1 Peter 1:22,23 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Seeing ye have purified your souls, &c.— When through the Spirit ye have purged your hearts by obeying the truth, so that you are become capable of fraternal affection without disguise, See that you love one another with a clean heart fervently, or intensely; 1 Peter 1:23. As persons who are regenerated, not of corruptible seed, but that which is incorruptible; even the efficacious and eternal word of God; Heylin: who observes, that the ground of fraternalaffectionamongChristians,istheirregenerationbythesamedivineprinciple. St. Peter here says, that they had purified their souls from sin, and attained to high degrees of holiness and piety, by obeying the truth; that is, by obeying the gospel: for truth is above fifty times in the New Testament put for the gospel, which contains the most clear and important truths. The love of the brethren, is the love of Christians: in human friendship there is sometimes a mixture of hypocrisy; but Christians love one anotherunfeignedly, or without hypocrisy. They love one another for their holiness and piety, and from a pure heart; not out of merely temporal views, but from views the most generous and disinterested. See 2 Corinthians 6:6. Gomarus observes, that the word εκτενως, fervently, or intensely, is a metaphor taken from a bow-string, or the strings of a musical instrument; for, as a bow-string, when it is intense, or stretched to a proper degree, sends out the arrow with more force and to a greater distance; and the musical chord, when it is intense, or stretched to a proper degree, gives a more clear sound, and is heard better and by more persons; so Christian love, the greater and more intense it is, exerts, itself further, and wider, and is of more universal advantage. To promote this love is one principal design of the Christian revelation. See ch. 1 Peter 4:8. The reason why we should love all the Christian brotherhood out of a pure heart intensely, is given in 1 Peter 1:23 because by being born again, we become brethren of the same family, and children of the same immortal Father. When we are considered merely as descending from mortal parents, we are born to die like grass, or flowers, which soon wither away; but our being born again by the gospel, is a very different thing from a plant or animal's being produced by the seed of another plant or animal, and has very different effects: for the first renders us mortal, but the latter immortal. Christians are in some places represented, as born again by the Spirit; but in other places, as here, they are said to be regenerated by the word of God, or the everlasting gospel, Revelation 14:6. The two phrases come to much the same; for bythe Spirit the gospel was revealed, and confirmed by many of his miraculous operations; and when men are born again, there are no new revelations made to them by the Spirit; but they are born again by the word of God, as it was first preached by men, under the immediate inspiration of the Spirit, and is now contained in the sacred scriptures, and applied by the divine Spirit to the believing heart. See Titus 3:5.