James and Us

QUESTION

“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 with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.” (James 1:16-18)

Please help with a question with the passage above. In verse 18, who does the pronoun 'us' refer to? Why are they "a kind of first fruits of his creatures"? Thank you most kindly.

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ANSWER

"Us" has reference to the "brethren" James is addressing. This is an important interpretive guardrail required to properly understand James's argument in many respects. For example, it means that what he refers to as "dead faith" is not "absolutely no faith at all" but the unprofitable state of those who have God-given faith who fail to exercise it as they ought. Their faith is inert, unused, wasted. It falls along the same lines as Paul's admonition: "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." (Ephesians 5:14) This was spoken to a regenerate, gospel-converted group of disciples. When he refers to them as "dead" he does not mean "dead in trespasses and sins" because these people were described as having been quickened from that prior condition (Ephesians 2:1). He is speaking of the unprofitability of failing to exercise the faith they have been given to its profitable end as disciples.

In this context I believe it's likely that the "first fruits" has reference to the gospel converted who were the produce of apostolic ministry in growing the Lord's NT church after Pentecost. There are other possible explanations, but this seems amenable to the context and audience addressed.

- Elder Daniel Samons