The Passover that the Jews celebrate in the spring of each year is the first of the three so-called "pilgrimage festivals," the feasts requiring the Israelites to travel to Jerusalem to celebrate. Passover commemo­rates the liberation from the slavery of Egypt, and it occurs around the time of the beginning of the barley harvest. The Old Testament ties it to the second pilgrimage festival, Pentecost (also called Weeks or Shavuot), 50 days later at the time of the wheat harvest (see Lev. 23:15ff).

There is an interesting commandment in Leviticus 23:10-11 that foreshadows the work of Jesus Christ. The priests are commanded to wave before the Lord the sheaf of the first fruits on the day after the sabbath (in other words, on Sunday). Many have thus understood that on the morning of Christ's resurrection from the dead, harvest first fruits were waved before the Lord at the Temple while Christ Himself came forward as the first fruits from the dead. 1 Corinthians 15:20 says, "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep." Verse 23 then adds, "But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ's at His coming." Fifty days later (at Pentecost or Weeks), two bread loaves, made with fine flour and leaven, were also to be waved before the Lord as first fruits.

The words used to indicate "first fruits" in the Old Testament are similar to the words that mean "firstborn." Similar theological meanings are attached to both as well. The gen­eral principle was that the firstborn human being, the firstborn animal, and the first of the harvest among the vegetation belonged to God. The land was God's gift to His people (Lev. 25:23), and the first fruits were given to God by presenting them to the priests at the sanctuary (cf. Deut. 18:4), thus providing physical support for the priests. Again, notice the interesting interweaving of concepts: priests are the "first rank" members of the Levitical tribe, which was the substitute for all the Israelite firstborn males (see Exodus 13:13, 15; 34:20; Num. 3:11-­13; 8:14-17). Levi serves the Lord at His sanctu­ary, thus freeing all the other firstborn sons for God's common service. But all Israel must come back to God with the "firstborn fruits" so that the priests may eat and live and minister at the sanctuary.

The first fruits suggest that there is more to come. The first fruits are given to God, and only then may the rest be used for human con­sumption or disposal. Thus to offer the first fruits to the Lord was at one end and the same time a statement of thanks for what He had already given but also a statement of faith that He would continue to give more.

So it is with the work of Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit in this age. Christ is truly the first fruits from the dead. The saints who came back to life in the Biblical record, such as Jairus' daughter and Lazarus, cannot be thought of as resurrected in the same manner as Christ. To be sure, they truly came back from the dead, but they died again. Their bodies resuscitated; Christ was resurrected. His resurrection was of a completely different order, because His resur­rected body will never die again. As first fruits, therefore, Christ's resurrection is only the beginning of a general harvest yet to occur, first through the regeneration of the heart and then the resurrection of our bodies when He returns from heaven.

Romans 8:23 in its context speaks of how believers await the resurrection of their bodies. For the moment we suffer along with the whole creation. Yet we also have the "first fruits of the Spirit," that which has been poured out of the Spirit thus far. But there is more to come for the Christian and for the whole creation. Similarly, James 1:18 that God's grace has acted in Christians in such a way by the word of truth, "so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures." The Christians in the first century A.D. were a sign that God has begun a general harvest of His elect and that there is more to come, not only among all of humanity but also in the creation.

Paul also recalls the dedicatory nature of the early believers as first fruits when he says in 1 Corinthians 16:5 that the members of the household of Stephanus were "the first fruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves for ministry to the saints." There were more converts to come forward in God's gracious plan, and the first converts worked in devotion to the members of the Body of Christ.

The Apostle John sees the 144,000 standing with the Lamb of God, and they sing a new song. "These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been purchased from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb" (Rev. 14:4). The purchase price was the blood of the Lamb, and the purchase is final.

All this depends upon the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament the first and the best was given to God because it came from Him in any case. Now in this age Christ truly is the First (and the Last!), the best of all, the Author and Pioneer of our faith (Heb. 12:1ff), the grand beginning of the redemptive harvest that the Father has planned from all eternity. "Christ is risen, Christ the first fruits of the holy harvest field, which will all its full abundance at His second coming yield" (Christopher Wordsworth, 1862).