The Flower Fades. The Word Saves.

In Isaiah 40:6-8, we read (often a popular funeral passage):
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.

Peter also quotes these words of Isaiah in his first epistle. But when he does, he doesn't use it as a funeral text, but as a birth announcement! He says:

You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the
living and abiding word of God; 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 remains
forever." And this is the good news that was preached to you (1:23-25).

How do we put these passages together?

When we put these passages together canonically (reading the bible as a whole), we conclude that all people (grass) die because all people have sinned (cf. Rom 5:12). This is the decree of the Lord (when the breath of the Lord blows on it). But because of the God- breathed gospel (cf. 2 Tim 3:16), "the word that was preached to you," we have been born again--"not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding (eternal) word of God."

James says, "Of [God the Father's] own will he brought us forth (literally gave us new birth), by the word of truth" (1:18). So as the flower fades, the word saves. Praise be to God for the new birth to eternal life that we have through the gospel of Jesus Christ!