“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.” —1 Peter 1:22
This is no simple command. Love is given lip-service world-round. Nearly anyone can sing, “What the world needs now, is love sweet love.” Most nod the noggin to “All You Need Is Love.” Those songs are classics. They are hits. I enjoy them, but let the listener understand. That such songs are so popular while malice, deceit, hypocrisy, and envy flourish, speaks louder than any lip service given to “love, love, love.”
That pure and simple love would bring world peace, is a Pelagian lie. Pelagius was that heretic who opposed Augustine saying that man wasn’t born fatally depraved, but righteous, and thus could will to live righteously of himself. Man cannot simply fix the world by choosing to love. Man, left to himself, hates the One who is love. All this talk of love is both a dim reflection of the Creator in whose image we are made and a mask for covering our hatred of him.
But how many churches have the same vain focus on love? They might speak of Jesus’ death as love, but the emphasis is on the sacrifice of Christ as an example for us to follow. If we are to love, we need something to stand on, and too often the church, like the world, is attempting to build a castle in the air. There’s no foundation. Try to build love on this world that is fading, this world of sand, and you’ll find it’s too weak to support something as massive as love. You cannot build love on hatred.
All the world’s talk of love is in the imperative. It is a command. It’s sheer law. But we first need a declaration—a transforming declaration. Before we are told to love, we must be told that we are loved. We need a love that transforms us.
Peter’s command to love is buried in this sentence. It’s buried deep in gospel truth. Peter gives reasons why we are to love. Not reasons that lie out in front like “love is good,” but reasons that lie behind pushing love forward and out. Peter tells us not simply that we should love, but establishes why it is that we can love. From one angle we might say that the command to love is buried in this sentence, from another, we can say that Peter lays a foundation for the command to rest on, v. 22.
No Other Boast 