Not of Perishable Seed

The first step is a birth from above, received and not achieved. A birth always comes from something, and the apostle Peter names what this birth comes from in a single verse.

1 Peter 1:23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable — through the logos λόγος log'-os(word) of God, which lives and abides forever.

Two words stand side by side in this verse, and between them they hold the whole order: the first is seed, and the second is abides. The verb at the head of the verse comes first.

Born Again, and Still Standing

“Since you have been born again” translates one Greek word, anagegennemenoi. It is built from ana, “again,” and the verb for begetting or bearing, the same family of words as the gennethe of John 3:3. Its form is a perfect passive participle, and both parts of that description matter.

It is perfect. The Greek perfect speaks of something that happened once and whose result still holds. Peter does not say “since you are being born again,” as if the birth were a process still under way and never certain to finish. Nor does he speak only of a past event that might have faded. He speaks of a birth that took place and a standing that continues now. The one who has been born again is someone who stands, at this moment, in the result of that birth.

It is passive: once more the subject is acted upon, and the one who brought about the birth is not the one who was born. Peter agrees with Yeshua in John 3; the new birth is received, and the person born did not cause it.

So the verb alone already says that this is a gift, given once and still in force. Then Peter tells us what the gift was made from.

Not of Perishable Seed

The word for seed here is spora (σπορά). It belongs to the Greek family of sowing words, the family of speiro, “to sow.” The same family gives sperma, the word the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament uses for “seed” in Genesis 3:15. Peter’s word is not the identical word, but it is a seed word from the same root, and it carries the same picture: something small and living that is put into the ground and brings forth life after its kind.

That picture reaches back to the first promise in Scripture.

Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman (ishah אִשָּׁה ish-shaw'), and between your seed and Seed-H(Seed of the LORD) (zarah זַרְעָהּ zeh'-rah); He (masculine 3rd singular) shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

The whole hope of Scripture began with a seed. The seed of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head, and it is “He” who would do it. Every promise that followed, through Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, ran along the line of that seed. Jacob himself waited for it, and the name he bore, as Book 4 showed, carried the word for the heel that the serpent would bruise.

Peter now tells believers that their new birth came from seed. But he is careful to say what kind: not perishable seed, but imperishable. Ordinary seed dies in the ground and decays, and the plant that grows from it will one day wither as well. Peter makes the contrast himself in the next two verses, quoting Isaiah.

1 Peter 1:24-25 For "all sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) is like grass and all the doxa δόξα dox'-ah(glory) of man like the flower of grass — the grass withers, and the flower falls," but the rhema ῥήμα hray'-mah(spoken-word) of the Lord abides forever; and this rhema(spoken-word) is the good news that was proclaimed to you.

The birth Peter is speaking of does not come from that kind of seed; it comes from seed that cannot decay.

Through the Word of God

Then he names the seed: “through the logos(word) of God, which lives and abides forever.” The seed and the word stand in the same sentence, the one explaining the other, and the line runs from here to the Word of whom John wrote that He became flesh. Peter speaks of the word of God by which believers were born again. John speaks of the Word who was with God, who became flesh, and of those who received Him and were born of God. The new birth comes through the word, and the word is not a dead letter but something that lives.

In the last of those verses Peter adds that “this rhema(spoken-word) is the good news that was proclaimed to you.” The seed reached them through the gospel they heard. The life it gave them came from God, and it came by His word.

The Word Abides First

The second word is abides. “Which lives and abides forever” translates two present participles, zontos and menontos. The second, menontos, is a form of meno μένω men'-o, “to remain, to abide.” It is the same verb Yeshua uses for the fourth step of the order: “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay(love).”

Menontos is a genitive masculine singular participle, and it agrees in form with logou, “word.” It should be said fairly that theou, “of God,” is also genitive masculine singular, so the form on its own could attach the participles either to the word or to God. The verses that follow settle it. Peter goes straight on to say that “the rhema(spoken-word) of the Lord abides forever.” It is the word that abides, and the YLV renders the verse accordingly.

So before any believer is told to abide, the word itself is said to abide. The order is already fixed in this one verse. The word remains first, and then we remain. Our remaining is not a foundation we lay. It rests on a word that was abiding before we were born from it and will abide when everything made of grass has withered.

What This Step Gives

With John 3 and 1 Peter 1 read together, the first step of the order is complete. Yeshua said that unless a person is born from above, he cannot even see the kingdom of God. Peter says what that birth is made of: imperishable seed, the living word of God that abides forever. In both places the verb is passive. In Peter it is also perfect, a birth that happened once and still holds.

There is great comfort in this for anyone who wonders whether his place before God depends on how strongly he feels or how firmly he holds on. The birth did not come from his strength, and the seed that gave it does not decay. Justification is by grace through faith, and the life that faith receives is born of a word that abides.

That does not leave the one who has been born with nothing to do. A newborn child does nothing to be born, but he does not stay still for long. Life that has been given begins at once to reach out and take hold. The next step in the order is exactly that, and it is the step Jacob showed at the Jabbok. Yeshua described it in a saying about John the Baptist that has puzzled readers for a long time, using a verb that appears only twice in the whole New Testament.