1 Peter 1:22-2:3, Loving and Growing

Breast milk is the primary source of nutrition for newborns, containing fat, protein, carbohydrates (lactose and human milk oligosaccharides) and variable minerals and vitamins. Breast milk also contains substances that help protect an infant against infection and inflammation, whilst also contributing to healthy development of the immune system and gut microbiome…Breast milk supplied by a woman other than the baby’s mother that is not pasteurized and informal breast milk sharing is associated with a risk of transmitting bacteria and viruses from the donor mother to the baby and is not considered a safe alternative. There is a spiritual “milk,” the word of God, that should not be substituted if you want healthy spiritual growth.

^1:22 Having purified your souls in obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love out of clean hearts, love one another earnestly. ²³ Because you were born again, not from a perishable seed but an imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God. ²⁴ Because all flesh is like grass, and all its glory is like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls. ²⁵ But the word of the Lord remains forever. And this is the word that was proclaimed as good news to you. ^2:1 So putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and jealousy and all slander, ² like newborn babies, long for the pure spiritual milk of the word, that by it you might grow to salvation, ³ if you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Peter continues his challenge of his readers to holiness. There is an intentionality that is required (“getting your minds in gear and being sober of thought, set your hope thoroughly upon the grace that is coming to you when Jesus Christ is revealed,” 1:13, “be holy, for I am holy,” 1:16). And it is here phrased as “purifying your soul,” an allusion to the purification that was required of one’s body and soul to participate in Israel’s spiritual rituals. Our souls were purified this way when we obeyed the truth, when we trusted in Christ for salvation, and we should continue to embrace this purification with the goal of sincerely and earnestly loving one another.

Loving one another is a key component of holiness. The Great Commandment is to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves, two commands that summarily embrace the Ten Commandments and the many other commands of the divine law. We can and must love this way, not hypocritically but genuinely from clean hearts, because we have been born again into God’s family. The life force or seed of our new births is the “living and abiding word of God.” It produces life and itself endures forever, unlike, as Calvin says, “all that is said to be great in human affairs,” the grass and flower like brevity of our greatest accomplishments.

It was this word of God that was preached as good news for believers and demands of us the ridding of our lives of those behaviors that are motivated by hatred for one another. Augustine expounds poetically on Peter’s list of aberrant behaviors:

Malice delights in the stain of a stranger; Envy is tormented by the good of the stranger; Deceit doubles the heart; Flattery doubles the tongue; Disparagement injures one’s reputation.

But it is not enough to simply remove these stained garments, these dirty diapers. We must take in, voraciously, like a newborn does his mother’s milk, the spiritual milk of that word that saved us. We must feed on it if we are to grow into mature believers. As Peter focuses on the future aspect of our salvation (the inheritance kept in heaven for us, the coming of salvation when Jesus is revealed, the end of our faith, our hope on the grace to be brought to us), without denying its present possession, he sees us growing toward our salvation. As our appetite is whetted by the good taste of our experience of the Lord (Psalm 34:8), we are moved to feed on His instructions for us.