1:17-25 Holy confidence in God as a Father, and awful fear of him as a Judge, agree together; and to regard God always as a Judge, makes him dear to us as a Father. If believers do evil, God will visit them with corrections. Then, let Christians not doubt God's faithfulness to his promises, nor give way to enslaving dread of his wrath, but let them reverence his holiness. The fearless professor is defenceless, and Satan takes him captive at his will; the desponding professor has no heart to avail himself of his advantages, and is easily brought to surrender. The price paid for man's redemption was the precious blood of Christ. Not only openly wicked, but unprofitable conversation is highly dangerous, though it may plead custom. It is folly to resolve, I will live and die in such a way, because my forefathers did so. God had purposes of special favour toward his people, long before he made manifest such grace unto them. But the clearness of light, the supports of faith, the power of ordinances, are all much greater since Christ came upon earth, than they were before. The comfort is, that being by faith made one with Christ, his present glory is an assurance that where he is we shall be also, Joh 14:3. The soul must be purified, before it can give up its own desires and indulgences. And the word of God planted in the heart by the Holy Ghost, is a means of spiritual life, stirring up to our duty, working a total change in the dispositions and affections of the soul, till it brings to eternal life. In contrast with the excellence of the renewed spiritual man, as born again, observe the vanity of the natural man. In his life, and in his fall, he is like grass, the flower of grass, which soon withers and dies away. We should hear, and thus receive and love, the holy, living word, and rather hazard all than lose it; and we must banish all other things from the place due to it. We should lodge it in our hearts as our only treasures here, and the certain pledge of the treasure of glory laid up for believers in heaven.

Verse 22. - Seeing ye have purified your souls; literally, having purified. The verb ἁγνίζω is used of ceremonial purification in John 11:55, and in Acts 21:24, 26; Acts 24:18. St. James and St. John, in their Epistles, give it the spiritual sense in which St. Peter uses it here (James 4:8; 1 John 3:3). In this sense it implies consecration to God's service, and an inward cleansing of the heart from all that defiles - from sensual desires, from hypocrisy, from selfishness. The tense shows that this inward purification must precede the love to which the apostle exhorts us; there can be no true love in an unclean heart. In obeying the truth through the Spirit; literally, in the obedience of the truth. Obedience is the condition of purification. God's people are elect unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. While they walk in the path of obedience they are walking in the light, the light of truth, the light of God's presence, and then the blood of Jesus Christ is cleansing them from all sin (1 John 1:7). The genitive (τῆς ἀληθείας) seems to be objective, "obedience to the truth," rather than obedience wrought by the truth. The truth is God's truth, the truth revealed in his Holy Word. So the Lord himself said, "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy Word is truth" (John 17:17). The words, "through the Spirit," are not found in the best manuscripts; they may be a gloss, but a true one. Unto unfeigned love of the brethren. St. Peter had not forgotten the new commandment, "That ye love one another, as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." The word rendered "love of the brethren" (φιλαδελφία) is scarcely found except in Christian writings. St. Peter uses it again in his Second Epistle (2 Peter 1:7), and also St. Paul (Romans 12:10; 1 Thessalonians 4:9). It must be unfeigned, without hypocrisy, not in word, but in deed and in truth (1 John 3:18). Our hearts must be purified in the obedience of the truth before that unfeigned love can dwell in them (comp. 1 Timothy 1:5, which is an exact parallel). See that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently; literally, love one another from the heart. The word "pure" is omitted in two of the most ancient manuscripts; it may be a gloss, but it is most true and suitable. Christian love must he from the heart, true and pure. The word rendered "fervently" (ἐκτενῶς) means, literally, "intensely," with all the energies strained to the utmost. It is interesting to observe that the only other place where the adverb occurs is in Acts 12:5 (according to the reading of the most ancient manuscripts), where it is used of the prayer offered up for St. Peter himself.

Seeing ye have purified your souls,.... The apostle passes to another exhortation, namely, to brotherly love; the ground of which he makes to be, the purification of their souls; and which supposes that they had been impure; and indeed, their whole persons, souls and bodies, were so by nature; even all the members of their bodies, and all the powers and faculties of their souls: it is internal purity, purity of the heart, that is here particularly respected; though not to the exclusion of outward purity, for where there is the former, there will be the latter; but there may be an external purity, where there is not the inward one: this the apostle ascribes to the saints themselves, but not without the grace of God, the blood of Christ, and the operations of his Spirit; as appears by a following clause; but they are said to purify themselves, inasmuch as having the grace of faith bestowed on them, they were enabled, under the influences of the Spirit of God, to exercise it on the blood of Christ, which cleanses from all sin:

in obeying the truth; of the Gospel, by receiving, believing, and embracing it in the love of it; which teaches outward purity, and is a means in the hand of the spirit of inward purity, and of directing to the purifying blood of Jesus, who sanctifies and cleanses by the word:

through the Spirit; this clause is left out in the Alexandrian copy, and some others, and in the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions, but is in the Arabic version, and ought to be retained; for, as Christ died to purify to himself a peculiar people, the Spirit of Christ does from him purify the heart by faith in his blood; by sprinkling that on the conscience, and by leading the faith of God's people to the fountain of it, to wash it for sin, and for uncleanness; even both their consciences and their conversation, garments; whereby they obtain inward and outward purity:

unto unfeigned love of the brethren; which is the end of sanctification, and an evidence of it; when the saints are loved as brethren, and because such; and with a love without dissimulation, not in word and in tongue only, but in deed and in truth: this being the case, the exhortation follows:

see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: this is Christ's new commandment, and the evidence of regeneration; a distinguishing badge of Christianity, and without which all profession of religion is a vain and empty thing: this should he mutual and cordial; should proceed from the heart, and from an heart sprinkled from an evil conscience; and should be with warmth and fervency, and not with coldness and indifference; though the word here used, may not only design the intenseness of it, but the extensiveness of it also; as that it should reach to all the saints, the poor as well as the rich, and the lesser as well as the greater and more knowing believers; and likewise may denote the continuance of it; it ought to be continually exercised, and to last always; and so the Arabic version renders it, "with a perpetual love".

22. purified … in obeying the truth—Greek, "in your (or 'the') obedience of (that is, 'to') the truth (the Gospel way of salvation)," that is, in the fact of your believing. Faith purifies the heart as giving it the only pure motive, love to God (Ac 15:9; Ro 1:5, "obedience to the faith").

through the Spirit—omitted in the oldest manuscripts. The Holy Spirit is the purifier by bestowing the obedience of faith (1Pe 1:2; 1Co 12:3).

unto—with a view to: the proper result of the purifying of your hearts by faith. "For what end must we lead a chaste life? That we may thereby be saved? No: but for this, that we may serve our neighbor" [Luther].

unfeigned—1Pe 2:1, 2, "laying aside … hypocrisies … sincere."

love of the brethren—that is, of Christians. Brotherly love is distinct from common love. "The Christian loves primarily those in Christ; secondarily, all who might be in Christ, namely, all men, as Christ as man died for all, and as he hopes that they, too, may become his Christian brethren" [Steiger]. Bengel remarks that as here, so in 2Pe 1:5-7, "brotherly love" is preceded by the purifying graces, "faith, knowledge, and godliness," &c. Love to the brethren is the evidence of our regeneration and justification by faith.

love one another—When the purifying by faith into love of the brethren has formed the habit, then the act follows, so that the "love" is at once habit and act.

with a pure heart—The oldest manuscripts read, "(love) from the heart."

fervently—Greek, "intensely": with all the powers on the stretch (1Pe 4:8). "Instantly" (Ac 26:7).

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