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In the previous verses the apostle has fully illustrated this point, that the consequences of rejecting the truth of the resurrection are altogether more serious than any that can conceivably attend belief. If Christ be not risen, then our faith is vain, preaching is vain, even the apostles are false witnesses, the dead in Christ have perished, and we are yet in the misery and the peril of our sins. Our text is the revulsion from such an awful picture. It cannot be so. It must be true that "Christ is risen from the dead, and become the Firstfruits of them that slept." In speaking here of firstfruits, the apostle takes the general, rather than the special Old Testament, idea of them, though the fact of his writing at the time of the Passover no doubt suggested the figure.

I. FIRSTFRUITS SHOW THE POSSIBILITY OF HARVEST. So Christ, as a human being, showed the possibility of resurrection. Imagine that the fields had never waved with harvest, and that in this springtime the seeds were first sown. How men would watch for the result! Some stalks may be ripened early in the sheltered warm corner. It is enough to rest our hearts: we know there can be golden grain waving over all the field. So the grave field is sown with the living seeds; and Christ is a seed sown among them. Lo! long before the others, one single blade appears. And the one says, "Wait patiently awhile." Man can rise. One day the grave fields of earth will be rich with the golden harvests of the resurrection life. This firstfruit comes to tell us that it can be so.

II. FIRSTFRUITS ASSURE OF THE CERTAINTY OF HARVEST. So Christ, as the representative human Being, assures the certainty of resurrection. Take a handful of seeds - say a handful of seemingly dead seeds from a mummy case. Try if they have life by placing one of them in the soil. If one lives, all will live. It is a firstfruit which pledges a harvest. So it is with Christ. The relation in which he stands to men makes him the test of their resurrection. "If a man die, shall he live again?" Who shall answer that question? Is there a living and undying germ in that body which we bury out of our sight? Try. Take one and let it be representative. Take the Man Christ Jesus. Describe his burial, and the glory of the Easier morning when he rose. But on what grounds do we affirm that what is true of one will be true of all the others? It may be urged that one instance often suffices to establish a law. But, further, God's Word declares that Christ occupied a special place in relation to man. He was constituted his Representative. The human race has two heads, Adam and Christ. One covers the race for death, and one for life - the eternal life. Did all die in Adam? Then, verily, all shall be made alive in Christ. And certainty is added to bare possibility, and death has lost its great terror.

III. FIRSTFRUITS UNFOLD THE CHARACTER OF THE HARVEST. So Christ, as the model Christian, declares the character of the resurrection. Christ bore relation to the whole world; he is representative Man. But he bore a special relation to his own people; he is the representative Christian, Therefore we have two things in his resurrection:

(1) the bare fact;

(2) the glorious character of the fact.

Firstfruits show the character of coming harvest. Illustrate by our thoughts and fears as we see the firstfruits thin, blighted, speckled; or standing well, clean, strong, and full. What hope, then, is there in Christ's resurrection, regarding him as the First fruits from the dead? What will our coming life be if it is like his during the forty days he tarried with us?

1. Christ's forty days showed that the new life will be beyond the limiting conditions of humanity. It will be to our old life as flower to seed.

2. Christ's forty days showed the new life will have the old recognitions and the old sympathies. Jesus was in feeling the same.

3. Christ's forty days showed the new life to be a deathless and eternal life. This is the truth of the ascension. Once out of the death-grasp, death is done away. Impress

(1) the importance of all moral seed sowings, as directly bearing on the resurrection life;

(2) the duty of fixing firmly our oneness to Christ, our Representative and Head;

(3) the joy of cherishing a good hope of the great awaking. - R.T.

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KJV: But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

WEB: But now Christ has been raised from the dead. He became the first fruits of those who are asleep.