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James 1:18

He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
(NIV)
Firstfruits is a word that can be used to refer to first parts of a harvest that were offered to God. In a way, we are those firstfruits of His creation. Our lives are a living sacrifice to God. Consider Romans 12:1,
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.
I would like to point out the beginning of this verse. It says, "He chose to give us birth..." In the NAS it puts that phrase like this, "In the exercise of His will He brought us forth..."That is probably a better translation of this phrase because of the use of the word will. In the original, that is the word that is used, and it means exactly that. God purposed to bring us forth. It was according to His will.

Whether you would consider yourself a Calvinist or not, phrases like this should not be ignored.

We should also not ignore the phrase "the word of truth" because it is through this that God births us as Christians. We do not get to God any other way. There is no other way, there is no other path to God. Some argue with this, they would say that all roads lead to God, but that is definitely not a Biblical teaching.
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Comments

  1. Anonymous9/07/2007 2:42 PM

    The apostles John & Peter agree with you.[see John 1:1, Acts 4:12]

    ReplyDelete
  2. Matt Harmless9/09/2007 3:59 PM

    Thank you for the additional references. For others who are interested, here are those references...

    John 1:1
    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
    (Really, almost all of the book of John is invaluable in understanding the role of the Word.)

    and Acts 4:12
    Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

    ReplyDelete

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