SUMMARY
Through the implanted power of the word, God has given believers birth as the first fruits of creation and so empowered them to effective action in the world.
ANALYSIS
This passage breathes with its confidence in the purposeful and empowering character of God’s gifts. In what is likely both an allusion to the word of God experienced in the word made flesh in Jesus Christ as well as an explicit reference to the word of God spoken in creationCreation, in biblical terms, is the universe as we know or perceive it. Genesis says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the book of Revelation (which speaks of end times) the author declares that God created all things and... More, the author speaks of the power of God’s word to bring about God’s longed-for righteousness. The language of “birthing,” “implanting,” and “first fruits of creation” describes believers who are empowered to act and persevere as not only hearers but doers of that word, that perfect law of liberty summarized in the call to love the neighbor as the self.
