CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
James 1:17. Father of lights.—The luminaries of heaven; as symbols of all kinds of lights, natural, intellectual, spiritual. Shadow of turning.—Or shadow that is cast by turning. The terms “variableness” and “shadow of turning” distinctly refer to the movements of the heavenly bodies, and decide the idea of James in speaking of God as “Father of lights.”
James 1:18. Begat.—More lit. “brought He us forth.” Word of truth.—Not here the personal Logos, but the revealed word, the medium of the Divine sanctifying. Firstfruits.—See Leviticus 23:10; Deuteronomy 26:2.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— James 1:16-18
The Helpfulness of cherishing Right Thoughts of God.—The tone of every life is given by the idea that is entertained of God. This is abundantly illustrated by comparing the moral life of Pagans and heathen with the gods whom they acknowledge. But it may be also illustrated by the philosophical misrepresentations, and the ignorant caricatures, of the God of Christianity. In whatever sense men make their own gods, “they that made them are like unto them.” The moral conduct never can rise higher than the moral conception of the deity worshipped. Then how much is done for humanity when the revelation is made of a holy God! How much is done when that holiness is seen to be a human possibility, because realised in the Divine Man, the Lord Jesus.
I. God is good, and the ultimate Source of all good.—The apprehension of this is the foundation of morality. We start with the affirmation of goodness in God. “None is good save one, that is God.”
1. Everything that is good in the world has the God-stamp upon it. “Every good gift, and every perfect boon, is from above.”
2. Everything in the world that is good has the permanent stamp upon it. Evil is in its nature temporary. It needs to be changed into good. Good is in its nature permanent, for it does not need to be changed into anything.
3. Everything in the world that is good is an active force, working at the removal of evil. The highest good that the good God works is making typically good people.
(1) God is the source of good.
(2) God is always the source of good.
(3) But He is the source only of perfect good. That perfect good may be within our power of estimating, or it may be beyond it, and then we are thrown back on our primary conviction of His essential goodness. If God is good, what He does must be good, though it may not seem good.
II. God is the Father of lights, who casts not shadows.—“With whom there can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.” St. James has in mind the movements, and changing appearances, and uncertain shining of sun and moon and stars. There are sun shadows cast by the varying relative positions of earth and sun and moon. God is thought of as Father of lights, Originator of all lights, eternal Light, who abides, never moves to cast a shadow. His agents may cast shadows; He never does. For ever and for ever shine forth from Him unqualified benedictions. Men may turn those benedictions into curses, but that can never alter the fact that they are benedictions. Earthly atmospheres may dim and defile the rays of the sun, but only by adding some evil to them; the rays are still pure, life-giving rays.
1. God Himself is light.
2. God is the Father (Author) of lights, all lights. Everything that is good, pure, true, right, is in sonship to God. And over everything that is good He has a fatherly care and concern. Whensoever we stand to the good, we stand with God. Whensoever we suffer for the good, we suffer with God. If anything in life is perplexing, and we scarcely know whether to call it evil or good, there is always this sufficing test to apply to it—does it prefer the shadow or the light? Everything that loves the light is of God.
III. God is the Author of the new life in man, and that life is light like Himself.—Illustrate from the voice, “Let there be light,” which broke up the chaos of the material earth. That voice speaks life to dead souls, light to bring order into the chaos of fallen human nature. We are made “light in the Lord.” And some are so made that they might become “light-bearers,” “holding forth the word of life.” Or to use the figure of James 1:18, to be “a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.”
Learn—
1. That there is peril of deception in regard to God.
2. That peril is great when we only look around us.
3. That peril is great when we take up only man’s view of God.
4. That peril is great if, without help from Divine revelation, we try to read human history.
5. That peril is relieved when we follow the teachings of the inspired word.
6. That peril is for ever removed when we come into those personal relations with the Father of lights, which He graciously permits.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
James 1:16. The Peril of Deception.—“Be not deceived, my beloved brethren.” The particular peril St. James has in mind is the peril of being deceived as to the character of God. Right thoughts of God are at the basis of right living. Wrong thoughts of God make possible lives of self-indulgence and sin. Therefore, from the time of the first temptation in Eden, the policy of the evil one has been to suggest wrong thoughts of God, to deceive with regard to the character and requirements of God.
I. There is peril of deception from one-sided, and therefore imperfect, teachings about God. They may exaggerate His holy severities, or they may exaggerate His loving-kindnesses.
II. There is peril of deception when man makes himself the standard of God.—This reproach is given, “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.” Man must rise from himself to conceive of God; but he must never match God by himself, or limit God to what he knows of himself. He is not altogether such an one as we are. In the image of God was man created, on purpose that he might rise from the knowledge of himself to the knowledge of God.
III. There is peril of deception when man trusts to what nature can teach, and refuses the help of revelation. It is not that nature witnesses incorrectly; it does witness imperfectly. It is true as far as it goes; it is unsatisfactory because it cannot go far enough.
IV. There is peril of deception when undue reliance is placed on the teachings of man.—It is not merely that there are false teachers; there are also sectarian teachers, who force on attention particular views of God as the foundation of their exclusive views. Safeguard amid the perils of being deceived concerning the being and character of God is obtained through maintaining—
1. Personal relations with God;
2. Simple-minded confidence in God’s revelations of Himself in and through His inspired word. No man needs to be deceived. Any man will be easily deceived who wishes to be deceived, or allows himself to be put off his guard.
James 1:16-17. God the Only Source of All Good.—There is much evil in the world. Why does God permit this? We are called to feel and maintain that He does all things well, that however He may permit He does not do evil; but that, on the contrary, all good, and nothing but good, is to be ascribed to Him. We need to have just views of this matter, since for want of them we greatly err.
I. The true character of the Deity.—He is declared to be the only and the unchanging source of all good.
1. He is the only source of all good. All light proceeds from the sun. So there is no “good and perfect gift” but proceeds from God—
(1) in nature;
(2) in providence;
(3) in grace. All works for the benefit, the welfare, of His people.
2. He is the unchanging source of all good. The sun has its changes, annual and diurnal; but Jehovah, the Father of all heavenly lights, changes not. His light may be intercepted by a cloud, but He Himself remains the same.
II. The errors we run into for want of duly adverting to it.—We err exceedingly—
1. In a way of self-vindication. “Let no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed.” James adds, “Do not err.” Evil is from ourselves, and good is from God.
2. In a way of self-dependence. We are prone to look for some good in ourselves, instead of seeking all good from God alone. Satan himself may as well look for these things in himself as we. All our springs are in God.
3. In a way of self-applause. We are no less prone to take to ourselves credit from what is good than to shift off from ourselves blame in what is evil. If there is any good in us, it is from Christ that we have received it. If we have attained to anything more than ordinary, we must say, “He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God.” Even if we equalled the apostle Paul we must say, “By the grace of God”; and in reference to every individual act, “Not I, but the grace of God.”
Application.—“Do not err.” Be aware of your tendencies; correct them. If you arrogate anything to yourselves, you will rob God; and in robbing Him, you will eventually, and to your utter ruin, rob yourselves.—Charles Simeon, M.A.
James 1:17. Father of Lights.—God is the Father of all lights—the light of the natural world, the sun, the moon, and stars, shining in the heavens; the light of reason and conscience; the light of His law; the light of prophecy, shining in a dark place; the light of the gospel shining throughout the world; the light of apostles, confessors, martyrs, bishops, and priests, preaching that gospel to all nations; the light of the Holy Ghost shining in our hearts; the light of the heavenly city: God is the Father of them all. He is the everlasting Father of the everlasting Son, who is the Light of the world.—Bishop Words-worth.
Light is God.—To the turning of our planet from the sun we owe our knowledge of the universe. In the symbolism of its darkness and light we have our sublimest revelation of God. Light, which is called God, and is God, issues for ever from the infinite bosom of His darkness. Darkness and light are both alike to Him; for He is as much one as the other. The Son of God, the only begotten Light, reveals the “Father of lights,” as suns reveal the ether. God presents Himself in the Light, but also conceals Himself, as we both present and hide ourselves in our garments. “Thou coverest Thyself with light as with a garment.” As the infinite ether is hidden by the daylight, even so is God hidden by the light of the angelic heavens, which reveals Him. Therefore all those who dwell in the eternal light worship the unseen God, and live “as seeing the invisible.” They know that light is but His effluence. They worship the Light, as God, and again, with silent ineffable adoration, they worship what is behind the Light.—John Pulsford.
Sun and Cloud.—As the sun is the same in its nature and influences, though the earth and clouds, oft interposing, make-it seem to us as varying by its rising and setting, and by its different appearances, or entire withdrawment, when the change is not in it, so God is unchangeable, and our changes and shadows are not from any mutability or shadowy alterations in Him, but from ourselves.—Baxter.
Shadow of Turning.—With Him is nothing analogous to those optical delusions, those periodical obscurations, those vicissitudes of seasons, which attend the annual and diurnal course of the sun. St. James incidentally controverts that doctrine of fatalism in the Pharisees, which ascribed the conditions of men to the influence of the heavenly bodies.
James 1:18. Pain and Death in Nature.—The very struggles which all animated beings make against pain and death show that pain and death are not a part of the proper laws of their nature, but rather a bondage imposed on them from without; thus every groan and fear is an unconscious prophecy of liberation from the power of evil.—Dean Howson.
Firstfruits of the Creatures.
I. Firstfruits to show the possibility of harvest.—Suppose that never before this year had the fields of earth waved with the golden grain; that now, for the first time, with measured step and waving hand, the husbandman moved to and fro over his fields, scattering the precious seeds. How intently he would watch those fields in the after-weeks! One or two blades force their way through the soil; they grow quickly in one warm, moist corner. The ears form and bud, and swell, and ripen early there; and the husbandman carries home those firstfruits as the assurance that there can be a harvest from his sowing.
II. Firstfruits assure us of the character of the harvest.—Examine carefully those quickly ripened first-fruits. You can judge from them what will be the quality and the extent of the harvest. The same blights have swept over the field as have smitten those firstfruits. There has been the same soil, the same culture, the same dew and rain and sunshine. You can tell from the handful of firstfruits whether the barns will be loaded and the yield will be enriching. Do these firstfruits stand well? Are they strong in the stalk, full in the ear, free from mildew and rust? Then soon you shall see the whole valley waving in the summer breeze, and reflecting the golden glory of the summer sky. You shall hear the sharp cutting of the reapers, as they gather in the precious grain. Are those firstfruits thin and speckled, and small, and unsteady on the stalk? Then there is a wail of despair in the soul, for the harvest will scarcely repay the cost of ingathering. St. James calls the first Jewish Christians the “firstfruits of his creatures.” There is a promise for the race in every unusually good man; then what promise there must be in Christ!
Firstfruits of the Human Harvest.—There are always some favourable situations in a country where the harvest ripens quickly. This is especially the case in Palestine, parts of which are tropical or sub-tropical. The interest of “firstfruits” lies in their implying “after-fruits.” But to a Jew, with the feelings and associations of Mosaism, a peculiar interest attached to “firstfruits,” and by the term a special thing was understood. The fruit of all manner of trees, for the first three years, was not to be eaten, nor any profit made of it; in the fourth year it was to be holy, and used only to praise the Lord, being either given to the priests, or solemnly eaten by the owners before the Lord in Jerusalem; in the fifth year it might be eaten, and made use of for profit, and thenceforward every year. Explain man’s harvest of the earth and harvest of the sea. He only reaps and gathers in what God provides for him. Then it is most befitting that he should make first acknowledgment to God. From Cain and Abel show the natural impulse which leads man to make his thank-offering. A portion of the very blessing God has given us is the best thank-offering. Explain God’s harvest of the earth. He “would have all men to be saved.” The Redeemer shall “see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied.” Early Church a kind of firstfruits. First seals to a ministry. First converts in a revival. First decided ones in a family. Firstfruits are an assurance—the harvest is coming. First-fruits are an evidence—of what the harvest will be. Firstfruits are an inspiration—to keep on working for the larger and fuller return. Close with the argument of the apostle—“For this cause I obtained mercy, that in me a chief might Jesus Christ shew forth all His long-suffering, for an ensample of them which should hereafter believe on Him unto eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:16). Work out the answers to these questions: Who are the first saved ones among us? What ought they to be to God, to themselves, and to others? They should be “proofs” and “patterns.”