1:12-18 It is not every man who suffers, that is blessed; but he who with patience and constancy goes through all difficulties in the way of duty. Afflictions cannot make us miserable, if it be not our own fault. The tried Christian shall be a crowned one. The crown of life is promised to all who have the love of God reigning in their hearts. Every soul that truly loves God, shall have its trials in this world fully recompensed in that world above, where love is made perfect. The commands of God, and the dealings of his providence, try men's hearts, and show the dispositions which prevail in them. But nothing sinful in the heart or conduct can be ascribed to God. He is not the author of the dross, though his fiery trial exposes it. Those who lay the blame of sin, either upon their constitution, or upon their condition in the world, or pretend they cannot keep from sinning, wrong God as if he were the author of sin. Afflictions, as sent by God, are designed to draw out our graces, but not our corruptions. The origin of evil and temptation is in our own hearts. Stop the beginnings of sin, or all the evils that follow must be wholly charged upon us. God has no pleasure in the death of men, as he has no hand in their sin; but both sin and misery are owing to themselves. As the sun is the same in nature and influences, though the earth and clouds, often coming between, make it seem to us to vary, so God is unchangeable, and our changes and shadows are not from any changes or alterations in him. What the sun is in nature, God is in grace, providence, and glory; and infinitely more. As every good gift is from God, so particularly our being born again, and all its holy, happy consequences come from him. A true Christian becomes as different a person from what he was before the renewing influences of Divine grace, as if he were formed over again. We should devote all our faculties to God's service, that we may be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures.

Verse 18. - Begat; literally, brought forth; ἀπεκύησεν. The word has been already used of sin in ver. 15. The recurrence of it here points to the connection of thought. The offspring of sin has been shown to be death. God, too, who is both Father and Mother (Bengel), has his offspring. But how different! Us (ημῦς). To whom does this refer?

(1) To all Christians.

(2) To Christians of the apostolic age.

(3) To Jewish Christians, to whom the Epistle is specially addressed.

Probably (3). Just as Israel of old was Jehovah's firstborn (Exodus 4:22), so now the germ of the Christian Church, as found in these Judaeo-Christian communities, was to be "a kind of firstfruits." The thought may be illustrated from a striking parallel in Philo ('De Creat. Princ.'): Τὸ σύμπαν Ἰουδαίων ἔθνος ... τοῦ σύμπαντος ἀνθρώπων γένους ἀπενεμηυη οῖα τις ἀπαρχή τῷ ποιῃτῇ πατρί. Transfer this from the Jewish to the Judaeo-Christian communities, and we have the very thought of the apostle. By the word of truth (cf. 1 Peter 1:23, where, as here, the new birth is connected with the Word of God). A kind of firstfruits of his creatures (ἀπαρχή). The image is taken from the wave sheaf, the firstfruits of the harvest, the earnest of the crop to follow. St. Paul (according to a very possible reading) has the same figure in 2 Thessalonians 2:13, "God chose you as firstfruits (ἀπαρχήν);" see R.V. margin. Elsewhere he applies it to Christ, "the Firstfruits of them that are asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). "His creatures (κτισμάτων)." It does not appear to be absolutely necessary to extend the use of this word so as to include the irrational creation as well as mankind. בדיה is frequently used in rabbinical writings for the Gentile world, and κτίσμα may be given the same meaning here, and perhaps κτίσις in Mark 16:15; Romans 8:19, etc.; Colossians 1:23.

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 John 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, 1 Peter 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 John 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 Ephesians 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 Gill on Mark 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.

18. (Joh 1:13). The believer's regeneration is the highest example of nothing but good proceeding from God.

Of his own will—Of his own good pleasure (which shows that it is God's essential nature to do good, not evil), not induced by any external cause.

begat he us—spiritually: a once-for-all accomplished act (1Pe 1:3, 23). In contrast to "lust when it hath conceived, bringeth forth sin, and sin … death" (Jas 1:15). Life follows naturally in connection with light (Jas 1:17).

word of truth—the Gospel. The objective mean, as faith is the appropriating mean of regeneration by the Holy Spirit as the efficient agent.

a kind of first-fruits—Christ is, in respect to the resurrection, "the first-fruits" (1Co 15:20, 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 of the ultimate regeneration of the creation, Ro 8:19, 23, where also the Spirit, the divine agent of the believer's regeneration, is termed "the first-fruits," that is, the earnest that the regeneration now begun in the soul, shall at last extend to the body too, and to the lower parts of creation. Of all God's visible creatures, believers are the noblest part, and like the legal "first-fruits," sanctify the rest; for this reason they are much tried now.

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