Christ the Firstfruits: The Harvest is Guaranteed Text: Leviticus 23:9-14
Introduction: God Eats First
We live in an age of profound entitlement. Modern man, particularly in the West, believes himself to be autonomous, a sovereign self with rights that bubble up from the depths of his own being. He believes he is the center of his own story, and consequently, that he is owed a great deal. He is owed a comfortable life, he is owed affirmation, and he is certainly owed the fruits of his own labor. The idea that the first and best of anything he produces belongs to someone else is not just foreign; it is offensive.
But the Christian worldview begins with a radically different premise. It begins not with man's rights, but with God's. The first verse of the Bible establishes the ownership of everything: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Because God is the Creator, He is the owner. He holds the title deed to every atom in the universe, including the ones that make up our bodies, our fields, and our paychecks. Therefore, God is not an optional add-on to our lives, a cosmic charity to whom we might deign to give a few leftovers. He is the Lord of the harvest, and He has an absolute right to the first portion of everything.
This is the principle at the heart of the Feast of Firstfruits. This is not merely an agricultural festival for an ancient agrarian society. This is a foundational lesson in the grammar of reality. It is a liturgical enactment of the Creator/creature distinction. Before you may eat, God must eat. Before you may enjoy the fruit of your labor, you must acknowledge the one who gave you the strength to labor, the sun to shine, and the seed to grow. To fail here is to commit the sin of Adam in the garden. It is to see the fruit, decide it is good for food, and to take and eat in defiance of the owner's clear command. The Feast of Firstfruits is God's gracious provision to keep Israel, and to keep us, from that same damnable presumption.
In this short passage, God lays out the protocol for acknowledging His sovereignty over the harvest. But as with all the Levitical ceremonies, this is not just a lesson in economics or etiquette. It is a magnificent, detailed prophecy of the central event in all of human history: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This feast is a picture, a type, a shadow, that finds its glorious substance in an empty tomb on the first day of the week.
The Text
Then Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When you enter the land which I am going to give to you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest. And he shall wave the sheaf before Yahweh for you to be accepted; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. Now on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb one year old without blemish for a burnt offering to Yahweh. Its grain offering shall then be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering by fire to Yahweh for a soothing aroma, with its drink offering, a fourth of a hin of wine. Until this same day, until you have brought in the offering of your God, you shall eat neither bread nor roasted grain nor new growth. It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your places of habitation.'"
(Leviticus 23:9-14 LSB)
The Promise and the Prerequisite (vv. 9-10)
The instruction begins with a forward-looking promise that requires faith.
"Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, 'When you enter the land which I am going to give to you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest.'" (Leviticus 23:10 LSB)
Notice that this command is given to a nation of nomads wandering in the desert. They have no land, no fields, and no harvest. This entire ordinance is predicated on the faithfulness of God to fulfill His promise to give them the land of Canaan. They are being taught to worship God for a harvest they have not yet planted, in a land they have not yet possessed. This is a lesson in faith from the very outset. Our worship is not based on what we have in hand, but on the certainty of God's promises.
When they finally do reap that harvest, their first act is not to be a frantic rush to the silos or the dinner table. Their first act is to bring "the sheaf of the first fruits" to the priest. The term "first fruits" does not simply mean what ripened first chronologically. It carries the meaning of the best, the choicest, the representative portion. This one sheaf stands for the entire harvest. The disposition of this sheaf determines the character of the whole crop. If this sheaf is holy, the whole lump is holy. If this sheaf is accepted, the whole harvest is accepted. This is a foundational biblical principle. Paul picks it up in Romans when he says, "For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy" (Romans 11:16).
The Day and the Deed (v. 11)
Next, we are given the specific action and the crucial timing.
"And he shall wave the sheaf before Yahweh for you to be accepted; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it." (Leviticus 23:11 LSB)
The priest is to take this representative sheaf and "wave" it before Yahweh. This wave offering was a specific ritual motion, presenting the offering to God as His rightful portion. It was a visible declaration: "This all belongs to You. We are your tenants, your sharecroppers, and this is the portion that is owed to the owner of the land." This act was "for you to be accepted." Their acceptance before God, and by extension, their right to enjoy the rest of the harvest, was tied to this acknowledgment of God's ownership.
But the timing is the key that unlocks the whole prophecy. It is to be waved "on the day after the sabbath." This is not an incidental detail. In the context of the Passover week, this would be the first day of the week, our Sunday. For centuries, Israel performed this ritual, waving the firstfruits of the barley harvest on the first day of the week, rehearsing a future event they could not yet see. They were acting out a prophecy. For it was on the day after the Sabbath, on the first day of the week, that Jesus Christ, the true Firstfruit, was raised from the dead. The Apostle Paul is explicit: "But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:20). Jesus is the representative sheaf. He is the first and best of the new creation. His resurrection from the grave is the wave offering presented before the Father, securing our acceptance. And because the Firstfruit has been raised and accepted, the rest of the harvest, all those who are in Him, is guaranteed.
The Fullness of the Offering (vv. 12-13)
The sheaf was not offered alone. It was accompanied by a suite of other sacrifices that painted a fuller picture of dedication.
"Now on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb one year old without blemish for a burnt offering to Yahweh. Its grain offering shall then be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering by fire to Yahweh for a soothing aroma, with its drink offering, a fourth of a hin of wine." (Leviticus 23:12-13 LSB)
Alongside the sheaf, they were to offer a "male lamb one year old without blemish." If the sheaf pointed to Christ's resurrection, this lamb points to His crucifixion. He is the perfect, spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. His resurrection is glorious because His sacrifice was perfect. You cannot have the empty tomb without the bloody cross that preceded it.
The grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil and the drink offering of wine represent the dedication of all of life's substance and joy. Flour is the stuff of bread, the staple of life. Oil speaks of richness, consecration, and the Holy Spirit. Wine is the symbol of joy and celebration. By offering these things, the Israelite was saying, "Not only does the raw harvest belong to you, Lord, but so does all that we make from it. Our work, our sustenance, our gladness, it is all from you and for you." Together, these offerings rise to God as a "soothing aroma." This is not about God having a physical nose. It is covenantal language. It means God is pleased. He is satisfied. This is the smell of covenant faithfulness, a smell that finds its ultimate expression in the perfect, life-offering of Jesus Christ, who "gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma" (Ephesians 5:2).
The Divine Priority and Perpetual Principle (v. 14)
The passage concludes with a strict prohibition and a statement about the ordinance's longevity.
"Until this same day, until you have brought in the offering of your God, you shall eat neither bread nor roasted grain nor new growth. It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your places ofhabitation." (Leviticus 23:14 LSB)
This is the practical outworking of the principle. The prohibition is absolute. Before God gets His portion, you touch none of it. You cannot even sample the new roasted grain from the field. This is a powerful discipline against the sin of presumption. It forces a pause between the reaping and the eating, and in that pause, gratitude and dependence are cultivated. It teaches the people, and us, that we live by the grace of the Giver, not by the strength of our own hands.
And this is a "perpetual statute." Now, we must be careful here. Many get tangled up thinking this means Christians today must be trying to find a priest to wave a bundle of barley for them. But that is to misread how the covenants work. The redemption laws of the Old Testament are not simply erased; they are fulfilled and transformed in Christ. The specific ceremony is a shadow that has now been replaced by the substance. But the underlying principle is indeed perpetual. The principle that God is to be honored with the first and the best of our increase is an abiding, perpetual principle of true worship. We see it in the tithe, which predated the Mosaic law with Abraham. We see it in the giving of the first day of the week, the Lord's Day, to corporate worship and rest. The Christian who gives faithfully of his income and dedicates the Lord's Day to the Lord is keeping the Feast of Firstfruits in its new covenant form.
Conclusion: The Harvest is Coming
The Feast of Firstfruits is a glorious picture of the gospel. It is a promise made in the wilderness, fulfilled in an empty tomb, and applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead. The first and best sheaf of the human race has been presented to the Father and accepted. And because He was accepted, we who are united to Him by faith are also accepted.
His resurrection is the guarantee of our own. He is the firstfruit; we are the harvest. Because He got up, we will get up. The power that brought Him out of the grave is the same power that is at work in us, raising us from spiritual death to new life. "For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection" (Romans 6:5).
Therefore, we do not live as those who are autonomous, but as those who have been bought with a price. We joyfully bring the firstfruits of our lives, our time, our money, our talents, to Him. We do this not as a grim duty to appease a distant deity, but as a glad response to the God who gave us His Firstfruit, His only Son. We give because He first gave. And we know that just as that one sheaf consecrated the entire harvest, His resurrection life is at work in us, consecrating our entire lives to be a soothing aroma to Him, until the day of the final harvest, when He will gather all His people home.