1 Peter 1:22 22 Having purified your souls by the obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,
Peter gives a key exhortation in verse 22 and supports it with an important qualifying participle. What happens to each individual in spiritual new birth and sanctification should impact that person’s relationship with others. The perfect participle having purified (hēgnikotes) has the sense of dedicating something to God in worship. Its root is related to the call to be holy in verse 16. Human effort is required in the purification process and comes as a response to God’s work of salvation within the heart or soul (psychas).
The tense of the participle implies a decision with ongoing results. The sanctification process grows through obedience to the truth. The human part in this growth is the response to the proclamation and experience of the truth that is found in Jesus. Faith should lead to obedience, which shows the sincerity of the faith. Faith in Jesus is the way to experience this purified heart. It does not come through our own efforts to obey but in accepting the teachings about Jesus as the best way to live. Obedience is faith being worked out in daily living.
A purified heart makes it more possible to love sincerely. A heart that is selfish, prideful, or seeking to please the flesh will be a hindrance to love and will hurt or even destroy relationships. Love will be the natural biproduct of obedient faith. Peter uses two different words for love. Brotherly love is a literal translation of the compound Greek word (phila– and delphia), and often refers to the type of love shown among family and friends. It has the sense of affection and relationship. The imperative love one another is from the important New Testament word for the type of love God has shown to us through Jesus (agapēsate; 1 John 4:7-8). Loving others in relationship and with sincerity is possible when we allow God’s love to sanctify and change us from the inside out.
We must focus our obedience on the truth of the gospel and not be deceived by the distorted definition of love and the enticements of the decaying world around us. Our ability to love is based on God’s salvation within us. The kind of love we are to show one another is not shallow or based on emotions or circumstances but a love that penetrates to the core of our being, as indicated by the adverb earnestly, fervently, or constantly (aktenōs). This type of love is not swayed by the winds and waves of culture, the storms from the latest news, or the back and forth and ups and downs of life. It comes from the deepest places of our hearts, where God’s holiness transforms us into his holy image.