First Fruit Offering

THE GREATEST OF ALL MONEY MANIPULATIONS IN THE PRESENT DAY CHURCH.

Exo 23:14-16  Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto me in the year.  (15)  Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib; for in it thou camest out from Egypt: and none shall appear before me empty:)  (16)  And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field.

            I will start by saying that most first fruit advocates almost always read the scripture correctly. They do this so when we check our Bible, we will say “he is preaching out of the Bible”. However, they refuse to give us the true meaning of the scripture, knowing that if we knew the truth, we might not be so eager to give our first paycheck at the beginning of each year. They do not want us to understand that Old Testament ceremonies and feast were just a type and shadow of things to be fulfilled in the New Testament. So what are types and shadows?

           Type: A type is essentially a prefiguring of something future from itself.  It is a person, institution, office, action, or event, by means of which some truth of the Gospel was divinely foreshadowed under the Old Testament dispensations. Ex. In Romans 5:14, Adam is spoken of as a “type” of Him who was to come, which is Christ.

           Shadow: A reflection, a glimpse or a mere outline. It may be fairly well detailed, but it is not the original.

            In the above scripture God commands the people to keep three feasts throughout the year. Now tell me when was the last time your church observed the feast of unleavened bread or the feast of ingathering? Probably never. You want to know why? These feasts cannot be twisted or manipulated to convince us to give them our money. But, if we insist on observing one feast, we must be willing to observe them all. With that being said, we need to know what the scripture says about how we ought to observe these feasts and I will also give you the days in 2012 that we should do it. Ready?

            Feasts of Unleavened Bread: Lev 23:5-8  In the fourteenth day of the first month  Abib at even is the LORD'S passover.  (6)  And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread.  (7)  In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.  (8)  But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. Passover begins in the evening of Friday, April 6, 2012, and ends in the evening of Saturday, April 14, 2012. The Feast of Unleavened Bread will begin on Sunday, April 15, 2012 and ends Saturday, April 22, 2012 on the Jewish Sabbath.

            Feasts of Harvest (FirstFruits): Lev 23:9-11 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,  (10)  Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest unto the priest:  (11)  And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it. First Fruits was observed on the day after the Jewish Sabbath, on Resurrection Sunday. This is a very important point that I will come back to later. The observance was carried out in this manner, when the standing ripe harvest of barley and wheat was ready to be reaped. The celebrant would take one sheaf from the standing harvest and bring it to the priest. The lone sheaf was called 'the sheaf of the First Fruits.' The priest (remember this) was then to take this one sheaf and wave it before the Lord in His house (the temple). This was to be done 'the day after the Sabbath. There were at least seven different fruits allowed for this offering including wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil, and honey (Deut. 8:8). A description of the procedure for bringing the First Fruits is also given in the Mishnah of Bikkurim(link here). According to the Jewish calendar, FirstFruits should be observed on Sunday, April 23, 2012.

Feast of Ingathering or Feast of Tabernacles: Lev 23:39-43  Also in the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when ye have gathered in the fruit of the land, ye shall keep a feast unto the LORD seven days: on the first day shall be a sabbath, and on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.  (40)  And ye shall take you on the first day the boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm trees, and the boughs of thick trees, and willows of the brook; and ye shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.  (41)  And ye shall keep it a feast unto the LORD seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month.  (42)  Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths:  (43)  That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. According to the Jewish calendar, Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) begins in the evening of Sunday, September 30, 2012, and ends in the evening of Sunday, October 7, 2012. There are instructions on the internet on how to construct an actual booth How to build a Sukkoh.  So, if we still consider ourselves bound to the Old Testament ceremonial laws, then we have to observe all three, every year.

            Now, let’s get back to the FirstFruits. Remember, that the celebrant must bring one sheaf of his First Fruits to the priest, who would then wave it before the Lord in the Temple. But, we no longer have the temple or the levitical priesthood and with the absence of a temple or the priesthood the traditional First Fruits meaning has been lost. You ask “why or how is it lost?” Because Jesus is the true fulfillment of the ceremonial First Fruits. Apostle Paul wrote in 1Co 15:20  But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. Do you recall in the beginning, I stated that the Old Testament was full of types and shadows that pointed to something to be fulfilled in the New Testament? Here are the connections:

            Passover - The original celebration centered around the Passover lamb, which was sacrificed and its blood put over the doorposts as a sign of faith. The New Testament says that Jesus is our sacrificial Lamb, his blood staining the wooden beams of the cross. The Passover lamb was to be a "male without defect, which is the same description given to Jesus. In addition, when the lamb was roasted and eaten, none of its bones were to be broken, as prophesied in scripture, no bones were broken on Jesus.

            Feast of Unleavened Bread – The day after the Passover was the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This day was a Sabbath. Leaven was a symbol of sin. Jesus was the unleavened sinless Bread of Heaven. The first and second days of the feast were Sabbath days, days of rest. Jesus also rested on these days in the tomb.

            First Fruits – The third day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (the first day of the week) was also the day of the First Fruits. On this day the first fruits of the barley harvest was gathered and waved before the Lord in celebration. Similarly, Jesus rises up from the grave. He is the first fruits from the dead. On that very day He fulfilled the Feast of the First Fruits.  1Co 15:20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.

 

     The apostle Paul gives us this warning “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ”.  (Col 2:16-17)  1-Here is a caution to take heed of judaizing teachers, or those who would impose upon Christians the yoke of the ceremonial law: Let no man therefore judge you in meat nor drink, etc., Col_2:16. Much of the ceremonies of the law of Moses consisted in the distinction of meats and days. It appears by Rom. 14 that there were those who were for keeping up those distinctions: but here the apostle shows that since Christ has come, and has cancelled the ceremonial law, we ought not to keep it up. “Let no man impose those things upon you, for God has not imposed them: if God has made you free, be not you again entangled in that yoke of bondage.” And this the rather because these things were shadows of things to come (Col_2:17), intimating that they had no intrinsic worth in them and that they are now done away. But the body is of Christ: the body, of which they were shadows, has come; and to continue the ceremonial observances, which were only types and shadows of Christ and the gospel, carries an intimation that Christ has not yet come and the gospel state has not yet commenced. Observe the advantages we have under the gospel, above what they had under the law: they had the shadows, we have the substance. Matthew Henry Complete Commentary

Paul warns us of being slaves and under bondage

Gal 4:8-10  But at one time indeed, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those which by nature were not gods.  (9)  But now, having known God, or rather, having been known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which once again you wish to be slaves?  (10)  You observe days and months and seasons and years.

Gal 5:1-4  Stand fast therefore in the freedom in which Christ has made us free, and do not be loaded down again with a yoke of bondage.  (2)  Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.  (3)  And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law.  (4)  You have become estranged from Christ, you who are justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

*Many believers in the Church falsely assume that since we have been given the entire Bible (both Old and New Testaments) that God intends for us to adhere to all of it. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. (Acts 15, Ephesians 2:15, Colossians 2:14, Hebrews 10) This false teaching has caused many believers to be caught in the trap of legalism. God does not want us to be in bondage to legalism by serving rules and regulations of the law. Instead, he wants us to serve Christ and walk in a new way- in the freedom of the Holy Spirit.

           *Those ministers today that teach believers that they must give a first fruits offering (Old Covenant style) may tell you that they’ve had a “revelation” from God about first fruits and that this is for the Church today but do not believe them. They did not receive this by revelation from Christ or his Spirit, but they got it straight from the law and teach it according to the law. God will not go against the Gospel of Christ. He will not take you and I back to a ministration of death. No, that’s not a misprint friend; you did read that correctly, it does say "death". The apostle Paul called the Old Covenant Law a ministration of death. Why? It’s because the Old Covenant could only accuse us of sin and condemn us to death due to man’s inability to keep it perfectly. (Romans 7:7-24)

*Excerpts taken from http://www.truthandspiritministries.com/pdfs/firstfruitp1.pdf