We are but Grass and Flowers…Not the Most Enduring Substances

1 Peter 1: 24-25

For “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord endures forever.”

We transition from the promise of imperishable seed when we are born anew into a time of reflection on what we are presently, without having been renewed.  Peter is quoting the Old Testament with these words, Isaiah 40: 6-9 according to my trust Study Bible.  Those verses go as follows: “A voice says, “Cry out!”  And I say, “What shall I cry?”  All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field.  The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it surely the people are grass.  The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.”

It is not a word-perfect quotation, but it summarizes what Isaiah is getting at.  Interestingly, these verses follow in Isaiah the passage about John the Baptist about making the way straight in the wilderness, to prepare the way of the Lord.  The entire chapter plays out as prophesy about our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Messenger of the Lord.

For “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.—Thus are we, the people of the earth.  We have glory, like the flower of grass, but the comparison is not very congenial, we are grass.  Humanity is a lawn…

The grass withers, and the flower falls,--There is the kicker!  We are dust and to dust we shall return.  Flesh is transient, it disappears all too quickly in the grand scheme of things.

but the word of the Lord endures forever.”—But all is not lost.  That which made us from perishable to imperishable in the last sentence, here is stated as the thing of permanence.