When Peter first mentioned being “born again” (1 Peter 1:3) he did not mention how it happened. He does mention it this time because of the command to “love one another.” The sort of love Peter’s readers were to extend to each other was God’s kind of love (John 3:16; John 13:1; John 13:34). Peter’s readers are able to extend this kind of love because they have themselves been born of “imperishable” seed, that is, born of God. In their “born again” circumstance, they are able to love with a heavenly sort of love.
23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;