Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of James 1:18
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
18. Of his own will begat he us ] The construction of the Greek is participial, willing he begat us, and is parallel to that of Col 2:18, which, rightly rendered, runs “ let no man willing, i.e. by the exercise of his will, deprive you.” The word implies the rejection of the thought either of a destiny constraining the Divine Will, or of chance and, as it were, random impulses, and the reference of our higher spiritual birth to His deliberate Will. Here again we have a parallelism with St John “born not of the will of man, but of God” (Joh 1:13), and with St Peter (1Pe 1:23).
The word for “begat” is the same as the second “bringeth forth” in Jas 1:15, and is obviously used here, with the general sense of “engendering” or “begetting,” to emphasise the contrast between the process which ends in death and that which issues in a higher life. Here also, though the birth was not monstrous, it was out of the common course of Nature, and therefore the unusual word was rightly employed again.
with the word of truth ] So our Lord makes Truth, the “word which is truth,” the instrument of the consecration or sanctification of His people (Joh 17:17-19). The “word of truth” cannot have here the higher personal sense which the Word or Logos has in Joh 1:1, but it is something more than the written Word of the Old Testament Scriptures, or even the spoken word of preachers. It is the whole message from God to man, of which the written or spoken word is but one of the channels, and which to those who receive it rightly is the beginning of a higher life. Comp. Mat 13:19; Mar 4:14.
a kind of firstfruits of his creatures ]. The meaning of the term is traced back to the Jewish ritual of Lev 23:10; Deu 26:2. The sheaf of the firstfruits was offered as part of the Passover celebration. On their entry into Canaan the Israelites were to offer the firstfruits of the land (Deu 26:2). In each case the consecration of the part was a symbol and earnest of that of the whole. So St James speaks of the “brethren” who have been born to a higher life, not only as better than others, but as the pledge of a fuller harvest. So St Paul speaks of Christ being “the firstfruits of them that sleep” (1Co 15:20), of a convert being “the firstfruits of Achaia” (1Co 16:15). St John agrees, as usual, more closely with St James, and describes “the redeemed from the earth” of Rev 14:4 as “the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.” Christians are called and made what they are by the grace of God, that they may shew of what elevation humanity is capable. Comp. Rom 11:16.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Of his own will – Greek willing. bouletheis. The idea is, that the fact that we are begotten to be his children is to be traced solely to his will. He purposed it, and it was done. The antecedent in the case on which all depended was the sovereign will of God. See this sentiment explained in the notes at Joh 1:13. Compare the notes at Eph 1:5. When it is said, however, that he has done this by his mere will, it is not to be inferred that there was no reason why it should be done, or that the exercise of his will was arbitrary, but only that his will determined the matter, and that is the cause of our conversion. It is not to be inferred that there are not in all cases good reasons why God wills as he does, though those reasons are not often stated to us, and perhaps we could not comprehend them if they were. The object of the statement here seems to be to direct the mind up to God as the source of good and not evil; and among the most eminent illustrations of his goodness is this, that by his mere will, without any external power to control him, and where there could be nothing but benevolence, he has adopted us into his family, and given us a most exalted condition, as renovated beings, among his creatures.
Begat he us – The Greek word here is the same which in Jam 1:15 is rendered bringeth forth, – sin bringeth forth death. The word is perhaps designedly used here in contrast with that, and the object is to refer to a different kind of production, or bringing forth, under the agency of sin, and the agency of God. The meaning here is, that we owe the beginning of our spiritual life to God.
With the word of truth – By the instrumentality of truth. It was not a mere creative act, but it was by truth as the seed or germ. There is no effect produced in our minds in regeneration which the truth is not fitted to produce, and the agency of God in the case is to secure its fair and full influence on the soul.
That we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures – Compare Eph 1:12. For the meaning of the word rendered first-fruits, see the note at Rom 8:23. Compare Rom 11:6; Rom 16:5; 1Co 15:20, 1Co 15:23; 1Co 16:15; Rev 14:4. It does not elsewhere occur in the New Testament It denotes, properly, that which is first taken from anything; the portion which was usually offered to God. The phrase here does not primarily denote eminence in honor or degree, but refers rather to time – the first in time; and in a secondary sense it is then used to denote the honor attached to that circumstance. The meaning here is, either.
(1)That, under the gospel, those who were addressed by the apostles had the honor of being first called into his kingdom as a part of that glorious harvest which it was designed to gather in this world, and that the goodness of God was manifested in thus furnishing the first-fruits of a most glorious harvest; or,
(2)The reference may be to the rank and dignity which all who are born again would have among the creatures of God in virtue of the new birth.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jam 1:18
Of His own will begat He us
Spiritual life: its cause and its grandeur
Let us consider–
I.
THE AUTHOR:
II. THE NATURE:
III. THE INSTRUMENT: and
IV. THE END OF THE GREAT CHANGE.
I. WE HAVE GAINED THE SUMMIT OF THE MOUNTAIN OF TRUTH WHEN WE REACH GOD. What wonders, majesties, mysteries, lovelinesses centre in that name! He is the blessed and only Potentate on whom eternity and creation and redemption repose. How God as a sovereign works the salvation of a soul from the slavery and death of sin, in conformity with the laws of free agency and responsibility, may be incomprehensible to us; but surely there is nothing unreasonable in affirming that infinite perfection works out everything in the highest scale of moral excellence, and in accordance with the designs of Divine wisdom, justice and love, amid a world full of sinful but accountable creatures
III. IN FREE, RICH, AND SOVEREIGN GRACE, THEREFORE, THE LORD BEGETS US. And the outcome means life–spiritual, heavenly, Divine. It is not a mere polishing of the human spirit, or the giving of a right direction to its faculties only. The grandeur of the change is implied in such phrases as, being born of God; passing of death to life; a new creature; quickened with Christ from the death of sin; the washing of regeneration; and the new heart, out of which proceed thoughts, affections, principles, desires, and hopes–all new. The day of its occurrence is called a day of power; a time of refreshing; a springtime of grace. God draws and renews the soul in mercy and truth, and re-traces on it the lines of His own likeness in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. It must not be forgotten that a moral life, however estimable in the sight of men, is not acceptable with God unless it be the offspring of the new birth, By no means can a dead soul please a living God. The tree must be made good by the omnipotent workmanship of God, or the fruit will be apples of Sodom. The necessity of life from God is proved by such varieties of evidence as bespeak the greatness of the gift; and show at the same time the criminal nature and heinous guilt of unbelief. The perfect law of liberty demands a pure heart that loves God with all its strength and mind and soul. From every throne and crown of glory and harp of gold in heaven there flashes the demonstration that a sinful man must be born again before he can enter the gate of the golden city.
III. THE WORD OF TRUTH IS THE INSTRUMENT OF CONVERSION. Truth is God at work on a human spirit, for its rectification and investiture with His own perfection and beatitude. The gospel derives its power from the image of God which it mirrors forth; from the knowledge of sin and wrath which it communicates; from its professed design to set forth the propitiation and grace of the Lord Jesus, to make men partakers of the Holy Ghost, of Gods righteousness, and the sunshine of His favour. More glorious than the law, and revealing life and immortality, it moulds men into saints, and constrains them to love and obedience. The gospel is all grace. Invented by God to communicate this blessedness and glory, its excellency is infinite. It civilises, it moralises, it converts. It is the glory of Jehovah that He gave the gospel; of any people, that they possess it; of a soul, that its unsearchable riches are his own; of heaven, that it is the field where its wealth and its wonders shall be displayed; of eternity, that it alone can contain all its magnificence.
IV. THE DESIGN OF GOD IN REGENERATION IS TO MAKE US A KIND OF FIRSTFRUITS OF HIS CREATURES. The incomparable excellence of the new life is seen in the formation of holy character in the sense of duty, which is power. Believers feel themselves to be the property of the great High Priest who bought them; in everything they are desirous to please Him. Under the imperishable principles of the living Word, they are shaped after the Divine likeness in bliss, purity, and moral greatness. It was a law in Israel that the first fruits should be offered to God; and preceded by an oblation for sin, they were accepted by God in worship as a grateful acknowledgment that the riches of the harvest and the beauties of spring and the products of the vegetable and animal kingdom are His. And so it is that ransomed souls in whom the Divine life is, are claimed by God; and, devoted to Him, are, through the expiatory sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, most acceptable in His sight. I have redeemed them, and they are Mine: I have made a covenant with them, and they are Mine: and they shall be Mine in the day when I make up My jewels. Furthermore, the firstfruits, ripened by sun, earth, and air, have the beauty of maturity in their fulness and bloom, and were thus an appropriate offering to Infinite perfection. In the mode in which they were offered we are taught the duty and the privilege of all living souls to dedicate themselves to God in faith, fear and joy. For there is great dignity and excellence about the righteous man. He has better principles than others; a better heart; better affections; better dispositions; and better prospects. He is a son of God; one with Christ; righteous in the Just One; a peculiar treasure to the Majesty of Heaven; a king divinely born; and oh! wonderful, partaker of the Divine nature by grace, and destined to be filled with the fulness of God! The sons begotten of God are the firstfruits of His creatures. That is, the regenerated of the human family are the promise and the seal of the great and glorious change that awaits creation. (W. Magill, D. D.)
Regeneration
1. That which engaged God to the work of regeneration was merely His own will and good pleasure (Rom 9:18). Gods will is the reason of all His actions; you will find the highest cause to be will, love, and mercy. God can have no higher motive, nothing without Himself, no foresight of faith and works, He was merely inclined by His own pleasure (Joh 15:16). This is applicable divers ways.
(1) To stir us up to admire the mercy of God, that nothing should dispose His heart but His own will; the same will that begat us, passed by others: whom He will He sayeth, and whom He will He hardeneth.
(2) It informeth us the reason why, in the work of regeneration, God acteth with such liberty: God acteth according to His pleasure; the Holy One of Israel must not be limited and confined to our thoughts (Joh 3:8).
2. The calling of a soul to God is, as it were, a new begetting and regeneration. This is useful–
(1) To show us the horrible depravity of our nature; repairing would not serve the turn, but God must new make and new create us, and beget us again.
(2) To show us that we are merely passive in our conversion: it is a begetting, and we contribute nothing to our own forming (Psa 100:4).
(3) It showeth us two properties of conversion.
(a) There will be life. A man cannot have interest in Christ, but he will receive life from Him.
(b) There will be a change. At the first God bringeth in the holy frame, all the seeds of grace; and therefore there will be a change: of profane, carnal, careless hearts, they are made spiritual, heavenly, holy Eph 5:8).
3. It is the proper work of God to begetus: He begat. It is sometimes ascribed to God the Father, as here, and so, in other places, to God the Son: believers are His seed. (Isa 53:10). Sometimes to the Spirit Joh 3:6). God the Fathers will: Of His own will begat He us. God the Sons merit: through His obedience we have the adoption of sons Gal 4:5). God the Spirits efficacy: by His overshadowing the soul is the new creature hatched and brought forth. It is ascribed to all the three Persons together in one place (Tit 3:5-6). It is true, the ministers of the gospel are said to beget, but it is as they are instruments in Gods hands. So Paul saith, I begat you (1Co 4:15); and of Onesimus he saith, Whom I begat in my bonds (Phm 1:10). God loveth to put His own honour many times upon the instruments. Well, then–
(1) Remove false causes. You cannot beget yourselves, that were monstrous; you must look up above self, and above means, to God, who must form you after His own image.
(2) It showeth what an honourable relation we are invested with by the new birth. He begat us. God is our Father; that engageth His love, and care, and everything that can be dear and refreshing to the creature.
4. The ordinary means whereby God begetteth us is the gospel (1Co 4:15; 1Pe 1:23). The influences of the heavens make fruitful seasons, but yet ploughing is necessary. It is one of the sophisms of this age to urge the Spirits efficacy as a plea for the neglect of the means.
5. The gospel is a word of truth; so it is called, not only in this, but in divers other places (2Co 6:7; Eph 1:12; Col 1:5; 2Ti 2:15). You may constantly observe that in matters evangelical the Scriptures speak with the greatest certainty; the comfort of them is so rich, and the way of them is so wonderful, that there we are apt to doubt most, and therefore there do the Scriptures give us the more solemn assurance (1Ti 1:15). (T. Manton.)
The new birth: its nature, means, and object
I. THE NEW CREATION. By necessity of birth the state of every infant is guilty, and, therefore, subject to con-detonation. Original sin rests on its head, and subjects it to the penalties of death; so that in law it stands as a criminal convicted, and, therefore, incapable of heavenly privileges. But by the laver of baptism made a recipient of heavenly prerogatives, and thus far innocent in the sight of God, it is capable of receiving those spiritual privileges, which are Divinely ordered to flow from this source. It becomes incorporated into the Church, and, consequently, a member of Christ; whence proceeds its adoption as a son, and its title to an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven. And not only so, but a principle of new life is infused into him. His very nature is changed. In understanding, will, affections, and conscience, he is altogether different.
II. THE ORIGINAL CAUSE OF REGENERATION. Creation is a prerogative solely vested in God. No finite being possesses it. Man is incapable of changing his own state and nature; as incapable of effecting his own regeneration as of bringing himself originally into being. St. John speaks of the regenerated as born of God; St. Paul as partakers of the Divine nature; and again, as being His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
III. THE IMPULSIVE OR MOVING CAUSE OF REGENERATION–the will of God The original expression signifies, not will merely, but good will; that is, a decree of the mind caused by His grace in behalf of fallen men. Mans regeneration could not proceed from any advantages accruing to God; for the salvation of a thousand worlds could not add to His happiness, nor their destruction detract from His felicity.
IV. THE INSTRUMENTAL CAUSE OF REGENERATION. AS God in His providence always works His pleasure by instruments, so it is in the kingdom of grace; and that which there effects His purposes is the gospel or Word of truth. By a single expression of His will He might convert the millions that are on earth; but He prefers treating them as reasonable beings with a moral agency, and using means to make them workers together with Him in their own regeneration. And the means He adopts is truth, Divine truth, as expressed in the gospel of His Son, and as set forth in the means of grace flowing through His Church. How these effect their purpose, the mode of their operation, is a mystery hidden in the secrets of God. He has drawn a veil as ranch over His mode of re-creation, as over the philosophy of His own essence, and the original principle of things animate or inanimate. But thus much we do know–that, though He can beget without the Word, the Word cannot beget without Him. It is as seed, which the dew and sun of heaven must act upon, or it will never yield a grain to the will of the sower.
V. THE FINAL CAUSE OF REGENERATION–dedication to God. Christians are a kind of first-fruits of His creatures, the spiritual antitypes, whereof the law-type of the first-fruits was a figure.
1. For, first, they have been redeemed from a bondage worse than that of Egypt. They have been bought with a price, and hence are no longer their own, but His who redeemed them. They answer, then, the character of first-fruits in the object of the oblation, being Gods by right of purchase and possession.
2. Hence, also, like the first-fruits, they are separated from the rest of their kind. They differ from the unchristian world in nature, in maxims and principles, in spirit and temper, in company and conduct. (John Budgen, M. A.)
Regeneration the gift of God
Here is a splendid specimen of Gods good gifts, in that He has given us eternal life through His Son Jesus. This life is the climax of Divine goodness, as death, the child of sin, is the climax of human badness. It was free. It came by no law, it was produced by no necessity, it was the product of no natural evolution, it arose from His own goodness and lovingness. He emphasises us in addressing Hebrew Christians. They were originally chosen by His Divine goodness to be the repository of the oracles of God, the ark, so to speak, which should bear the truth of God down the stream of the centuries. When the fulness of time had come, and Jesus inaugurated the ripened plans for the worlds salvation, those Israelites who earliest became Christians had the distinction of being a kind of first-fruits of all Gods creatures. Christianity had completed to them the revelation that under God the highest beings are men, that humanity is to take the lead of the universe, that men are superior to angels, and men are to live for ever, and are to lead and govern and teach the intelligences of the universe, that those individuals of humanity who are to do this are those who receive eternal life through Jesus Christ, and that the first, as the first-fruits of an abundant harvest, are those Jews who were early in Christ, having been begotten by the Word of truth. (C. F. Deems, D. D.)
The second birth
Every real Christian upon earth has been twice begotten–twice born. First, he was born naturally, and he became a man; then he was born spiritually, and he became a new man. His first birth is to be calculated by his age–his second birth by the length of time that he has been living unto God. This second birth is, on various accounts, a far more excellent one than the first, and is attended with privileges of an infinitely higher order and degree.
I. First, our text points out the AUTHOR of this second birth. He begat us, it says–and of whom does it speak thus? He, then, and He alone, is the Author of the second birth–the Father of the spiritual life of the regenerated soul.
II. His MOTIVE. None of those men to whom He hath given a new birth could be said to deserve to be new born. What, then, determined God to make them new creatures? Of His own will begat He us. And so say a multitude of other texts (Eph 1:5; Rom 9:18; 2Ti 1:9; Tit 3:5).
III. THE MEANS WINCH HE EMPLOYED. We have seen why His people were begotten. Let us now see how–How, at least, in reference to the outward instrument made use of. For who can tell how the process is carried on within? We do, however, know the outward instrument and means which it pleases God to make use of. It is the Word of truth. And what is this Word of truth? The blessed gospel, either as it is written or preached. This, says St. James, is the instrument of mans conversion.
IV. THE END WHICH HE PROPOSED. That we should be, says he, a kind of first-fruits of His creatures. (A. Roberts, M. A.)
Regeneration more than self-improvement
Malan asked a joiner, who said he wished to render himself worthy of the grace of God, whether he had ever succeeded by careful polishing, in turning a piece of common wood into ebony. (J. F. B. Tinling, B. A.)
Necessity of the new birth
A man has bought a farm, and he finds on that farm an old pump. He goes to the pump and begins to pump. And a person comes to him and says, Look here, my friend, you do not want to use that water. The man that lived here before, he used that water, and it poisoned him and his wife and his children–the water did. Is that so? says the man. Well, I will soon make that right. I will find a remedy. And he goes and gets some paint, and he paints up the pump, putties up all the holes, and fills up the cracks in it, and has got a fine-looking pump. And he says, Now I am sure it is all right. You would say, What a Joel, to go and paint the pump when the water is bad! But that is what sinners are up to. They are trying to paint up the old pump when the water is bad. It was a new well he wanted. When he dug a new well it was all right. Make the fountain good, and the stream will be good. Instead of painting the pump and making new resolutions, my friend, stop it, and ask God to give you a new heart. (D. L. Moody.)
With the Word of truth
The Word the instrument of regeneration
Of His own will; by His mere molten, induced by no cause but the goodness in His own breast.
1. To distinguish it from the generation of the Son, which is natural, this voluntary.
2. Not by a necessity of nature, but by an arbitrariness of grace.
3. Not by any obligation from the creature; the will of God is opposed to the merit of man. Begat us, or brought us forth; for the same word (Jam 1:15) is translated brings forth. By the Word of truth, a title given to the gospel both in the Old and New Testament.
And it is called truth by way of excellency, as paramount to all other truth.
1. Either, by an Hebraism, the word of truth; that is, the true word.
2. Or rather, by way of eminency, as containing a higher truth, more excellent in itself, more advantageous for the creature, than any other Divine truth; wherein the highest glory of God, the sure and everlasting happiness of the creature, is set forth; a word which He hath magnified above all His name (Psa 138:2).
And called the Word of truth.
1. In regard of the Author, truth itself; and the Publisher, He who was the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
2. In opposition to all false doctrines, which can never be the instruments of conversion; for error to convert to truth is the same thing as for darkness to diffuse light, or water to kindle fire.
3. In opposition to the windy and fleshy conceits of men, which can no more be instrumental in the begetting a Christian than mere wind can beget a man.
4. In opposition to the legal shadows, the gospel declares the truth of these types. The law was the word of truth, but referred to the gospel as the great end of it. This contains the whole and ultimate purpose of God, for saving men by Jesus Christ, and in Him enriching them with all spiritual blessings, and not by the works of the law; and thus the Spirit, which enlightens and seals instruction upon our souls, is called the Spirit of truth Joh 14:17.
I. FOR EXPLICATION, TAKE SOME PROPOSITIONS.
1. It is not the law that is this instrument. It is true, the law considered in itself is preparatory to cast men down; but the law without the gospel never brought any man to Christ.
2. The gospel is this instrument. It is an instrument to strike off the fetters, and draw out the soul to a glorious liberty.
(1) It is not a natural instrument, to work by any natural efficacy, as food doth nourish, the sun shines, or the air and water cools, or as a sharp knife cuts if it be applied to fit matter. If it were thus natural, it would not be of grace.
(2) It is the only instrument appointed by God to this end in an ordinary way.
(3) It is, therefore, a necessary instrument. In regard of the reasonable creature there must be some declaration. God doth not ordinarily work but by means, and doth not produce anything without them which may be done with them. It is necessary the revelation of this gospel we have should be made. No man can see that which is not visible, or hear that which has no sound, or know that which is not declared. This necessity will further appear, if we consider that it always was so. Adam and Eve were the first after the Fall wherein God did constitute His Church, whose regeneration and conversion were wrought by that promise of the seed of the woman made to them in Paradise (Gen 3:21). It seems to be the standing instrument of it to the end of the world (Psa 68:18, compared with Eph 4:8-9). It is necessary, by Gods appointment, for all the degrees of the new birth, and all the appendixes to it. As God created the world by the Word of His power, and by the Word of His providence bid the creatures increase and multiply, so by the Word of the gospel He lays the foundation, and rears the building of His spiritual house. As it is not a natural instrument, but the only instrument appointed by God, and therefore, upon these and other accounts, a necessary instrument, so it is an instrument which makes mightily for Gods glory. The meaner the appearance of the instrument, the more evident the power and skill of the workman. Consider, as it is an instrument, so but an instrument. God begets by the Word; the chief operation depends upon the Spirit of God. No sword can cut without a hand to manage it; no engine batter without a force to drive it.
II. How DOTH THE WORD WORK?
1. Objectively, as it is a declaration of Gods will, as it doth propose to the understanding what it is to be known, in order to salvation. The Spirit gave us an eye to see, and the Word is the light which discovers the object to the eye. The two chief parts of the Word are–
(1) The discovery of our misery by nature.
(2) A second discovery is of the necessity and existence of another bottom. It discovers our misery by nature, and our remedy by Christ.
2. The Word seems to have an active force upon the will, though the manner of it be very hard to conceive. It is operative in the hand of God for sanctification.
III. THE USE.
1. How admirable, then, is the power of the gospel! It is a quickening Word, not a dead; a powerful Word, not a weak (Heb 4:12).
(1) It is above the power of all moral philosophy. How excellent is that gospel which hath done that for the renewing of millions of souls, which all the wit and wisdom of the choicest philosophers could never effect upon one heart!
(2) Above the power of the law. The natural law makes us serve God by reason, the Mosaical by fear, and the gospel by love.
(3) Its power appears in the subjects it hath been instrumental to change. Souls bemired in the filthiest lusts have been made miraculously clean; it hath changed the hands of rapine into instruments of charity, hearts full of filth into vessels of purity; it hath brought down proud reason to the obedience of faith, and made active lusts to die at the foot of the Cross.
(4) The power of it is seen in the suddenness of its operation. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, like the change at the last resurrection (1Co 15:51-52).
(5) And this hath been done many times by one part, one particle of the Word. One word of the gospel, a single sentence, hath erected a heavenly trophy in a soul, which all the volumes of the choicest mere reason could never erect; one plain Scripture hath turned a face to heaven that never looked that way before, and made a man fix his eye there against his carnal interest.
(6) And this power appears in the simplicity of it. The gospel is, then, certainly of Divine authority. It shows us the reason why the gospel is so much opposed by Satan in the world. It begets those for heaven whom he had begotten for bell. We see, then, how injurious they are to God, who would obstruct the progress of the gospel in the world, that would hinder the reading and the preaching of the Word. It informs us that the gospel shall then endure in the world, as long as God hath any to beget. Men may puff at it, but they cannot extinguish it; it is a Word of truth, and truth is mighty, and will prevail. It is a sign, then, God hath some to beget, when He brings His gospel to any place. He hath a pleasure to accomplish, and it shall not return unto Him void. It informs us what an excellent thing is new birth! The end is more desirable than the means; this is the chief end of all the ordinances of God in the world. What a lamentable thing is it that so few should be now begotten by the Word of truth! Hereby you may examine whether you are new begotten. It instructs ministers how to preach. The opening the Word is the life of it, and the true means of regeneration. Highly glorify God for the Word of truth, which is so great an instrument. How thankful should we be for an invention, to secure our estates from consuming, houses from burning, bodies from dying! The gospel, the Word of truth, doth much more than this. Bless God in your hearts–
1. That ever you had the Word of truth made known to you.
2. Much more that it has been successful to any of you. Glorify God in your lives. As you feel the power of it in your hearts, let others see the brightness and efficacy of it in your actions. Prize the Word of truth, which works such great effects in the soul. Value that as long as you live, which is the cord whereby God hath drawn any of you out of the dungeon of death. Pray and endeavour for the preservation and success of the Word of truth. Were there a medicine that could preserve life, how chary should we be in preserving that? The gospel is the tree whose leaves cure the nations Rev 22:2). Wait upon God in the Word. Where there is a revelation on Gods part, there must be a hearing on ours. Sit down, therefore, at the feet of God, and receive of His words (Deu 33:3). (S. Charnock, B. D.)
The work of grace
I. Consider THE WORK OF GODS GRACE AMONG MEN IN ITS ORIGIN, This is ascribed to the absolute will of God. Has He not a right to do what He will with His own? and are not all things His own? Is He not absolute, uncontrolled, and sovereign, upholding all things at every moment, managing all creatures infallibly, from the hosts of angels that surround His throne down to the smallest particle of inanimate matter? Men talk of the laws of nature, and if it be rightly understood, we need not object to that phrase. But let it be rightly understood. There can be no laws without a law-maker; there can be no administration of laws without a constant, living executive. Uniform, indeed, they are, but that arises from His perfection. The first time that God did anything He did it in the best way: He would not do it worse, and He could not do it better; therefore He always does it in the best way. These agencies are, then, to be depended on as regards uniformity. But they are not less the agencies of a living, present, acting Being. So it is also in the affairs of men. Men are as thoroughly under His power as matter, though not in the same way. It were to limit His power to say that He can only manage matter and must leave mind to itself. He manages mind in all its liberty as infallibly as He does matter in all its inertness. And so is it, too, in the smaller matters of private life. Health, sickness, wealth, poverty, happy homes or bitter afflictions, these are all under the sovereign arrangement of God, and according to His own will. So, again, in the matter referred to in the text–the changing of the minds and hearts of fallen men–one is taken, andanother left, according to Gods will. Many are called, and few are chosen: of His own free Will. Is there danger in this high truth? Undoubtedly. There is danger to fallen man in every truth, arising not from the truth itself, but from the perverseness with which it is treated. Man, living to himself, either neglects or abuses truth, so that it becomes a savour or death unto death. To say, then, that there is danger in truth, is to say nothing against the truth. Is there difficulty connected with the truth of which I have been speaking? Undoubtedly there is. Why should there not be? Does it reveal anything of God? Then it inevitably involves a difficulty. With a finite understanding either there must be absolute ignorance of God, or difficulty must be involved where the understanding fails. The slightest glimpse of God involves man in a horizon of knowledge. The extent of the horizon may vary a little between man and man; but to the highest created intellect there must still be a horizon, and in the horizon difficulty; and if that which presents the difficulty now were cleared away by some greater truth being exhibited at a greater distance, that new revelation would but occupy the place of the present one, and still leave a horizon to created intellect to all eternity. We do not pretend, then, to divest the truth of difficulty, in asking man to submit his intellect, as well as his will, to the majesty of God. Is there practical perplexity in the truth before us? Yes, there is, through the perverseness of man, who is ready to take advantage of any imaginary excuse for himself, and to throw the blame of his own sin upon Gods sovereignty. But let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. There is the pedigree of everlasting death, which man is charged with bringing upon himself. But does it follow, that as man is the author of this evil, he may originate good? Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of His own will begat He us. It is thus, then, that the apostle treats this subject. He declares, but explains not.
II. Consider THE NATURE OF IT. Begat He us. The phrase is figurative, and the figure is very expressive. It describes a great moral change; a change as complete as that which takes place physically in the state of an infant between the period before and the period after its birth. All things have become new. The element in which it lives is new; the mode in which life is communicated is new. There is a direct exercise of Gods power upon the mans spirit, an immediate agency of the Holy Ghost operating on his mind. Therefore it is that we say you must be born again. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. Man propagates his likeness, but man born again is brought into the likeness of God. It is not the effect of moral suasion or education, or of outward circumstances; it is not produced by the fear of consequences, or by the love of approbation amongst men, or by any of the thousand motives which actuate men in society, but it is wrought by the immediate agency of God upon the spirit of man, without which no man of the race of Adam can be pure or happy. We are all so thoroughly estranged from Him, so thoroughly taken up with creatures to the practical neglect of Him, and when we are compelled to think of Him we think of Him so unworthily and so selfishly, that without this change no man living can have worthy notions of God, or be happy even if admitted into His presence. Now how simply this accounts for the facts of the case as discovered when you look around you in the world i The unconverted men of this world are, as touching God and the things of God, like a man in a deep sleep as touching the things of the world around him. Imagine a man in a deep sleep; dreaming, possibly speaking in his dream; attentive to the visions of the mind on his bed, but quite unconscious of all that is going on around him. His house takes fire, but he knows nothing of it; he is asleep. The fire gains upon a part of the house which is distant from him; some of his children, perhaps, are burnt; but he knows nothing of it, he is still asleep. The fire approaches his own chamber; his wife, lying by his side, convulsed with terror, expires from suffocation; still he is asleep. The fire, however, at length reaches his own person. Now the spell is broken! he starts into sudden consciousness of what has been taking place. But it is too late: the house, the room, the bed, all are gone, and he sinks amid the ruin. Here is a history, in very few words, of the mass of mankind, as touching the things of God. They are dreaming busily of the affairs of this world; money, pleasure, ambition–these are the visions of their minds, and in the affairs of God they feel no more concern than the sleeping man in the state of his house. The hand of God is stretched out. Some of their enjoyments are cut off; some of their friends taken from them: their children are, it may be, snatched away and laid in an early grave, or a wife removed from their sight. Still the unconverted man dreams on, and he continues dreaming, until the Word of God touches himself. Then it is too late, and he sinks into a ruined eternity. Now this sounds very sad, but it is common, and in the course of the world there is nothing peculiar about it. It is, in a few words, I repeat, the history of the mass of mankind, the mass of the community around. I could not add truly the majority of yourselves; yet I cannot doubt that there are many in this congregation who are still in that position, and to whom God is saying, Arise, ye that sleep; awake, and Christ shall give you light. You must be born again, or else be ruined. I know that it is of Gods sovereign will that the new birth is brought about; but He constantly uses means, and I am now using the means which He has appointed for this end, namely, the Word of truth.
III. THE INSTRUMENT BY WHICH THIS GREAT CHANGE IS PRODUCED IN MAN. It is wrought, not by any charm, but by the secret power of God, using a suitable instrument for the purpose. The Word of truth is Gods instrument. Hear, says the prophet, and your souls shall live. Faith, says the apostle, cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. The work, in virtue of which this change takes place–the work of Christ–is done. All that was necessary has been done; the Word of Godproclaims it as done. And the Word of God further addresses itself to man as requiring this finished work. It addresses itself to him in the condition in which he is found as a fallen creature. It comes to him with light for his understanding, and with love for his affections. These are precisely what he requires; light in his understanding to rescue him from false estimates of things, love in his heart to deliver him from idolatry–the idolatry of creatures. Thus we discover the suitability of the instrument provided by God. Mans understanding is so darkened that he is constantly making false estimates. One grand item is constantly left out of his calculations; and you know that if any item be improperly left out of a calculation, the result must inevitably be erroneous. The grand item which is omitted in all the calculations of man is eternity. He makes calculations in which are included the things of this world only. I do not say that he takes into account only the brief space during which he himself will be in the world. Many worldly men have a posthumous ambition, and desire to benefit society, present and future. Still their views are confined to this world, and the things of this world, either in the present generation or in the persons of children and childrens children. Improvement in political and social institutions, advances in civilisation, and the amelioration of the condition of the various classes of society, occupy mans attention; and his calculations, so far as these things are concerned, are often most accurate and valuable. Still the grand item is omitted. When society shall be reaping the benefit of such designs, in the persons of children and childrens children, the fathers and the grandfathers, where are they? Eternity was not in their plans. They planned for the advantage of posterity, and posterity have obtained the benefit. But they planned nothing for their own salvation; and where are they? What did they value most? Let their history speak.
IV. After having stated the origin, nature and instrument of this work in the Church of God, the apostle adds a few words descriptive of THE PRESENT POSITION OF THE CHURCH RELATIVELY TO THE REST OF THE WORLD That we should be, he says, a kind of first-fruits of His creatures. The creation is described in Scripture as in a groaning state. Man himself is described as waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. It is for the resurrection of the Church that the world is waiting and must wait. No scheme of man can regenerate, because no scheme of man can get rid of sin; no superstructure can stand which has sin at the foundation. The present state of things was intended to take people out of mankind–a kind of first-fruits. Why is it said, a kind of first-fruits? Because the parallel is not exact. Christ is the first-fruits of the Church. The Church, as the first objects of His care, are to be brought to see what He is. We shall be like Him when we see Him as He is. As the harvest is like the first sheaf, so shall the Church be like Christ. (H. McNeile, D. D.)
The regenerating Word
I. To come to THE EXCELLENCY OF THE WORD, WHICH IS THE MEANS OF OUR REGENERATION, the apostle setteth down the other causes thereof also, so that in Jam 1:18 there are three causes of our regeneration the most apparent testimony of the goodness of God towards man.
1. The efficient.
2. The instrument.
3. The final cause.
1. The good will of God, the gracious favour and free purpose of God, is the first and efficient cause of salvation and regeneration in men.
2. The instrumental cause and means whereby we are regenerate is the Word of God, which St. James expresseth in this place.
(1) In respect of God, the Word and gospel is the Word of truth, because it is Gods Word and gospel, who cannot lie, therefore His Word is, then, the Word of truth.
(2) As in respect of God, the Author thereof, the gospel may rightly be called the Word of truth, so in respect of Christ, who is the Matter, the very Subject whereof the gospel entreateth, it is the Word of truth, for it entreateth of Christ, and Christ is Truth itself, therefore is the gospel the Word of truth.
(3) Moreover, this Word is inspired from the Spirit.
(4) In respect that every particular thing in the gospel contained is true, therefore it is also the Word of truth. Whatsoever is there mentioned is most true. This is the seed of the new birth, from hence our new birth and regeneration ariseth. Whereof St. Paul speaking, testifieth to the Corinthians that he had begotten them through the gospel. If the gospel of Christ be the Word of truth, why do we not believe it? If it be the instrument of our regeneration, why do we not honourably embrace it? If thereby God hath begotten us again, why are we in any wise so careless of it; we come not to the hearing of this Word of truth? But either we talk out at table, or walk out abroad, or sleep out at home, or play out with company, or spend out in vain exercise, or contrive out with dalliance, or pass out by evil means, that time which is appointed for the preaching and hearing of the Word.
3. The final cause of our regeneration is that we should be the first-fruits of His creatures; that is, that out of the whole mass of mankind and kindreds of the earth, we might be select, culled and chosen out, to be a peculiar people unto Him, whose portion and lot, whose inheritance and peculiar people the saints are.
II. The Word of God being then so excellent, THE APOSTLE REMOVETH SUCH THINGS AS HINDER THE ATTENDING THEREUNTO; and the things which greatly hinder the Word are two:
1. Babbling and talking when we should hear with attentive and deep silence
2. Anger, when we are taught and reformed by the Word. Thus by the affections and perturbations of our minds, we oftentimes make the Word of God fruitless in us, and so to lose, not only the blessed effect it would work in us, but also, in a manner, the credit which it should have among men whereunto (were we the servants and true disciples of Christ) we would yield all attentive audience. (R. Turnbull.)
The gospel the Word of truth
The glory of a religion lieth in three things–the excellency of rewards, the purity of precepts, and the sureness of principles of trust. Now examine the gospel by these things, and see if it can be matched elsewhere.
1. The excellency of rewards.
2. Purity of precepts. That Gods children are His first-fruits.
The Word hinteth two things.
1. It noteth the dignity of the people of God in two regards–
(1) One is, they are the Lords portion, His peculiar people (Tit 2:14), the treasure people, the people God looked after. The world are His goods, but you His treasure.
(2) That they are the considerable part of the world. The first-fruits were offered for the blessing of all the rest (Pro 3:10).
2. It hinteth duty; as–
(1) Thankfulness in all their lives. First-fruits were dedicated to God in token of thankfulness. You, that are the first-fruits of God, should, in a sense of His mercy, live the life of love and praise.
(2) It noteth holiness. The first-fruits were holy unto the Lord. Gods portion must be holy. God can brook no unclean thing. Sins in you are far more irksome and grievous to His Spirit than in others.
(3) It noteth consecration. You are dedicated things, and they must not be alienated; your time, parts, strength, and concernments, all is the Lords; you cannot dispose of them as you please, but as it may make for the Lords glory; you are not first-fruits when you seek your own things. (T. Manton.)
First-fruits of His creatures
First-fruits of His creatures
According to the Levitical ceremonial, the first sheaf of the new crop, accompanied with sacrifice, was presented in the temple on the day after the Passover Sabbath. No part of the harvest was permitted to be used for food until after this acknowledgment that all had come from God. A similar law applied to the first-born of men and of cattle. Both were regarded as in a special sense consecrated to and belonging to God. Now, in the New Testament, both these ideas of the first-born and the first-fruits, are transferred to Jesus Christ. In His case the ideas attached to the expression are not only that of consecration, but that of being the first of a series, which owes its existence to Him. That which Jesus Christ is, primarily and originally, all those who love Him and trust Him are secondarily and by derivation from Himself.
I. GODS PURPOSE FOR CHRISTIANS IS THAT THEY SHOULD BE CONSECRATED TO HIM. Mans natural tendency is to make himself his own centre, to live for self and by self. And the whole purpose of the gospel is to decentralise him and to give him a new centre, even God, for whom, and by whom, and with whom, and in whom the Christian man is destined, by his very calling, to live. Now, how can an inward devotion and consecration of myself be possible? Only by one way, and that is by the way of love that delights to give. Consecration means self-surrender; and the fortress of self is in the will, and the way of self-surrender is the flowery path of love. To take the metaphor of Scripture, the consecration which we owe to God, and which is His design in all His dealings with us in the gospel, will be like that of a priestly offering of sacrifice, and the sacrifice is ourselves. So much for the inward; what about the outward? All capacities, opportunities, possessions, are to be yielded up to Him as utterly as Christ has yielded Himself to us. We are to live for Him and work for Him; and set, as our prime object, conspicuously and constantly before us, and to be reached towards through all the trivialities of daily duty, and the common-places of recurring tasks, the one thing, to glorify God and to please Him. Now, remember, such consecration is salvation. For the opposite thing, the living to self, is damnation and hell and destruction. And whosoever is thus consecrated to God is in process of being saved. That consecration is blessedness. There is no joy of which a human spirit is capable that is as lofty, as rare and exquisite, as sweet and lasting, as the joy of giving itself away to Him that has given Himself for us. Such consecration, which is the root of all blessedness, and the true way of entering into the possession of all possessions, is only possible in the degree in which we subject ourselves to the influence of these mighty acts which God has done in order to secure it. He gave Himself for us that He might purchase for Himself a people for His possession. My surrender is but the echo of the thunder of His; my surrender is but the flash on the polished mirror which gives back the sunbeam that smites it. We yield ourselves to God, when we realise that Christ has given Himself for us.
II. GODS PURPOSE FOR CHRISTIANS IS THAT THEY SHOULD BE SPECIMENS AND BEGINNINGS OF A GREAT HARVEST. The sheaf that was carried into the temple showed what sun and rain and the sweet skyey influences had been able to do on a foot or two of ground, and it prophesied of the acres of golden grain that would one day be garnered in the barns. And so, Christian men and women to-day, and even more eminently at that time when this letter was written, are meant to be the first small example of a great harvest that is to follow. If Christianity has been able to take one man, pick him out of the mud and the mire of sense and self, and turn him into a partially and increasingly consecrated servant of God, it can do that for anybody. We have all of us one human heart. Whatever may be mans idiosyncrasies or diversities of culture, of character, of condition, of climate, of chronology, they have all the same deep primary wants, and the deepest of them all is concord and fellowship with God. And the path to that is by faith in His dear Son, who has given Himself for us. What a harvest is dimly hinted at in these words of my text; the first-fruits of His creatures. That goes even wider than humanity, and stretches away out into the dim distances, concerning which we can speak with but bated breath; but at least it seems to suggest to us that, in accordance with other teaching of the New Testament, the whole creation which groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now, will, somehow or other, be brought into the liberty and the glory of the children of God, and, as humble waiters and attenders upon the kings who are the priests of the Most High, will participate in the power of the redemption. At all events, there gleam dimly through such words as my text, the great prospects of a redeemed humanity, of a renewed earth, of a sinless universe, in which God in Christ shall be all in all.
III. GODS PURPOSE FOR CHRISTIANS IS THAT THEY SHOULD HELP THE HARVEST. That does not lie in the Levitical ceremonial of the sheaf of the first-fruits, of course. Though even there, I may remind you, that the thing presented on the altar carried in itself the possibilities of future growth, and that the wheaten ear has not only bread for the eater, but seed for the sower, and is the parent of another harvest. But the idea that the first-fruits are not merely first in a series, but that they originate the series of which they are the first, lies in the transference of the terms and the ideas to Jesus Christ; for when He is called the first-fruits of them that slept, it is implied that He, by His power, will wake the whole multitude of the sleepers; and when it speaks of Him as the first-born among many brethren, it is implied that He, by the communication of His life, will give life, and a fraternal life, to the many brethren who will follow Him. And so, in like manner, Gods purpose in making us a kind of first-fruits of His creatures, is not merely our consecration and the exhibition of a specimen of His power, and the pledge and prophecy of the harvest, but it is that from us there shall come influences which shall realise the harvest of which our own Christianity is the pledge and prophecy. What do you get Christ for? To feed upon Him? Yes! But to carry the bread to all the hungry as well. Do not say you cannot. You can talk about anything that interests you. And are your lips to be always closed about Him who have given Himself for you? Do not say that you need special gifts for it. Any man and any woman that has Christ in his or her heart can go to another and say, We have found the Messiah; and that is the best thing to say. You ought to preach Him. To have anything in this world of needy men who are all knit together in the solidarity of one family–to have anything implies that you impart it. The corn laid up in storehouses gets gnawed by rats, and marred by weevils. If you want it to be healthy, and you own possession of it to increase, put it into your seed-basket; and in the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand, and it will come back to thee, seed for the sower and bread for the eater. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 18. Of his own will begat he us] God’s will here is opposed to the lust of man, Jas 1:15; his truth, the means of human salvation, to the sinful means referred to in the above verse; and the new creatures, to the sin conceived and brought forth, as above. As the will of God is essentially good, all its productions must be good also; as it is infinitely pure, all its productions must be holy. The word or doctrine of truth, what St. Paul calls the word of the truth of the Gospel, Col 1:5, is the means which God uses to convert souls.
A kind of first fruits] By creatures we are here to understand the Gentiles, and by first fruits the Jews, to whom the Gospel was first sent; and those of them that believed were the first fruits of that astonishing harvest which God has since reaped over the whole Gentile world. See Clarke on Ro 8:19, &c. There is a remarkable saying in Philo on this subject, De Allegoris, lib. ii. p. 101: God begat Isaac, for he is the father of the perfect nature, , sowing seed in souls, and begetting happiness.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Of his own will; out of his mere good pleasure, as the original cause, and not moved to it by any dignity or merit in us, Eph 1:9; 2Ti 1:9.
Begat he us; by a spiritual generation, whereby we are new born, and are made partakers of a Divine nature, Joh 1:13; 1Pe 1:3,23.
With the word of truth; i.e. the word of the gospel, as the instrument or means whereby we are regenerated: why it is called
the word of truth, see Eph 1:13.
That we should be a kind of first-fruits; i.e. most excellent creatures, being singled out and separated from the rest, and consecrated to God, as under the law the first-fruits were, Rev 14:4.
Of his creatures; viz. reasonable creatures; the word creature being elsewhere restrained to men: see Mar 16:15; Col 1:15.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
18. (Joh1:13). The believer’s regeneration is the highest example ofnothing but good proceeding from God.
Of his own willOf hisown good pleasure (which shows that it is God’s essential nature todo good, not evil), not induced by any external cause.
begat he usspiritually:a once-for-all accomplished act (1Pe 1:3;1Pe 1:23). In contrast to “lustwhen it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin, and sin . . .death” (Jas 1:15).Life follows naturally in connection with light (Jas1:17).
word of truththeGospel. The objective mean, as faith is the appropriating meanof regeneration by the Holy Spirit as the efficient agent.
a kind of first-fruitsChristis, in respect to the resurrection, “the first-fruits”(1Co 15:20; 1Co 15:23):believers, in respect to regeneration, are, as it were,first-fruits (image from the consecration of the first-born of man,cattle, and fruits to God; familiar to the Jews addressed), that is,they are the first of God’s regenerated creatures, and the pledge ofthe ultimate regeneration of the creation, Rom 8:19;Rom 8:23, where also the Spirit,the divine agent of the believer’s regeneration, is termed “thefirst-fruits,” that is, the earnest that the regeneration nowbegun in the soul, shall at last extend to the body too, and to thelower parts of creation. Of all God’s visible creatures, believersare the noblest part, and like the legal “first-fruits,”sanctify the rest; for this reason they are much tried now.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Of his own will begat he us,…. The apostle instances in one of those good and perfect gifts, regeneration; and he pitches upon a very proper and pertinent one, since this is the first gift of grace God bestows upon his people openly, and in their own persons; and is what involves other gifts, and prepares and makes meet for the gift of eternal life; and therefore may well be reckoned a “good” one, and it is also a “perfect one”; it is done at once; there are no degrees in it, as in sanctification; a man is born again, at once, and is born a perfect new man in all his parts; no one is more regenerated than another, or the same person more regenerated at one time than at another: and this comes from above; it is called a being born from above, in Joh 3:3 as the words there may be rendered; and it comes from God the Father, even the Father of our Lord Jesus, as well as of all lights, 1Pe 1:3 and who in it produces light, in darkness, and whose gifts of grace bestowed along with it are without repentance. And since this comes from him, he cannot be the author of evil, or tempt unto it. This is a settled and certain point, that all the good that is in men, and is done by them, comes from God; and all the evil that is in them, and done by them, is of themselves. This act of begetting here ascribed to God, is what is elsewhere called a begetting again, that is, regeneration; it is an implantation of new principles of light and life, grace and holiness, in men; a quickening of them, when dead in trespasses and sins; a forming of Christ in their souls; and a making them partakers of the divine nature; and this is God’s act, and not man’s. Earthly parents cannot beget in this sense; nor ministers of the word, not causally, but only instrumentally, as they are instruments and means, which God makes use of; neither the ministry of the word, nor the ordinance of baptism, can of themselves regenerate any; nor can a man beget himself, as not in nature, so not in grace: the nature of the thing shows it, and the impotent case of men proves it: this is God’s act, and his only; see Joh 1:13 and the impulsive or moving cause of it is his own will. God does not regenerate, or beget men by necessity of nature, but of his own free choice; Christ, the Son of God, is begotten of him by necessity of nature, and not as the effect of his will; he is the brightness of his glory necessarily, as the beams and rays of light are necessarily emitted by the sun; but so it is not in regeneration: nor does God regenerate men through any consideration of their will, works, and merits: nor have these any influence at all upon it; but he begets of his own free grace and favour, and of his rich and abundant mercy, and of his sovereign will and pleasure, according to his counsels and purposes of old. And the means he makes use of, or with which he does it, is
with the word of truth; not Christ, who is the Word, and truth itself; though regeneration is sometimes ascribed to him; and this act of begetting is done by the Father, through the resurrection of Christ from the dead; but the Gospel, which is the word of truth, and truth itself, and contains nothing but truth; and by this souls are begotten and born again; see Eph 1:13 and hence ministers of it are accounted spiritual fathers. Faith, and every other grace in regeneration, and even the Spirit himself, the Regenerator, come this way: and the end is,
that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures; either of his new creatures, and so it has respect to such, as James, and others; who received the firstfruits of the Spirit, who first hoped and trusted in Christ, and were openly in him, and converted to him before others; or of his creatures, of mankind in general, who, with the Jews, are usually called creatures; [See comments on Mr 16:15], and designs those who are redeemed from among men, and are the firstfruits to God, and to the Lamb, as their regeneration makes appear: and this shows that such as are begotten again, or regenerated, are separated and distinguished from others, as the firstfruits be; and that they are preferred unto, and are more excellent than the rest of mankind, being made so by the grace of God; and that they are by regenerating grace devoted to the service of God, and are formed for his praise and glory.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Of his own will (). First aorist passive participle of . Repeating the metaphor of birth in verse 15, but in good sense. God as Father acted deliberately of set purpose.
He brought us forth (). First aorist active indicative of (verse 15), only here of the father (4 Macc. 15:17), not of the mother. Regeneration, not birth of all men, though God is the Father in the sense of creation of all men (Ac 17:28f.).
By the word of truth ( ). Instrumental case . The reference is thus to the gospel message of salvation even without the article (2Co 6:7) as here, and certainly with the article (Col 1:5; Eph 1:13; 2Tim 2:15). The message marked by truth (genitive case ).
That we should be ( ). Purpose clause and the infinitive with the accusative of general reference (as to us).
A kind of first-fruits ( ). “Some first-fruits” (old word from ), of Christians of that age. See Ro 16:5.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Begat [] . Rev., brought forth. See on ver. 15, and compare 1Jo 3:9; 1Pe 1:23.
A kind of first fruits [ ] . A kind of indicates the figurative nature of the term. The figure is taken from the requirement of the Jewish law that the first – born of men and cattle, and the first growth of fruits and grain should be consecrated to the Lord. The point of the illustration is that Christians, like first – fruits, should be consecrated to God. The expression “first – fruits” is common in the New Testament. See Rom 8:23; Rom 16:5; 1Co 14:20, 23; Rev 14:4.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) James affirms that one’s being begotten as a child of God is according to His own will (Gr. bouletheis). This means that He willed or purposed our salvation first, Joh 1:13. It is effected “by the Word of Truth”.
2) This means that God uses a) the instrumentality of the preaching of the Word, b) the convicting of the Holy Spirit, and c) repentance and remorse in wrought by the Holy Spirit upon the heart of an unsaved person to bring him to the place of personal acknowledgment of his sin. This is followed by the sinner’s exercising the gift of faith, (the first spiritual gift) 1Co 13:13, in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, Eph 2:8-9.
3) We are a kind of first fruits of His creation, Rom 16:5. We become new creatures in Him by a) the initiative act of God’s sovereign will and purpose in eternity; b) effected by the power of God in time, through the Word of Truth, the Gospel, and c) accepted by the voluntary volition and choice of each -man in time. This is a summary statement of what the Bible teaches concerning foreknowledge. foreordination, and predestination, as they relate personally to redemption.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
18 Of his own will. He now brings forward a special proof of the goodness of God which he had mentioned, even that he has regenerated us unto eternal life. This invaluable benefit every one of the faithful feels in himself. Then the goodness of God, when known by experience, ought to remove from them all a contrary opinion respecting him.
When he says that God of his own will, or spontaneously, hath begotten us, he intimates that he was induced by no other reason, as the will and counsel of God are often set in opposition to the merits of men. What great thing, indeed, would it have been to say that God was not constrained to do this? But he impresses something more, that God according to his own goodwill hath begotten us, and has been thus a cause to himself. It hence follows that it is natural to God to do good.
But this passage teaches us, that as our election before the foundation of the world was gratuitous, so we are illuminated by the grace of God alone as to the knowledge of the truth, so that our calling corresponds with our election. The Scripture shews that we have been gratuitously adopted by God before we were born. But James expresses here something more, that we obtain the right of adoption, because God does also call us gratuitously. (Eph 1:4.) Farther, we hence learn, that it is the peculiar office of God spiritually to regenerate us; for that the same thing is sometimes ascribed to the ministers of the gospel, means no other thing than this, that God acts through them; and it happens indeed through them, but he nevertheless alone doeth the work.
The word begotten means that we become new men, so that we put off our former nature when we are effectually called by God. He adds how God begets us, even by the word of truth, so that we may know that we cannot enter the kingdom of God by any other door.
That we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. The word τινὰ, “some,” has the meaning of likeness, as though he had said, that we are in a manner firstfruits. But this ought not to be restricted to a few of the faithful; but it belongs to all in common. For as man excels among all creatures, so the Lord elects some from the whole mass and separates them as a holy offering, to himself. (108) It is no common nobility into which God extols his own children. Then justly are they said to be excellent as firstfruits, when God’s image is renewed in them.
(108) The firstfruits being a part and a pledge of the coming harvest, to retain the metaphor, we must regard “creatures” here as including all the saved in future ages. Hence their opinion is to be preferred, who regard the first converts, who were Jews, as the firstfruits.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(18) Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth.There is a greater witness to Gods goodness than that which is written upon the dome of heaven, even the regeneration of man. As the old creation was by the Word (Joh. 1:3; Joh. 1:10, et seq.), the new is by Him also, the Logos, the Word of Truth, and that by means of His everlasting gospel, delivered in the power of the Holy Ghost. So tenderly is this declared, that a maternal phrase is usedGod brought us forth in the new birth; and though a woman may forget the son of her womb (Isa. 49:15), yet will He never leave, nor forsake (Heb. 13:5).
That we should be a kind of firstfruit of his creatures.And why this mercy and loving-kindness? for our own sakes, or for others and for His? Surely the latter; and if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy (Rom. 11:16). We know Who is the firstborn of every creature (Col. 1:15) the firstbegotten of the dead (Rev. 1:5), nay, the beginning of the creation of God (Rev. 3:14); and we are created in Christ Jesus (Eph. 2:10), become new in Him (comp. 2Co. 5:17; Gal. 6:15), made the firstfruits of His redemption; and, moreover, it would seem we are the sign of the deliverance promised to the brute creation which waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God (Rom. 8:19; Rom. 8:21). The longing for a future perfection is shared by all created beings upon earth, and their discontent at present imperfection points to another state freed from evil (Rom. 8:18-22). The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope (Rom. 8:20). And the fruition of this hope is foreshadowed in the words above. The very struggles, it has been well observed by Dean Howson, which all animated beings make against pain and death show that pain and death are not a part of the proper laws of their nature, but rather a bondage imposed upon them from without; thus every groan and fear is an unconscious prophecy of liberation from the power of evil. The creature itself also shall be delivered is the plain assertion of St. Paul (Rom. 8:21); comparing his with that of St. James, we must conclude that they point to all nature, animate and inanimate as well. We look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness (2Pe. 3:13), and there shall be no more death . . . nor any more pain (Rev. 21:4).
All creation groans and travails;
Thou, O Lord, shalt hear its groan,
For of man, and all creation,
Thou alike art Lord alone.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
18. Of his own will That is, not by any changeful caprice or shadow of inconstancy.
Begat he us By a regenerative begetting.
With the word of truth The preached gospel was the external instrument by which he regenerated us.
Firstfruits The first gatherings of the harvest were by the Hebrews gratefully consecrated to God. Hence the word firstfruits symbolically indicates pre-eminent excellence and divine consecration. We are regenerated by divine, unchanging will, through the promulgated word, that among the creatures of God we may be the consecrated and truly first in rank and value. By creation man is first among lower creatures; by regeneration and consecration the sons of God are first even among human creatures.
Kind of That is, not literal firstfruits, but a figurative sort. This firstfruits has no reference to time; and hence cannot indicate the earlier Christian converts as compared with the later, (as Alford,) and so is no proof of the early writing of this epistle.
The immutability of God’s regenerative will is none the less conditional, and our apostle will next show how we must meet the conditions. It is by due attention to, and reception of, the regenerative word.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Of his own will he begat us (‘brought us forth’) by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.’
For while the sustaining of Creation was left to the glorious heavenly lights and the sustaining seasons, the begetting of His own people occurred directly through His own determined will and purpose, a begetting which took place through the word of truth. And He brought it about by His own divine action at the time of His own planning (Gal 4:4-7). Behind this statement is the thought of the One Who has recently walked the earth and brought God’s truth to men. Here was God’s will very much in action, manifesting His glory (Joh 1:14), a glory greater far than that of sun or moon, and producing His new creation (Gal 6:15; 2Co 5:17).
Here is the essence of what James is telling us. The Almighty, the great Creator, has acted in the world of His own will and has given His sustaining and divine life (2Pe 1:4) to all who have received the word of truth through His Son. That is why these people that he is writing to are as they are. It is because He has chosen to beget them by planting His word in them (Jas 1:21).
And this begetting was in order that they might be the firstfruits of His creatures. This may indicate that then the full harvest of His creatures will also be redeemed (Isa 11:6-9; Isa 65:25), so that full restoration has taken place, or simply that His people are seen as ‘the firstfruits’ out of all creation, as those who are especially set aside for Him. Or it may indicate that His people stand out from all men (His creatures) as those who are separated to God and belong to Him, just as was true of the firstfruits. We thus have here an emphasis on His sovereign act of redemption and salvation resulting in the new birth for His own.
For ‘the word of truth’ compare Eph 1:13; Col 1:5. It is ‘the good news of their salvation’.
(Those who would see the begetting here as referring to the creation of man by a word overlook the fact that that is never called a begetting. Nor could man who came last in creation, be seen as a firstfruits of it).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jam 1:18. A kind of first-fruits, &c. More excellent than others, and in a peculiar manner separated and consecrated to him. By , creatures, the apostle here means the new creation; and he seems by the expression to allude to Jer 2:3. See also Rom 11:16; Rom 16:5. As in Jam 1:15 we have the genealogy of sin and death, in this verse is the genealogy of the Christian life and happiness.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jas 1:18 . Most interpreters subordinate the thought contained in this verse to the preceding, regarding it either as an example (Laurentius: loquitur Ap. in his verbis de generatione spirituali ut sit quasi exemplum aliquod istorum donorum spiritualium, quae sunt desuper) or as a confirmation and a proof (thus Gebser, Kern, Wiesinger, Bouman; also Lange [80] ); on the contrary, according to Theile and de Wette, [81] its relation is that of co-ordination. But in both explanations the peculiar significance which this verse has in the context is mistaken. It is to be recognised as a principal thought , not only because the succeeding exhortations flow from it, but also because the preceding development only comes to its close in it; whilst only in is not only the assertion completely refuted, but also all the earlier mentioned assertions have their sure foundation. It is accordingly not a confirmation of Jas 1:17 , but rather a special inference from the general idea of that verse.
] The verb itself testifies that here the discourse is of the new birth, and not of natural birth, for is Synonymous with ; but the man (1Jn 3:9 ; see also 1Pe 1:23 ) is not man in himself, but man born again. Unsatisfactorily Pott explains = facere, efficere , since by this the specific idea of the verb, that the foundation of the life of him who is born again lies in God, and that he is (2Pe 1:4 ), is lost.
] not us as men, nor us as Jewish Christians, but us as Christians.
The verse emphatically commences with , by which is expressed not a contrast to the merit of human works (Bede: non nostris, sed beneficio suae voluntatis; similarly Calvin, Hornejus, Grotius, etc.), nor to “the Jewish claims of righteousness” (Lange), but it is designed prominently to bring forward the thought that the new birth rests on the divine will the work is that which God has peculiarly willed. But if this be the case, how can proceed from Him? Without sufficient reason, Bengel, Kern, Schneckenburger, Wiesinger, and others put the additional idea of love in . [82]
] The instrument of is the , that is, the gospel, [83] which is so called because “ in its entire reality is inherent in it” (Harless on Eph 1:13 ). The words: ] express the aim of this new birth, by which is not indicated what Christians, as those who are born of God, ought to become , but what they are , according to the intention of God. [84] By added to the mode of expression is indicated as figurative, for, as Calvin correctly remarks, similitudinis est nota, nos quodammodo esse primitias (so also Gebser, Hottinger, Kern, Wiesinger, and others). Also Bengel recognises this, but he puts therein a false reference, observing: quaedam habet modestiam , nam primitiae proprie et absolute est Christus. Still more incorrect is it, with Lange, to explain , that James considered the angels of God as a different kind of first-fruits of creation. Laurentius correctly says: allusio est ad ritum legalem in Vetum Testamentum de consecratione primogenitorum, frugum, jumentorum et hominum (so also Calvin, Hornejus, Wiesinger, and others; unsatisfactorily de Wette: “chosen and holy”). The word has here, as everywhere in the O. T., and predominantly among the classics, a religious signification, namely, “ the first-fruits dedicated to God; ” so that James by this expression indicates Christians, as a fruit dedicated to the service of God. But emphatically repeated shows that James does not here state the nature of Christians generally, but what the position is which he and those Christians occupy who, according to Rom 8:23 , possess (see Meyer in loco ). They are a kind of first-fruits of God’s creatures, because they, as being born of God, are dedicated to God first among all His creatures. The glorification, which is destined for the whole world, was first imparted to Christians then living. [85] In the N. T. is sometimes so used that the religious signification steps into the background (thus in 1Co 15:20 ; 1Co 15:23 ; Rom 8:23 ; Rom 16:5 ; 1Co 16:15 ; otherwise in Rom 11:16 and Rev 14:5 ); and accordingly several expositors explain the expression of James as equivalent to . But against this is, on the one hand, the added , and on the other hand, the existing necessity of conceiving as added to an attribute, as or , since the expression is not taken by itself, those who are born again, but generally, the creatures of God. It is still more arbitrary to take as equivalent to , in the sense of (Oecumenius; Morus: omnium creaturarum carissimi et dignissimi; the favourites among His creatures), and then to refer the verse to the dignity of man generally, as the Scholiast explains: , . [86] By (Lachmann and Buttmann, ; Tischendorf, ), emphatically added, the creatures are indicated as God’s property.
[80] Lange strangely designates the new birth as the effect of the which came down from heaven.
[81] Theile: Deus, luminum pater, etiam parens est generationis nostrae. De Wette: In place of all good gifts, the gracious gift of the Christian salvation is likewise mentioned as a proof that God can be no tempter.
[82] Bengel: voluntate amantissima. Schneckenburger: non merum volendi actum sed beniguam et benigna voluntate ortam volitionem exprimit. The view of Oecumenius is evidently entirely perverted: , .
[83] If the want of the article should constrain us to translate “a word of truth,” that is, a word whose nature is truth (see Meyer on 2Co 6:7 ), yet by this word of truth here the gospel can only be understood; but it is more probable that the article is omitted because , as an idea definite in itself, did not require the article to designate it.
[84] According to Lange’s supposition, “this teleological mode of expression is chosen in order to indicate that the Jews should become what Christians already are. ” This is purely arbitrary, as such a distinction is not indicated in the very slightest degree.
[85] It is, however, also possible that James by has had in view, not the distinction between the then existing and the later Christians, but only the distinction between Christians and the other creatures, since Christians of all ages form the , until the commencement of the world’s glorification. Lange with truth brings forward the idea that if Christians are , they are sureties for the future glorification of the world; but that the first believers of Israel in their unity are sureties for the future conversion of the nation, is an introduced idea which is not indicated by James.
[86] Thus Schulthess: divino rationis et orationis munere, cujus ex tot animantium generibus atque naturis homo solus est particeps, principatum dignitatis ei datum cernimus.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
DISCOURSE: 2359
REGENERATIONITS AUTHOR, MEANS, AND END
Jam 1:18. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.
THERE is an evil in the world so monstrous and so horrible, that one can scarcely conceive how it should ever be committed; namely, the ascribing unto God our own iniquities, and tracing them to him as their proper author. Yet is this the common refuge of sinners; who, when led captive by their own lusts, excuse themselves by averring, that no criminality can attach to the indulgence of passions which God himself has given them. But St. James protests against this impiety, and declares, that God tempteth no man; but that every man who yields to temptation, is drawn away and enticed by his own lust [Note: ver. 13, 14.]. Another evil also he sets himself to counteract, namely, the tracing of good to ourselves, as though it originated with us as its proper authors. This, though it does not shock our feelings so much as the former does, yet is of the same nature with it, and no less offensive in the sight of God: for, whilst the former sentiment makes God the cause of evil, the latter denies him to be the cause of good. But on this subject also St. James rectifies our views; assuring us, that, as all light proceeds from the sun, so does every good and perfect gift come down from above, even from God the Father of lights. We may indeed have great changes, as from day to night, or from summer to winter: but these arise from ourselves only; for with him is no variableness, neither shadow of turning; and, if we have less abundant communications from him at one time than another, it is owing to the change of our position with respect to him, and to our temporary departure from him. If, on the contrary, a spiritual change has taken place in any of us, so that we have been born again, it is because he begat us with the word of truth; and begat us, not on account of any merit in us, but purely of his own will, and to the praise of the glory of his own grace.
In this assertion of the Apostle the whole subject of regeneration or conversion comes before us: and we shall be led to mark,
I.
The source from whence it flows
It is not from man
[Man has neither power nor inclination to convert himself truly and thoroughly to God. If only we consider what is said in the Scriptures respecting the extreme weakness of man in relation to every thing that is spiritually good,that without Christ he can do nothing; that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost; and that we are not of ourselves sufficient even to think any thing that is good; that our sufficiency even for that is of God alone,how can it be thought that we should be able to put off the old man and to put on the new, and to renew ourselves in the spirit of our minds after the image of our God in righteousness and true holiness? The very terms in which this change is spoken of, as a resurrection, a new birth, a new creation, clearly import, that it is beyond the power of man to effect it in himself. We need go no further than to the image used in the text itself, to shew the utter absurdity of any such idea. Nor have any others a power to effect it in us: for man can only address himself to our outward senses: he has no access whatever to our hearts; he can therefore never accomplish in us so great a work, as that of giving us a new heart, and renewing a right spirit within us.
Nor has any man the inclination thus to renew himself. Let us look around, and see what is the state of mankind at large. Are they mourning over their degeneracy and corruption? Are they panting after holiness? Are they using the means which are confessedly within their reach? Are they thankful for every aid they can receive, and for every instruction by which their good desires may be furthered? If you think they are, take your Bible with you, and go to all your neighbours and proffer your assistance to them, and solicit a reciprocal aid from them: act as if you all were shipwrecked, and all were anxious for their own personal welfare, and for the welfare of those around them. Do this, and you will soon see how much inclination men have for a thorough conversion of their souls to God.]
It is from God, and from God alone
[This we are not left to determine by any fallible reasonings of our own: it is decided for us by God himself; who, speaking of all who received the Lord Jesus Christ, and thereby received power to become the sons of God, says, They were born, not of blood (or in consequence of their descent from any particular parents), nor of the will of the flesh (that is, from any good desires of their own), nor of the will of man (that is, from the kind efforts of others), but of God [Note: Joh 1:12-13.]. It is God alone who makes one to differ from another [Note: 1Co 4:7.]: it is God alone who gives us either to will, or to do [Note: Php 2:13.], what is good: and He who is the Author, is also the Finisher [Note: Heb 12:2. How all this accords with the doctrines of the Church of England, may be seen by referring to our Articles and Liturgy:In our Liturgy we thus address the Deity: O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed. And the tenth Article runs thus: The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works, to faith and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will.], of all that can issue in a mans salvation.]
But as God is pleased to use means and instruments in this work, I will proceed to shew,
II.
The means by which it is effected
It becomes not us to restrict God in the use of means. We know that he frequently makes use of affliction, and of conversation; and we will not presume to say that he never employs even dreams or visions for the attainment of his ends: we know assuredly that he has done so in former times; and therefore he may do so at this time (we confess, however, that we are not partial to any thing arising out of such means: we are always fearful that they will issue in something transient and delusive: we prefer infinitely what proceeds from causes more rational, and more tangible, and more consonant with the dispensation under which we live); but we are not at liberty to limit God to any particular mode of communicating his blessings to mankind. Of one thing however we are sure (and that will effectually cut off all occasion for enthusiastic delusions); namely, that whatever means God makes use of to bring the soul to a consideration of its state, it is by the word of truth alone that he savingly converts it to himself. By other means he may call our attention to the word; but by the word only does he guide us to the knowledge of his truth, and to the attainment of his salvation.
By the word he begins the good work within us
[It is from thence alone that we attain the knowledge of our fallen state From thence alone can we learn the way of salvation through a crucified Redeemer From thence alone can we derive encouragement to lay hold on the hope that is set before us: for the only legitimate object of faith is the word of God; and without faith, so grounded, we cannot possibly please God [Note: Heb 11:6.].]
By the word also he carries it on, and perfects it, within us
[The word is that unadulterated milk by which the new-born babes must grow [Note: 1Pe 2:2.]. And, whatever degrees of sanctification are produced in us at a more advanced period, they are effected by the same divine instrument; as St. Paul has said: Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish [Note: Eph 5:26-27.]. Hence our blessed Lord, when praying for his Church, said, Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth [Note: Joh 17:17.]. Not that the word has this power in itself: for thousands both hear and read it without deriving any benefit from it to their souls. It is the sword of the Spirit [Note: Eph 6:17.]; and effects no more than what He who wields it sees fit to accomplish. If it come in word only, it is of no weight at all: but when it comes in demonstration of the Spirit and of power [Note: 1Th 1:5; 1Th 2:13.], then it effects all for which God himself has sent it [Note: Isa 55:10-11.]: and through him is mighty to the pulling down of all the strong-holds [Note: 2Co 10:4-5.] of sin and Satan.]
Thus is the whole work of grace wrought within us: and a blessed work it will appear, whilst we shew,
III.
The end for which it is wrought
The contemplation of this may well reconcile us to all that has been said about the sovereign will of God. The ground on which men are so jealous of the Divine sovereignty is, that they think it leads to a disregard of holiness; since, if God have chosen men to salvation, they shall attain it without holiness; and if he have not chosen them to salvation, they can never be saved, how holy soever they may be. But this is altogether an erroneous statement. God is not so regardless of holiness as this supposes: on the contrary, if he elect any, it is that they may be holy, and without blame before him in love [Note: Eph 1:4.]; and, if he beget any with the word of truth, it is that we may be to him a kind of first-fruits of his creatures
[The first-fruits were, by Gods own appointment, holy; so that every one was bound to consecrate them unto him [Note: Deu 18:4.]. In like manner are Gods people to be holy, and altogether devoted to his service. They are on no account to imagine themselves at their own disposal: They are Gods; and must glorify him with their body and their spirit, which are his [Note: 1Co 6:19-20.].
It is not to salvation only that God ordains his people; but to sanctification, as the way to, and the preparation for, the blessedness of heaven [Note: 2Th 2:13.]. He has chosen them out of the world [Note: Joh 15:19.], from which they are to be separated [Note: 2Co 6:17.], as the first-fruits are from the remainder of the harvest. Being a chosen generation, they are to be a peculiar people [Note: 2Pe 2:9.], zealous of good works [Note: Tit 2:14.]. To this the word of truth bears testimony in every part. To think that God should beget any person by his word and Spirit, and leave him at liberty to be a servant of sin and Satan, is a thought from which one revolts with utter abhorrence. Thus at least did St. Paul: Is Christ the minister of sin? God forbid [Note: Gal 2:17.]. Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid [Note: Rom 6:15.]. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid [Note: Rom 6:1-2.]. God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness: and, whatever men may say respecting Gods will in ordaining us to life, or respecting our relation to him as his children, begotten of him, this is a truth that must never for one moment be questioned, Without holiness no man shall see the Lord [Note: Heb 12:14.].]
See then that you,
1.
Value the ordinances of God
[The word is doubtless to be read with care and diligence at home: for, as we have said, it is the food of Gods new-born offspring, and the great medium by which he communicates his blessings to the soul. But it is through the ministry of that word that God chiefly works. He will bless those who read it in their own houses: but he will bless also, and more abundantly, those who at the same time attend upon the ministration of it by those whom he has sent to speak in his name; for he loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Let not any think light of the ordinances, because the persons who dispense them are weak as other men: for God has put his treasure into earthen vessels, on purpose that the excellency of the power may the more manifestly appear to be of him. If indeed men look to the instrument, they will meet with nothing but disappointment: but if they will look through the instrument to God, they shall find the word as quick and powerful [Note: Heb 4:12.] as ever, and shall experience it to be the power of God unto their everlasting salvation [Note: Rom 1:16.]. There is no blessing which God will not dispense to them by means of it Nor, if only they mix faith with what they hear [Note: Heb 4:2.], shall their most enlarged expectations of profit ever be disappointed.]
2.
Labour to improve them for their destined end
[Sanctification, as you have heard, is that for which both the word and ordinances are to be improved. Examine then yourselves by what you hear, that you may find out every defect in your obedience; and keep in remembrance both the precepts and examples that are set before you, that so you may attain to the highest degrees of holiness, and stand perfect and complete in all the will of God [Note: Col 4:12.]. You know, that to appropriate any of the first-fruits to a common use would have been sacrilege: beware then lest the world rob God of any measure of those services which are due to him alone. You are to be his wholly and altogether: your bodies are to be his, and your members instruments of righteousness unto him [Note: Rom 6:13.]. Your souls, with all their faculties, are to be his also; his temple, wherein he is to reside; his throne, wherein he is to reign: your whole body, soul, and spirit are to be sanctified wholly unto him [Note: 1Th 5:23.]: you are to be altogether a living sacrifice unto him: and this is no other than your reasonable service [Note: Rom 12:1.]. And, as it is by this only that you can make a due improvement of ordinances, so it is by this only that you can have in your own souls any evidence that you are born of God. As for others, they can form no judgment at all of you, but by your works. The rule for them to judge by, is this: He that committeth sin is of the devil: whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed, namely, the word of God, abideth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God [Note: 1Jn 3:8-9. The seed in this passage means the word: see 1Pe 1:23 and 1Jn 2:14.]. Press forward then for the highest attainments, that, being blameless and harmless, and without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, ye may shine as lights in the world, and approve yourselves indeed to be the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty [Note: Php 2:15-16.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
18 Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
Ver. 18. Of his own will begat he us ] Gr. , brought he us forth, as a special instance of his free grace and fatherly goodness, Eph 1:4-5 . The word properly signifies, He did the office of a mother to us, the bringing us into the light of life. The Hebrew word also signifieth genuit, peperit, parturiit; et est proprium feminarum: quamvis eleganter de viro etiam et aliis rebus dicatur, to bring forth. (Marenus in Arca Noae.)
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
18 .] The greatest example of this position , that all good and perfect gifts come from Him: mentioned not merely as an example, but as leading on to the following context. Because He willed it (the aor. part. is, 1. contemporary with the verb: 2. slightly causal, involving the condition of the act which follows. It was of His own mere will, ‘proprio motu,’ and the emphasis is on this word. “Exprimit quod Deus pro suo beneplacito nos genuerit, atque ita sibi fuerit causa. Unde sequitur, naturale esse Deo benefacere.” Calvin) begat He ( or – (see above, Jam 1:15 ), here in the sense generare , as there parere . Cf. 1Pe 1:23 ; 1Jn 3:9 . The spiritual birth, not the natural, is meant, as is evident by what follows) us ( , twice repeated, signifies the Writer and his readers, not Christians in general: not especially as Jewish Christians, , for that is not (see below) the reference here) with the word of truth (the gen. is one of apposition: cf. Joh 17:17 , . And the word of truth is the gospel, preached, and as below: cf. 1Pe 1:23 , . The failure of the articles does not alter the sense. It is especially a characteristic of the abrupt sententious style of our Apostle. Cf. , Jas 1:22 , where must be ‘the word;’ and indeed passim. c. makes personal: , , , , : and so Athanasius, Serm. iii. advers. Arianos, vol. ii. p. 483; and Bernard, Serm. ii. ad Fratres (?): which is clearly wrong), that we should be (aim, but not the primary aim, of the . His gracious purpose with regard to us in particular was, that we should be, &c. His great purpose with regard to all Christians is not here in question. Hence is repeated) a kind of firstfruit (“ similitudinis est nota, nos quodammodo esse primitias,” Calv. It does not appear to be intended as Bengel, “ ‘ Qudam ’ habet modestiam, nam primiti proprie et absolute est Christus.” Rather, I should say, it would point to the early date of our Epistle, in which an idea afterwards so familiar is thus introduced as it were with an apologetic explanation. The figure in is from the appointment of the law by which the firstborn of man, of cattle, of fruits &c., were to be consecrated to God; and the word must be taken with this sacred meaning, not merely as a ‘verbum commune’ indicating priority. The first Christians, to whom St. James is writing, were as firstborn of the great family, dedicated as firstfruits to God. Wiesinger beautifully says, “The thought fully given would be this: they by Regeneration were dedicated as the firstfruits of a sacrificial gift which shall only be completed with the offering up of all ”) of His creatures ( manifestly extends wider than merely to the great multitude of the regenerated whom no man can number; it embraces all creation, which we know shall partake in the ultimate glorious perfection of the sons of God: cf. Rom 8:20-21 . Obviously, the are not the , as Grot. and many others). Wiesinger has an important note, shewing from this verse what must be the right understanding of much which follows in this Epistle. “This passage,” he says, “is among those which reveal the depth of Christian knowledge in which the practical and moral exhortations of the Writer are grounded: lying as it does expressly ( , Jam 1:21 ) at the basis of them. We will here bring together in a few words the teaching of the passage, for the sake of its important bearing on the rest of the Epistle. It teaches us, 1. as a positive supplement to Jas 1:14-15 , that the life of man must be renewed, from its very root and foundation: 2. it designates this renewal as God’s work, moreover as an imparting of the life of God ( ), as only possible by the working of the Spirit, only on the foundation of the objective fact of our Redemption in Christ, which is the content of the : 3. it sets forth this re-generation as an act once for all accomplished ( , aor.) and distinguishes it from the gradual penetration and sanctification of the individual life by means of this new principle of life imparted in the re-generation: 4. it declares also expressly that the re-generation is a free act of God’s love ( ) not induced by any work of man (Eph 2:8-9 ; Tit 3:5 ), so that man is placed by God in his right relation to God, antecedently to all works well-pleasing to God: for this the expression involves: cf. , ch. Jas 2:5 , and in so far as this necessarily implies the justification of the sinner (the of St. Paul), it is plain also, that St. James cannot, without contradicting himself, make this , in the sense of St. Paul, dependent on the works of faith. 5. is specified as the objective medium of re-generation: and herewith we must have as the appropriating medium on the part of man himself: of the central import of which in St. James also we have already seen something (Jas 1:3 ; Jam 1:6 ), and shall see more (ch. Jas 2:5 ; Jas 2:14 ff.). 6. Together with this act of re-generation proceeding from God, we have also the high destination of the Christian, which the Apostle gives so significantly and deeply in . . . And that which God has done to him, is now in the following verses made the foundation of that which the Christian has on his part to do: by which that which we said under (3) and (4) receives fresh confirmation. This passage is one to be remembered, when we wish to know what the Apostle understands by the (Jas 1:25 ; Jam 2:12 ), and what he means, when (Jas 2:14 ff.) he deduces from the works of faith. As regards the dogmatical use, which some make of this passage, wishing to shew that regeneration is brought about by the word, as distinguished from the Sacrament of Baptism ( Tit 3:5-7 ), we may remark, that seeing that designates the gospel, as a whole, without any respect to such distinction, nothing regarding it can be gathered from this passage. The word of the Lord constitutes, we know, the force of the Sacrament also. ‘Accedit verbum ad elementum et fit Sacramentum.’ And is it meant to be inferred that the readers of this Epistle were not baptized? ”
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Jas 1:18 . Again we have a verse without any connection between what precedes or follows; the words , of Jas 1:19 seem to belong to Jas 1:18 . As we have seen, Jas 1:17 most probably contains a quotation; the possibility of Jas 1:18 being also a loose quotation, from some other author, should not be lost sight of; it would explain, as in the case of Jas 1:17 , the abrupt way in which it is introduced; the , taken as an indicative, might well imply that the writer is referring his readers to some well-known writing, much in the same way as St. Paul does in Act 17:28 , , “ ”. For the general thought of the verse cf. 1Jn 3:9 . : this is strongly suggestive of an advanced belief in the doctrine of Grace, cf. Joh 15:16 . , . The rare word is, strictly speaking, only used of the mother. “It seems clear that the phrase has particular reference to the creation of man, . This was the truth about man which God’s will realised in the creation by an act, a , which was the expression at once of God’s will and man’s nature” (Parry). : = used in reference to the Torah in Shemoth Rabba , chap. 33; see further below; the picture would be very familiar to Jews; just as the new fruits which ripen first herald the new season, so those men who are begotten proclaim a new order of things in the world of spiritual growth; they are in advance of other men, in the same way that the first-fruits are in advance of the other fruits of the season. Rendel Harris illustrates this very pointedly from actual life of the present day in the East: “When one’s soul desires the vintage or the fruitage of the returning summer, chronological advantage is everything. The trees that are a fortnight to the fore are the talk and delight of the town” ( Present Day Papers , May, 1901, “The Elements of a Progressive Church”).
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
James
‘FIRST-FRUITS OF HIS CREATURES’
Jam 1:18 .
ACCORDING to the Levitical ceremonial, the first sheaf of the new crop, accompanied with sacrifice, was presented in the Temple on the day after the Passover Sabbath. No part of the harvest was permitted to be used for food until after this acknowledgment, that all had come from God and belonged to Him. A similar law applied to the first-born of men and of cattle. Both were regarded as in a special sense consecrated to and belonging to God.
Now, in the New Testament, both these ideas of ‘the first-born’ and ‘the first-fruits,’ which run as you see parallel in some important aspects, are transferred to Jesus Christ. He is ‘become the first-fruits of them that slept’: and it was no mere accidental coincidence that, in this character, He rose from the dead on the day on which, according to the law, the sheaf was to be presented in the Temple. In His case the ideas attached to the expression are not only that of consecration, but that of being the first of a series, which owes its existence to Him. He makes men ‘the many brethren,’ of whom He is ‘the first-born’; and He, by the overflowing power of His life, raises from the dead the whole harvest of which He is the first-fruits.
Then that which Jesus Christ is, primarily and originally, all those who love Him and trust Him are secondarily and by derivation from Himself. Thus, both these phrases are further transferred in the New Testament to Christian people. They are the ‘first-fruits unto God and the Lamb’; or, as my text has it here, with a qualifying word, ‘a kind of first-fruits’; which expresses at once a metaphor and the derivation of the character: They are also ‘the Church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven.’
So, then, in this text we have contained some great ideas as to God’s purpose in drawing us to Himself. And I want you to look at these for a moment or two.
I. First, then, God’s purpose for Christians is that they should he consecrated to Him. The sheaf was presented before God in the symbolical ceremonial, as an acknowledgment of His ownership of it, and of all the wide-waving harvest. It thereby became His in a special sense. In like manner, the purpose of God in bestowing on us the wondrous gift of a regeneration and new life by the word is that we should be His, yielding to Him the life which He gives, and all that we are, in thankful recognition and joyful consecration.
We hear a great deal about consecration in these days. Let us understand what consecration means. There is an inward and an outward aspect of it. In the inward aspect it means an entire devotion of myself, down to the very roots of my being, to God as Lord and Owner.
Man’s natural tendency is to make himself his own centre, to live for self and by self. And the whole purpose of the gospel is to decentralise him and to give him a new centre, even God, for whom, and by whom, and with whom, and in whom the Christian man is destined, by his very calling, to live.
Now, how can an inward devotion and consecration of myself be possible? Only by one way, and that is by the way of love that delights to give. The yielding of the human spirit to the divine is only accomplished through that sweet medium of love. Self-surrender is the giving up of self at the bidding of love to Him to whom my heart cleaves.
The will will yield itself. There will be no murmuring at hard providences; no regrets darkening a whole life and paralysing duty, and blinding to blessings, by reason of the greatest sorrow which He may have sent. The will will yield in submission; the will will yield in obedience. According to the dreadful metaphor of the founder of the Jesuits – dreadful when applied to the relations of a man to a man, but blessed when applied to the relation of a man to God, and of God to man – I shall be in His hands ‘like a staff’ in the hand of a man, only to be used as He desires.
Consecration means self-surrender; and the fortress of self is in the will, and the way of self-surrender is the flowery path of love.
To take the other metaphor of Scripture, by which the same idea is expressed – the consecration which we owe to God, and which is His design in all His dealings with us in the gospel, will be like that of a priestly offering of sacrifice, and the sacrifice is ourselves. So much for the inward; what about the outward? All capacities, opportunities, possessions, are to be yielded up to Him as utterly as Christ has yielded Himself to us. We are to live for Him and work for Him; and set, as our prime object, conspicuously and constantly before us, and to be reached towards through all the trivialities of daily duty, and the common-places of recurring tasks, the one thing, to glorify God and to please Him. Consecration means the utter giving of myself away, in the inmost sanctuary of the spirit. And it means the resolute devotion of all that I have and all that I am in the outgoings of daily life to His service and to His praise.
That is what God meant for you and me when He made us Christians; that was His design when He sent His Son. And we thwart and counter-work Him, just in the measure in which we still make ourselves our own centre, our wills our own law, and our well-being our own aim.
Now, remember, such consecration is salvation. For the opposite thing, the living to self, is damnation and hell and destruction. And whosoever is thus consecrated to God is in process of being saved. The relation between the two ideas is not, as it often is put, that you are to he saved that you may be consecrated; but, you are being saved in being consecrated. And the measure in which we have ceased to be devoted to ourselves, and are devoted to Him, is the accurate measure in which we have received the true salvation that is in Jesus Christ.
That consecration is blessedness. There is no joy of which a human spirit is capable that is as lofty, as rare and exquisite, as sweet and lasting, as the joy of giving itself away to Him who has given Himself for us. And such consecration is the true possession of what we give, and the only way of really owning ourselves or our possessions. ‘He that loveth himself shall lose himself,’ and he that gives himself away to God, a weak, sinful man, gets himself back from God, a hero, strong, and a saint.
Such consecration, which is the root of all blessedness, and the true way of entering into the possession of all possessions, is only possessible in the degree in which we subject ourselves to the influence of these mighty acts which God has done in order to secure it. Our yielding of ourselves to Him is only possible when we are quite sure that He has given Himself to us. Our love which melts us, and bows us in willing, joy-fill surrender, can only be the echo of His love. The pattern is set us in the Christ, and set us that we may imitate it, and we imitate it in the measure in which we lie exposed to its mighty power. ‘He gave Himself for us, that He might purchase for Himself a people for His possession.’ My surrender is but the echo of the thunder of His; my surrender is but the flash on the polished mirror which gives back the sunbeam that smites it. We yield ourselves to God, when we realise that Christ has given Himself for us.
Christian men and women, behold your destiny! God’s purpose concerning you is that you might be not your own, because you are bought with a price. And measure against that mighty purpose the halting obedience, the reluctant wills, the half-and-half surrender which is no surrender at all, which make up the lives of the average Christians among us, and see whether any of us can feel that the divine purpose is accomplished in us, or that we have paid what we owe to our God.
II. Secondly, my text suggests that God’s purpose for Christians is that they should be specimens and beginnings of a great harvest.
The sheaf that was carried into the Temple showed what sun and rain and the sweet skyey influences had been able to do on a foot or two of ground, and it prophesied of the acres of golden grain that would one day be garnered in the barns. And so, Christian men and women to-day, and even more eminently at that time when this letter was written, are meant to be the first small example of a great harvest that is to follow. The design that God had in view in our being Christianised is that we should stand here as specimens of what He means the world to be, and as witnesses of what He, by the gospel, is able to make men.
If we strip that thought of its metaphor it just comes to this, that if Christianity has been able to take one man, pick him out of the mud and mire of sense and self, and turn him into a partially and increasingly consecrated servant of God, it can do that for anybody.
The little sheaf, though there be but a handful of nodding heads in it, is a sure pledge of the harvest on the great prairie yonder, as yet untilled and unsown, which will yet hear like fruit to His praise and honour.
‘We have all of us one human heart.’ Whatever may be men’s idiosyncrasies or diversities of culture, of character, of condition, of climate, of chronology, they have all the same deep primary wants, and the deepest of them all is concord and fellowship with God. And the path to that is by faith in His dear Son, who has given Himself for us. If, then, that faith in one case has given to a man the satisfaction of that which all men are hungering for, whether they know it or not, and are restless and miserable till they find it, then there is document and evidence that this gospel, which can do that for the individual, can do it for the race. And so the first-fruits are the pledge and the prophecy of the harvest.
What a harvest is dimly hinted at in these words of my text; the ‘first-fruits of His creatures!’ That goes even wider than humanity, and stretches away out into the dim distances, concerning which we can speak with but bated breath; but at least it seems to suggest to us that, in accordance with other teaching of the New Testament, ‘the whole creation’ which ‘groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now,’ will, somehow or other, be brought into the liberty and the glory of the children of God, and, as humble waiters and attenders upon the kings who are the priests of the Most High, will participate in the power of the redemption. At all events, there seem to me to gleam dimly through such words as those of my text, the great prospects of a redeemed humanity, of a renewed earth, of a sinless universe, in which God in Christ shall be all in all.
The possibility and the certainty of that issue lie in this comparatively humble fact, that some handful of poor men have found in Jesus Christ that which their finding of it in Him manifests to them, is the elixir viloe and the hope of the world. You are meant to be specimens, exhibitions of what God intends for mankind, and of what the gospel can do for the world. Do you think, Christian men and women, that anybody, looking at you, will have a loftier idea of the possibilities of human nature, and of the potentialities of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Because if they will not, then you have thwarted your Father’s design when He sent you His Son.
III. Lastly, my text suggests that God’s purpose for Christians is that they should help the harvest.
That does not lie in the Levitical ceremonial of the sheaf of the first-fruits, of course. Though even there, I may remind you, that the thing presented on the altar carried in itself the possibilities of future growth, and that the wheaten ear has not only ‘bread for the eater but seed for the sower,’ and is the parent of another harvest. But the idea that the first-fruits are not merely first in series, but that they originate the series of which they are the first, lies in the transference of the terms and the ideas to Jesus Christ; for, as I pointed out to you in my introductory remarks, when He is called ‘ the first-fruits of them that slept,’ it is implied that He, by His power, will wake the whole multitude of the sleepers; and when it speaks of Him as’ the first-born among many brethren,’ it is implied that He, by the communication of His life, will give life, and a fraternal life, to the many brethren who will follow Him.
And so, in like manner, God’s purpose in making us ‘a kind of first-fruits of His creatures’ is not merely our consecration and the exhibition of a specimen of His power, and the pledge and prophecy of the harvest, but it is that from us there shall come influences which shall realise the harvest of which our own Christianity is the pledge and prophecy. That is to say, all Christian men and women are Christians in order that they may make more Christians.
The capacity, the obligation, the impulse, are all given in the fact of receiving Jesus Christ for ourselves. If we have Him we can preach Him, if we have Him we ought to preach Him, if we have Him in any deep and real possession, we must preach Him, and His words will be like a fire in our bones, if we forbear; and we shall not be able to stay.
‘Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves.’
What do you get Christ for? To feed upon Him. Yes! But to carry the bread to all the hungry as well.
Do not say you cannot. You can talk about anything that interests you. You can speak about anything that you know. And are your lips to be always closed about Him who has given Himself for you? Do not say that you need special gifts for it. We do need special gifts for the more public and conspicuous forms of what we call preaching nowadays. But any man and any woman that has Christ in his or her heart can go to another and say, ‘We have found the Messiah,’ and that is the best thing to say.
You ought to preach Him. Capacity involves obligation. To have anything, in this world of needy men who are all knit together in the solidarity of one family – to have any anything implies that you impart it. That is the true communism of Christianity, to be applied not only to wealth but to everything, all our possessions, all our knowledge, all our influence. We get them that they may fructify through us to all; and if we keep them, we shall be sure to spoil them. The corn laid up in storehouses is gnawed by rats, and marred by weevils. If you want it to be healthy, and your own possession of it to increase, put it into your seed-basket; and ‘in the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand,’ and it will come back to thee, ‘seed for the sower and bread for the eater.’
Now this is a matter of individual responsibility. You cannot get rid of it. Every Christian has the obligation laid upon himself, and every Christian man has some sphere in which he can discharge it, and in which, if he discharge it not, he is a dumb dog lying down and loving to slumber. Oh! I wish I could get into you tongue-tied, cowardly Christian men and women who never open your mouths to a soul for the Master’s sake, this conviction, that you are thwarting God’s purposes, and that the blood of souls lies at your door by reason of your guilty silence.
If you believe these things which I have been saying to you, the application follows. ‘The field is the world.’ And neither criticisms about missionary methods nor allegations of the superior claims of the little hit of the field round about your own doors are a sufficient vindication before God, though they may be an excuse before men, for tepid interest in, or indifference to, or lack of help of, any great missionary enterprise.
We have to sow Beside all waters; and if any men in the world were ever debtors both to the Greek and to the barbarian, both to the Englishman and the foreigner, it is the members of this great nation of ours, which, ‘as a nest hath gathered the riches of the nations, and there were none that peeped or muttered or moved the wing.’ We are debtors to the heathen world, Because whether we will or no we come into contact with heathen lands; and whether we take Bibles or not, our countrymen will take rum and gunpowder, and send men to the devil if we do not try to draw them to God. We are debtors to them in a thousand cases by injuries inflicted. We are debtors by benefits received; and we are debtors most of all because Christ died for them and for us equally.
And so, I beseech you, give us your help, and remember in giving it that ‘God of His own will hath Begotten us by the word of truth, that we should Be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Of His own will = Having willed. App-102.
begat. Greek. apokueo. See Jam 1:15.
word. App-121. Compare 1Pe 1:23.
that = to the end that. Greek. eis. App-104.
a kind of firstfruits = a certain (Greek. tis) firstfruit (Greek. aparche). See Rom 8:23. Compare Rom 11:16.
creatures. See 1Ti 4:4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
18.] The greatest example of this position, that all good and perfect gifts come from Him: mentioned not merely as an example, but as leading on to the following context. Because He willed it (the aor. part. is, 1. contemporary with the verb: 2. slightly causal, involving the condition of the act which follows. It was of His own mere will, proprio motu, and the emphasis is on this word. Exprimit quod Deus pro suo beneplacito nos genuerit, atque ita sibi fuerit causa. Unde sequitur, naturale esse Deo benefacere. Calvin) begat He ( or – (see above, Jam 1:15), here in the sense generare, as there parere. Cf. 1Pe 1:23; 1Jn 3:9. The spiritual birth, not the natural, is meant, as is evident by what follows) us (, twice repeated, signifies the Writer and his readers, not Christians in general: not especially as Jewish Christians, ,-for that is not (see below) the reference here) with the word of truth (the gen. is one of apposition: cf. Joh 17:17, . And the word of truth is the gospel, preached, and as below: cf. 1Pe 1:23, . The failure of the articles does not alter the sense. It is especially a characteristic of the abrupt sententious style of our Apostle. Cf. , Jam 1:22, where must be the word; and indeed passim. c. makes personal: , , , , : and so Athanasius, Serm. iii. advers. Arianos, vol. ii. p. 483; and Bernard, Serm. ii. ad Fratres (?): which is clearly wrong), that we should be (aim, but not the primary aim, of the . His gracious purpose with regard to us in particular was, that we should be, &c. His great purpose with regard to all Christians is not here in question. Hence is repeated) a kind of firstfruit ( similitudinis est nota, nos quodammodo esse primitias, Calv. It does not appear to be intended as Bengel, Qudam habet modestiam, nam primiti proprie et absolute est Christus. Rather, I should say, it would point to the early date of our Epistle, in which an idea afterwards so familiar is thus introduced as it were with an apologetic explanation. The figure in is from the appointment of the law by which the firstborn of man, of cattle, of fruits &c., were to be consecrated to God; and the word must be taken with this sacred meaning, not merely as a verbum commune indicating priority. The first Christians, to whom St. James is writing, were as firstborn of the great family, dedicated as firstfruits to God. Wiesinger beautifully says, The thought fully given would be this: they by Regeneration were dedicated as the firstfruits of a sacrificial gift which shall only be completed with the offering up of all ) of His creatures ( manifestly extends wider than merely to the great multitude of the regenerated whom no man can number; it embraces all creation, which we know shall partake in the ultimate glorious perfection of the sons of God: cf. Rom 8:20-21. Obviously, the are not the , as Grot. and many others). Wiesinger has an important note, shewing from this verse what must be the right understanding of much which follows in this Epistle. This passage, he says, is among those which reveal the depth of Christian knowledge in which the practical and moral exhortations of the Writer are grounded: lying as it does expressly (, Jam 1:21) at the basis of them. We will here bring together in a few words the teaching of the passage, for the sake of its important bearing on the rest of the Epistle. It teaches us, 1. as a positive supplement to Jam 1:14-15, that the life of man must be renewed, from its very root and foundation: 2. it designates this renewal as Gods work, moreover as an imparting of the life of God (), as only possible by the working of the Spirit, only on the foundation of the objective fact of our Redemption in Christ, which is the content of the : 3. it sets forth this re-generation as an act once for all accomplished (, aor.) and distinguishes it from the gradual penetration and sanctification of the individual life by means of this new principle of life imparted in the re-generation: 4. it declares also expressly that the re-generation is a free act of Gods love () not induced by any work of man (Eph 2:8-9; Tit 3:5), so that man is placed by God in his right relation to God, antecedently to all works well-pleasing to God: for this the expression involves: cf. , ch. Jam 2:5, and in so far as this necessarily implies the justification of the sinner (the of St. Paul), it is plain also, that St. James cannot, without contradicting himself, make this , in the sense of St. Paul, dependent on the works of faith. 5. is specified as the objective medium of re-generation: and herewith we must have as the appropriating medium on the part of man himself: of the central import of which in St. James also we have already seen something (Jam 1:3; Jam 1:6), and shall see more (ch. Jam 2:5; Jam 2:14 ff.). 6. Together with this act of re-generation proceeding from God, we have also the high destination of the Christian, which the Apostle gives so significantly and deeply in … And that which God has done to him, is now in the following verses made the foundation of that which the Christian has on his part to do: by which that which we said under (3) and (4) receives fresh confirmation. This passage is one to be remembered, when we wish to know what the Apostle understands by the (Jam 1:25; Jam 2:12), and what he means, when (Jam 2:14 ff.) he deduces from the works of faith. As regards the dogmatical use, which some make of this passage, wishing to shew that regeneration is brought about by the word, as distinguished from the Sacrament of Baptism (Tit 3:5-7), we may remark, that seeing that designates the gospel, as a whole, without any respect to such distinction, nothing regarding it can be gathered from this passage. The word of the Lord constitutes, we know, the force of the Sacrament also. Accedit verbum ad elementum et fit Sacramentum. And is it meant to be inferred that the readers of this Epistle were not baptized?
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Jam 1:18. , of His own will) with an inclination most loving, most free, most pure, most fruitful. In Hebrew , from , he willed: comp. Joh 1:13. , mercy, 1Pe 1:3, corresponds with this. There is an antithesis in the words, Lust, when it hath conceived.-) begat He. Antithetical to , bringeth forth (begetteth), Jam 1:15.-, us) who believe, especially of Israel. A twofold generation is spoken of, the one opposed to the other; and that which is in evil is described by abstract terms, that which is in good by concrete.-, of truth) the Gospel.- , a kind of first fruits of His creatures) We are of God by creation and generation; His workmanship, Eph 2:10; and offspring, Act 17:29. Of all His visible creatures, and they are many and great, the faithful are the first fruits, the chief and noblest part, more holy than the rest and sanctifying the rest; and it is on this account that they (the faithful) are exercised with temptations. A kind of: There is modesty in this expression, for strictly and absolutely Christ alone is the first fruits.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Jas 1:18
BROUGHT FORTH BY THE WORD
Jas 1:18
18 Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth,-The phrase, “of his own will,” is participial, and means: “willing, he brought us forth, … ” and is to be closely construed with the verses preceding. The thought runs thus: instead of regarding God as the source of temptation (and consequent sin), he it is who willed to give us life by means of the truth. The evil offspring of sin is death. God, under the same figure (conception and birth) is a parent, too. But, how vastly different the progeny! That which is born of him possesses life. This evidences the fact that the process of conversion is not accidental or of chance ; it involves the exercise of the divine will, and according to a plan previously adopted. “He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God.” (Joh 1:11-13.)
This does not mean that the selection is arbitrary or that God wills to save only a predetermined number; on the contrary, it is his desire that all should be saved, and come to the full knowledge of the truth. ( 1Ti 2:4.) Provision has been made for all (Joh 3:16); the invitation has been extended to all (Mat 11:28; Rev 22:17); and, the gospel is applicable to all (lIatt. 28: 18-20; Mar 16:15-16). That there are those not saved is not a matter involving the opposition of God’s will to them, but of the opposition of their own wills to God: “And ye will not come unto me that ye may have life.” (Joh 5:40.) The reason some do not come to the Lord, even though the gospel is preached to them, and the Lord’s gracious invitation is extended to them is by him thus explained: “For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing. And their eyes they have closed; lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should turn again, and I should heal them.” (Mat 13:15.)
That our salvation results from the free determination of the will of God does not necessitate the conclusion that his will is arbitrarily exercised, or that the choice is made independently of human agency and responsibility. The Lord calls; but he calls by the gospel (2Th 2:14) ; and the gospel is to be preached to all, and may be obeyed by all (Mar 16:15-16). The saved have been chosen; but the choice was not capricious or arbitrary ; it requires belief of the truth: “But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, for that God chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth : whereunto he called you through our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2Th 2:13-14.) God wills the salvation of all who believe his word and obey his will. (Heb 5:8-9.)
“He brought us forth,” is “begat he us,” in the King James’ Version, and, in the Greek text, apekuesen, first aorist active indicative of apokueo, the word occurring in Jas 1:15, and though not indicating any abnormality here, as there, it does suggest the idea that the action of birth was not the usual, natural one (of a mother) it being, in this instance, affirmed of God (a masculine personality). That the verb is aorist points to a specific act in the past which is a reference to the time when they were born again, saved. The “us” of the passage includes all the Christians to whom James wrote.
The instrument by which God effects the “new birth” is declared to be “the word of truth” (logoi aletheias, genitive), a word originating in truth. This is, of course, the gospel : “Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently : having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the word of God which liveth and abideth. . . . And this is the word of good tidings which was preached unto you.” (1Pe 1:22-23; 1Pe 1:25.) It follows, therefore, that the words, “He brought us forth by the word of truth,” describe that part of the conversion process in which the word of truth (the gospel) is involved. Under the figure of birth, we are begotten and born, and so become children of God. We are begotten when we believe; and the birth process is completed when we have been baptized in water. “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God.” ( 1Jn 5:1.) “In Christ Jesus I begat you through the gospel.” (1Co 4:16.) “Except one be born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” (Joh 3:5.)
that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.-The words, “that we should be,” ( eis to einai, purpose clause with the verb) indicate the aim of God’s will exercised as described in the preceding portion of the verse. The figure is that of the sheaf of firstfruits of the harvest which were offered in the passover celebration. (Lev 23:10 ; Deu 26:2.) The “First fruits” were a token and pledge of the fuller harvest to follow; and, as the sheaf of the wave offering presented to the Lord foreshadowed the bountiful harvest to follow, so the early disciples to whom James wrote were among the first of a vaster company which would follow them. Further, the offering was not only an earnest (part payment) of that which was to follow, it was the consecration of the entire harvest. The figure is not an unusual one in the New Testament. Paul declared that the house of Stephanas were “the firstfruits of Achaia” (1Co 16:15); and John, in The Revelation, makes mention of those who “are firstfruits unto God and unto the Lamb” (Rev 14:4). Our Lord, in triumphing over the grave and Hades, is by Paul affirmed to be “the firstfruits of them that are asleep.” (1Co 15:20.)
It is not improbable that James had particularly in mind the Jewish Christians, in this verse, who were first in Christ Jesus our Lord. To the Jews were committed the oracles of God (Rom 3:1), and it was long ago ordained that out of Judah the lawgiver should come (Gen 49:10). When God’s plan was fully mature, and the Savior came into the world, it was fitting that those who had borne the banner of Jehovah through the centuries in the midst of a pagan world should enjoy the distinction of having the gospel first preached to them, of becoming the first Christians, and thus to be “a kind of firstfruits” of the Lord’s people. To the Jews in Antioch in Pisidia, Paul and Barnabas said, “It was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to you … . ” (Act 13:46.) This allusion to the “firstfruits” would be very meaningful to the Jews, not only from their familiarity with the Hebrew ritual regularly engaged in at the passover feast, but from the further fact that Israel herself had by her ancient prophets been referred to as ”the first-fruits of his increase.” (Jer 2:3.)
The word “creatures,” from ktismaton, the most comprehensive term possible, is used to indicate the relationship of these early Christians to all other beings. As such, their position was unique among all the rest of creation, including not only men, but all created beings. The whole of God’s creation partakes in the blessings of redemption, and patiently waits for the conswnmation thereof. (Rom 8:19-22.)
We learn, (1) it was God’s will that those to whom James wrote should become his children; (2) these became his children by being born by the word of truth-the gospel; (3) those who thus did became the “firstfruits” in pledge of a greater harvest.
Inasmuch as it is by the word of trnth we are brought forth into spiritual life, it is vitally important that the truth be preached, believed, and obeyed. Jesus said, “And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” (Joh 8:32.) The truth is the means to spiritual freedom; and it ought, therefore, to be preached and taught in its primitive purity without admixture of human opinion or the doctrines and commandments of men. The gospel is the hope of the world; it is the panacea of humanity’s diseases, the specific for mankind’s ills. It is a sad commentary on human nature that many people today prefer to listen to pleasing falsehoods rather than what to them is unpleasant truth. And, as there are always those who desire error rather than truth, so those can be found, who for a price, will supply the preaching desired. Paul admonished Timothy to preach the word, because the time would come when men would not “endure the sound doctrine, but having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts ; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables.” (2Ti 4:1-4.)
What a glorious parentage is ours through being privileged to be “brought forth” (born of God). Inasmuch as God is our Father, we partake of his nature, the divine nature; and we are, in consequence, expected to conduct ourselves in keeping with our heritage. “And if ye call on him as Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to each man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear: knowing that ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers ; but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ. … ” (1Pe 1:17-19.)
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
his own: Joh 1:13, Joh 3:3-5, Rom 4:17, Rom 8:29-31, Rom 9:15-18, Eph 2:4, Eph 2:5, Col 1:20, Col 1:21, 2Th 2:13, 2Th 2:14, 1Pe 1:3, 1Pe 1:23
with: Jam 1:21, 1Co 4:15, Eph 1:12, 1Pe 1:23, 1Jo 3:9
kind: Lev 23:10, Jer 2:3, Amo 6:1, *marg. Heb 12:23, Rev 14:4
Reciprocal: Exo 4:22 – Israel Exo 22:29 – shalt not delay Exo 34:26 – first Lev 23:17 – the firstfruits Num 8:17 – I sanctified Num 15:20 – a cake Num 28:26 – in the day Deu 26:2 – That thou shalt 2Ch 31:5 – came abroad Psa 17:4 – word Psa 119:43 – take not Psa 119:50 – for thy Isa 55:11 – shall my Jer 31:3 – with lovingkindness have I drawn Eze 44:30 – all the firstfruits Dan 11:3 – do Mat 13:38 – the good Mat 20:15 – it Joh 6:63 – the words Rom 9:16 – General Rom 10:17 – faith Rom 11:16 – if the firstfruit Rom 16:5 – who 1Co 12:11 – as 2Co 6:7 – the word Gal 4:19 – little Eph 1:13 – the word Eph 1:19 – exceeding Eph 5:26 – by Phi 1:29 – not 1Th 2:13 – effectually Heb 4:12 – is quick Heb 6:4 – and have Heb 8:10 – I will put 1Pe 4:2 – the will 1Jo 2:29 – is born 1Jo 5:1 – and every 1Jo 5:18 – whosoever
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE POWER OF THE PULPIT
Of His own will begat He us with the Word of Truth.
Jam 1:18
Simon and Andrewcalled to be fishers of menwere not unknown to the Lord Jesus, nor He to them. They had seen Him as the Lamb of God; they had visited His home and held communion with Him; and they had witnessed some of His miracles. The call was not without preparation, nor was it unreasonable. The promised training to catch men was attractive. The subsequent miraculous draught of fishes was an encouraging sign of success.
I. Not only are the faithful ministers of Christ fishermen, but He who teaches how to fish is in the boat with them; the Gospel net is His own; and every now and then the order goes forth, Let down your net for a draft, while the answer of faith is given, At Thy word we will let down the net. And men, often the most unlikely, are caught and laid as a sacred offering at the feet of Jesus, meet for the Masters use. The commission of the Apostle Paul is another case in point. Prepared by a vision of the Lamb of God, like the early Apostles, he was called as follows: I am Jesus Whom thou persecutest. But rise and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness. Now observe what a minister and witness in our Lords estimation really isboth of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Me. In other words, St. Paul was to catch menthe end of his ministry was the conversion of souls unto God.
II. St. Pauls own ministry is in accordance with this commission.Some persons have thought that he made comparatively little use of the sacraments, because they are so seldom alluded to or mentioned in his writings and speeches. But the fact is, the primary idea in his mind was, not so much the benefits of the sacraments to believers nor the privileges and blessings of those who were already saved, but the preaching of the Word, the reaching of the conscience, the will, the affection, the reasoning powers, by the Gospelin other words, the bringing men into that status outside of which sacrament and Christian advantages were valueless. What he did himself is what he ordained others to do. Timothy was to preach the Word. The manifestation of Gods Word through preaching is the basis of His Epistle to Titus. It is the same with the other Apostles. The truth is an expression which serves as a special feature of St. Johns writingsan expression caught from the Saviours lips. St. Peter and St. James ascribe every blessing to the Word. St. Jude points out that heresy and viciousness of life were owing to a neglect of the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.
III. Our Lord not only preached the Word Himself, but He showed from the Parable of the Sower that the primary work of His disciples was to sow the seed of the Word.Nay, the sower who soweth the Word is our Lord Himself. So St. Matthew tells us. His disciples act as His deputies. He is still the Sower, by whatever instruments or agents he works. Now it is admitted, in some sense and in some cases, that there is a necessity for conversion. But all do not rightly use the one great means by which it is to be effected. The Bible is not in the hands of our people, nor in our churches, nor in our day and Sunday-schools as it used to be. So-called Church teaching is not always sowing the seed of Gods Word. Vague utterances will never really touch or change a heart. To speak about conversion is not to convert. Moreover, conversion is not a mere resuscitation of grace, nor a living up to privileges, nor an outward reformation of life. It is an inward change effected by the Holy Spirit of Goda new birth, manifesting itself in a new life; and the instrument by which, in the case of adults, it is effected is the Word of Truth. To give the Bible, therefore, a secondary place, or to misstate the need of such a conversion and the means by which it is brought about, is never to attain the great end of the Christian ministry.
IV. No section of the Church of England makes light of the pulpit.But preaching, however interesting, however eloquent, however widely instructive, is not always preaching that will convert. Sermons without any Christ in them, without an adequate estimate of mans sinfulness, without a declaration, clear and unmistakable, of the design and effect of the atonement, may charm the ear, please the imagination, quickly while away the time, but they will never turn men from darkness to light nor from the power of Satan unto God; nor will sermons about the Church, her apostolicity, her catholicity, her energy and zeal; nor yet will sermons with the mere shibboleths of evangelical truth. If the great end of the Christian ministry be the glory of God in the conversion of souls, we may well ask, Have we aimed at or in any degree attained this glory? Exercising the very widest charity, we must say of a town, of a parish, of a church, how few are really on the narrow path of life and how many are on the broad road of destruction. I pause not to consider whether we and the godly in our congregation who are bound to aid us by prayer and sympathy are to blame in this matter, for I do not look back now to the past, but onward to the future that lies before us. Let repentance deal with the past; let hope animate us for the future.
V. There are three subjects Gods ministers ought incessantly to mention at the throne of grace.
(a) Personal sanctification according to the covenant of grace and the prayer of our great IntercessorSanctify them through Thy truth, Thy word is truth.
(b) A life for Gods glory.
(c) Ministerial joy. Ministerial joy is more than the joy of large congregations, crowded communions, and satisfactory offerings of money or service, very charming and encouraging as they are in their proper places; it is the joy of noting the signs of the conversion to God and of the sanctifying effects of that conversion. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
Rev. Canon McCormick.
Illustrations
(1) When Queen Elizabeth tried to check Archbishop Grindal in his preaching zeal, he wrote, Public and continual preaching of Gods Word is the ordinary means and instrument of the salvation of mankind. St. Paul calls it the ministry of reconciliation of man to God. By preaching of Gods Word, the glory of God is enlarged, faith is nourished and charity is increased. By it the ignorant is instructed, the negligent exhorted and incited, the stubborn rebuked, the weak conscience comforted, and to all those that sin of malicious wickedness the wrath of God is threatened.
(2) The primitive bishops were the greatest preachers of their time. It is to preaching that Christianity owes its origin, its continuance, and its progress; and it is to itinerating preaching (however the ignorant may undervalue it) that we owe the conversion of the Roman world from Paganism to primitive Christianity, our own freedom from the thraldom of Popery, in the success of the Reformation, and the revival of Christianity at the present day. No one can read 1 Corinthians 1, Romans 10, or our Lords commission, and the action of our Lord and His Apostles, without seeing the importance of preaching.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Jas 1:18. The writer again uses the thought of reproduction for an illustration. A father begets his own children and they become of the same kind of creatures as himself. God begets men by the word of truth concerning Christ (1Jn 5:1). First-fruits is used in the sense of seniority because Christians are the first creatures who are said to have been born to God through faith in Jesus who is the “only begotten” Son of the Father in the sense of personality of being.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jas 1:18. Of his own willAfter the counsel of His own will, as St. Paul expresses it(Eph 1:11). Regeneration is here alluded to as the highest instance of the Divine goodness. It is not a necessary act of God, but proceeds from His own free will.
begat he us. It is evident from what follows that spiritual and not natural birth is here referred to: believers are begotten of God (Joh 1:13).
with the word of truth: the instrument of our regeneration, namely the Gospel, so called because truth is inherent in it. Some erroneously interpret the word here as signifying the Logos, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ; but this is exclusively an expression of St. John.
that we should be a kind of first-fruits: a Jewish form of expression taken from the custom of presenting the first-fruits to God. Christians are here called first-fruits because they are consecrated to God, dedicated to the praise of His glory. Those Jewish Christians also, to whom St. James wrote, might be regarded as the first-fruits of Christianity, being the first converts to Christ, and the earnest of the spiritual harvestthe vast increase of converts from the Gentile world.
of his creatures: of the new creation, that great multitude of the redeemed whom no man can number: and perhaps not even to be limited to them, but to embrace all the creatures of God, pointing forward to that time when the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Rom 8:21).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
These words are very expressive of four things, namely, of the efficient cause, the impulsive cause, the instrumental and the final cause fo our regeneration.
Observe, 1. The author and efficient cause of regeneration; he that is the Father of lights, mentioned in the foregoing verse, begat us.
Note, that God, and God alone, is the prime efficient cause of regenration; it is subjectively in the creature, it is efficiently from God: Christ appropriates this work to God, Mat 11:23. The Scriptures appropriates it to God, Psa 34:9, called his saints, and God himself appropriates it to himself, I will put my spirit within them, &c. Eze 36:27
Observe, 2. The impelling, impulsive, and moving cause of regeneration, his own will: Of his own will begat he us; by his mere motion, induced by no cause, but the goodness of his own breast, of his own will, and not naturally, as he begat the Son from eternity; of his own will, and not necessarily, by a necessity of nature, as the sun enlightens and enlivens, but by an arbitrariness of grace; of his own will, and not by any obligation from the creature; by the will of God, and not for the merit and desert of man.
Observe, 3. The instrumental cause of our regeneration, the word of truth, that is, the gospel, which is the great instrument in God’s hand for producing the new birth in the souls of his people.
Here note, the gospel is called truth by way of excellency, the word of truth, that is, the true word; and also by way of eminency, as containing a higher and more excellent truth than any other divine truth; the gospel declares the truth of all the Old Testament types.
Observe, 4. The final cause of our new birth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures, that is, of his new creatures, the chief among his creatures; the first-fruits were the best of every kind to be offered to God, and were given as God’s peculiar right and portion; thus the new creature is God’s peculiar portion taken out of mankind, which being consecrated to God by a new begetting, they ought to serve him with a new spirit, new thankfulness, as lying under the highest obligations unto new obedience.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Jas 1:18. Of his own will Without any necessity on his part, or merit on ours; from a will most loving, most free, most pure, just opposite to our evil desire, Jas 1:15; begat he us He converted, regenerated us, who believe; by the word of truth The true word, emphatically so termed, the gospel; that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures The most excellent of his visible creatures, and consecrated to, and set apart for him in an especial manner. The first-fruits being the best of their kind, by calling the regenerated the first-fruits of Gods creatures, the apostle has shown how acceptable such are to God, and how excellent in themselves through the renovation of their nature; and as the first-fruits, being offered to God, were supposed to sanctify the rest of the harvest, true Christians, who are in a peculiar manner dedicated to God, in some respects may be said to sanctify the rest. The apostle says, a kind of first-fruits, for Christ alone is absolutely the first-fruits.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Verse 18
Begat he us; as his spiritual children. That is, he formed in us, by his own power, that new temper of mind which characterizes his children.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.
“Of his own will” is a verb. He willed this event; He brought it into being via His will. It is an Aorist tense, thus refers back to the decree, in my mind, when He decreed that some would be elected to son ship.
“Begat” is also an aorist verb, also referring back to the decree. Some might question whether this goes back to the decrees or if it is an individual begetting when one becomes a believer. The “us” would require it going back to the decree and not being an individual item. (The “us” and “we” are the same Greek word.)
What “word of truth” is speaking of is up for grabs. Some would suggest that it is the Word itself, the Scriptures. Others would suggest that it is something else, that the Scriptures were not in existence at this early date.
Personally, if we are speaking of events that occurred in eternity past, then this being the Scriptures would not be a real problem, though I suspect it relates more specifically to the word of truth spoken to us that brings us to the Lord in salvation.
The Word presumes to tell us how to live. It tells us what we should do, and it tells us what we should not do. Yet, we presume to set it aside and tell God that we don’t need it. Many have little to no Bible study time in their lives unless it is the spoon feeding of Pabulum at church.
The Word controls our living, so if Christians are living primarily in sin, we must assume that there is little of the Word in their lives. A number of years ago there was a large gathering of missionaries in Japan. Many of the American ideas set forth were rejected out of hand due to their liberalness and lack of separation from sin.
The Word should be our basis and our guide to everyday living. If it is not then the world will be our basis and this is quite obvious in our world today. The phrase “word of truth” seems to have an authoritative ring to it. I trust that the Word is your only authority in life.
This was done so that we would be “a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” We need to determine just what that might mean.
Since this is an early book, it might relate to the early church believers – those that were converted from the day of Pentecost to the time of writing. They would be the firstfruits of the Gospel of Christ.
There may be a play on words here, as he speaks of firstfruits and the word creatures can be translated “thing founded” which seems to be descriptive of firstfruits. Those that James speaks of are the first bearing fruit of His creation.
Firstfruits relates to the first of a harvest, so they were the first of a large harvest of His creatures. This is the terminology of the Great Commission, that of a harvest, a large harvest that is in progress since the cross.
Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson
1:18 {14} Of his own {q} will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of {r} firstfruits of his creatures.
(14) The fourth part concerning the excellency and fruit of the word of God, The sum is this: we must listen to the word of God most carefully and diligently, seeing it is the seed, through which God by his free favour and love has begotten us to himself, picking us out of the number of his creatures. The apostle condemns two faults, which greatly trouble us in this matter. For we so please ourselves, that we would rather speak ourselves, than hear God speaking. Indeed, we are angry when we are reproached and ignore it. Opposed to these faults, he sets a peaceable and quiet mind, and such as desires purity.
(q) This is what Paul calls gracious favour, an good will, which is the fountain of our salvation.
(r) As it were an holy type of offering, taken out of the remnant of men.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The greatest of God’s gifts for believers is the gift of new life in Christ. God’s deliberate initiative provided this gift for us, and His special revelation communicated it to us (i.e., the message marked by truth). This verse along with the preceding one shows clearly that James believed that eternal life was a gift of God’s grace. We need to keep this in mind when we read James’ discussion of faith and works that follows in chapter 2. James also agreed with Paul that our salvation springs from the sovereign volition of God (cf. Rom 4:21-22; 2Co 4:6). He initiated it.
The "first fruits" probably refer to all Christians who persevere in spite of trials. All believers will bring glory to God’s name, but believers who remain faithful to Christ will please Him greatly, as the first fruits in Israel were a special offering to God. The Greek word translated "first fruits" (aparche) refers to what is first in honor as well as to what is first in order. The biblical writers used it "of persons superior in excellence to others of the same class." [Note: A Greek-English . . ., s.v. "aparche." Cf. Revelation 14:4.]
The point of these verses (17-18) seems to be that God’s intention for all people, and believers in particular, is invariably their blessing. Rather than viewing temptations to depart from the will of God as heaven-sent, we must see them as the potential enemies of spiritual growth. Instead of caving in under their weight we must brace ourselves against them. We can do so knowing that the effort will make us better this side of the grave, and it will yield a wonderful reward the other side of the grave.
"James outlined the source of temptation, the steps in temptation, and the solution for temptation." [Note: Blue, p. 822.]