James 1:18

James 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, James 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 God’s 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.

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.