“Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” 1 Peter 1:22-23

The inspired apostle Peter disclosed the fact that Christians have purified their souls in obeying the truth (1 Peter 1:22).  This implies that their souls at a previous time were not pure, but at the point of obeying the truth had been purified.

Among the false teachings of the first-century Gnostics who troubled the church, was the concept that sins in the body do not affect the soul.  The truth, however, is that man’s soul is involved in sin and becomes defiled.  When my inward man decides to go against the law of God, then I sin (1 John 3:4).  It is not merely the body that is involved in sin, but the soul as well.  For instance, when a person commits the sin of fornication, it begins in the heart (Matthew 15:19), it involves the body (1 Corinthians 6:15-18), and repentance is required so that the “spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Corinthians 5:5).  While certainly the body is involved in sins, the soul can sin (Ezekiel 18:20).  That the word “soul” is sometimes used as a synecdoche in the Scriptures to refer to the whole person does not remove the fact that the part of man known as the soul is involved when sin is committed. Consider this question in the book of James: “Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?” (James 4:5).  Sin defiles the soul.

How, then, did Christians purify their souls which had been defiled by sin?  The answer in 1 Peter 1:22 is, “in obeying the truth through the Spirit.”  Truth must first be known if it is to be of any benefit.  In John 8:32, Jesus said, “and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  This freedom is freedom from the bondage of sin (John 8:34-36).  Jesus later prayed for His disciples to be set apart from the bondage of this sinful world when He petitioned the Father in John 17:17, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.” Purification does not come to those who merely acknowledge truth without acting on it; it comes to those who obey the truth.  It is obedience of the truth that is the means of purification.

The Christians to whom Peter wrote obeyed the truth through the Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the revealer of God’s truth, who gave the words of truth to the first-century apostles and prophets (John 14:26; 16:13-15); these words of truth are preserved for us in the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 2:13; 14:37; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).  This is the incorruptible seed, the ever-living word of God, mentioned in the next verse (1 Peter 1:23).  Jesus said in John 6:63, “the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”  The word of God is living and able to pierce the depths of our souls (Hebrews 4:12).

Will you allow the word of God to enter your heart and move you to obey the truth so that your soul may be purified?

-Mark Day