What Does 1 Peter 1:23 Mean?

(23) **Being born again.**—Rather, *Having been begotten again.* It is not part of the exhortation, as though they had still to be thus begotten, but assigns the moral grounds for the exhortation. It is logically parallel with “seeing ye have purified,” and might be rendered, *seeing that ye have been begotten again.* For the meaning of the word, refer back to 1Peter 1:3. **Not of corruptible seed**.—That is, *not of the seed of Abraham, but of the seed of God.* This is the argument: “You must learn not to be selfish, or arrogant, as being of the chosen race, but to have a true brotherly feeling and earnest love for the Gentile converts, and for those who, like St. Paul, are specially working for the Gentiles, because your inheritance of the promised ‘salvation’ is grounded, not on your Abrahamic descent, but on your spiritual regeneration, in which matter the Gentile converts are your equals.” That this was the doctrine of St. Peter is certain from his speech at the Council of Jerusalem, “God put no difference between us and them, having purified their hearts by faith;” and again, “It is only through the favour of the Lord Jesus that we hope to be saved, in precisely the same manner as they” (Acts 15:9; Acts 15:11). (Comp., for the argument, 1John 5:1.) **By the word of God.**—“Seed,” in the beginning of the clause, is more literally the act of *sowing, *or *engendering, *which sowing is carried on “through the living and abiding word of God,” this “word of God” being the actual seed sown. The “seed” of all existence is the spoken Word of God, the expressed will and meaning of creative thought (Psalm 33:6); and so here, even when spoken mediately, through the lips of men (as explained in 1Peter 1:25), it is that which begets men afresh. God creates afresh, though men speak the creative word for Him, just as “it is He that hath made us,” although He does so through natural laws and human powers. The “Word of God” here is, no doubt, the preaching of the gospel, but especially, as it would seem, the preaching of the Resurrection (1Peter 1:3), or of the sufferings and glories of Messiah (1Peter 1:12), the “truth” of the last verse. The part taken by “the Word” in the sacrament of regeneration may be seen again in Ephesians 5:26 and James 1:18; in connection with the other sacrament we may also refer to John 6:63. “Incorruptible” (*i.e., imperishable*; see 1Peter 1:4; 1Peter 1:18) finds a more energetic paraphrase here in “living and abiding” (the words “for ever” not being part of the true text). The former epithet is a favourite with St. Peter (1Peter 1:3, 1Peter 2:4-5), and is perhaps borrowed from this place by the author to the Hebrews, in connection with the “word of God” (Hebrews 4:12). The epithets serve to prepare the way for the quotation.