has taken place, then that which was said in the Writings will come true, Death is overcome by life.
The spirit is the life giver; the flesh is of no value: the words which I have said to you are spirit and they are life.
Of his purpose he gave us being, by his true word, so that we might be, in a sense, the first-fruits of all the things which he had made.
Anyone who is a child of God does no sin, because he still has God's seed in him; he is not able to be a sinner, because God is his Father.
Heaven and earth will come to an end, but my words will not come to an end.
And by them the glory of the eternal God was changed and made into the image of man who is not eternal, and of birds and beasts and things which go on the earth.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on 1 Peter 1
Commentary on 1 Peter 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The First Epistle General of Peter
Chapter 1
The apostle describes the persons to whom he writes, and salutes them (v. 1, 2), blesses God for their regeneration to a lively hope of eternal salvation (v. 3-5), in the hope of this salvation he shows they had great cause of rejoicing, though for a little while they were in heaviness and affliction, for the trial of their faith, which would produce joy unspeakable and full of glory (v. 6-9). This is that salvation which the ancient prophets foretold and the angels desire to look into (v. 10-12). He exhorts them to sobriety and holiness, which he presses from the consideration of the blood of Jesus, the invaluable price of man's redemption (v. 13-21), and to brotherly love, from the consideration of their regeneration, and the excellency of their spiritual state (v. 22-25).
1Pe 1:1-2
In this inscription we have three parts:-
1Pe 1:3-5
We come now to the body of the epistle, which begins with,
1Pe 1:6-9
The first word, wherein, refers to the apostle's foregoing discourse about the excellency of their present state, and their grand expectations for the future. "In this condition you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, or a little while, if need be, you are made sorrowful through manifold temptations,' v. 6.
1Pe 1:10-12
The apostle having described the persons to whom he wrote, and declared to them the excellent advantages they were under, goes on to show them what warrant he had for what he had delivered; and because they were Jews, and had a profound veneration for the Old Testament, he produces the authority of the prophets to convince them that the doctrine of salvation by faith in Jesus Christ was no new doctrine, but the same which the old prophets did enquire and search diligently into. Note,
You have here three sorts of students, or enquirers into the great affair of man's salvation by Jesus Christ:-
1Pe 1:13-23
Here the apostle begins his exhortations to those whose glorious state he had before described, thereby instructing us that Christianity is a doctrine according to godliness, designed to make us not only wiser, but better.
1Pe 1:24-25
The apostle having given an account of the excellency of the renewed spiritual man as born again, not of corruptible but incorruptible seed, he now sets before us the vanity of the natural man, taking him with all his ornaments and advantages about him: For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; and nothing can make him a solid substantial being, but the being born again of the incorruptible seed, the word of God, which will transform him into a most excellent creature, whose glory will not fade like a flower, but shine like an angel; and this word is daily set before you in the preaching of the gospel. Learn,