Ver. 20.-" Christ the Firsifruits." 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 aml 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 'l'estament, 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 possibilty of resurrection. Imagine that the fields had never waved with harvest, and that in this spring-time 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 oue 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. FmsTFRUITS ASSURE OF THE CERTAlliTY OF HARVEST. So Christ, as the repre- seutat.ive human Ileing, 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 firstfrnit 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 Easter morning when he rose. Ilut on what grounds do we affirm that what is true of ono 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. 'l'he human race has two hea,ls, Adam and Christ. One covers the race fur death, and one for life-the eternal life. Did all die in Adam? 'l'hen, verily, all shall be made alive in Christ. And certainly is a<ldcLI to bare possibility, aucl death has lost its great terror. Ill. F!RS'l'FRUl'l'S UN~'0LD TUE CHAHAC'l'ER 01' 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 thiugs in his resur- rection: (1) the bare fact:. (2) the glorious character of the fact. :Fi,stfruits show the character of coming harvest. lllustrate by our thoughts aud fears as we sec the first- fruits thin, blighted, speckled; or standing well, clean, stro1w:, and full. \\'hat hope, then, is there in Christ's resurrection, regarding him as the Firstfruits from the dead 'l 64.4 'l'HE FIRST EPISTLE TO 'l'HE CORINTHIANS, [cu. xv. 1-58
What will our coming life be if it is like his during the forty days he tarried with u~? I. Christ's t:orty days ~bowed that the n~w life will be beyond the limiting con- d1t1ons of humamty .. It '!111 be to our old hre_ ~s flower to seed. 2. Christ's forty -days_ showed the new life will ha~e the old recogmhons and the old sympathies. Jesus was rn feelmg 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, <leat? is done away. Imyres~ (1) the import.ance of_all moral seed-sowings, nsdirectly bearing on the resurrect10n-hfe; (2) the duty of fixmg firmly our oneness to Christ, our ~epresent.ative and Head; (3) thn joy of cherishing a good hope of the great awakrng.-R. T.