As Americans, when we think of holidays, we
think of a time away from work when we can do what we enjoy. We
observe quite a few holidays; we celebrate everything from
Christmas to St. Patrick's Day. But Old Covenant Israel's
holidays were prescribed by God. There were seven of them. These
seven holidays are discussed throughout the Bible, in both the
Old and New Testaments. But only in Leviticus 23 are all seven
holidays listed in chronological sequence. These seven holidays
are called, the Feasts of the Lord.
Leviticus 23:4 (NKJV) 'These
are the feasts of the LORD, holy convocations which you shall
proclaim at their appointed times.
The word "feasts" means: "appointed
times." The word "holy convocation" means: "rehearsal." In other
words, the feasts of the Lords were appointed times of worship
for Israel that would serve as "dress rehearsals" in God's
prophetic calendar. Things that happen to Israel in the natural
usually parallel things that happen spiritually in the church.
Fundamentally, these seven feasts
represent and typify the sequence, timing, and significance of
the major events of the Lord's redemptive career. They commence
at Calvary, where Jesus voluntarily gave Himself for the sins of
the world (Passover), and climax at the consummation of the
messianic Kingdom at the Lord's second coming . These seven
feasts depict the entire redemptive career of the Messiah.
The number "seven" is the biblical
number of completion. After creating the world, God rested on
the seventh day. He did not rest as a consequence of being tired
omnipotence doesn't get tired. Rather, God rested in the sense
of completion and satisfaction. What God created was good and
satisfying. Nothing else was needed. On the seventh day of the
week, the children of Israel were to observe a Sabbath rest,
patterned after God's creation rest. They were to rest from
their labors.
Seven sevens of years were to be counted
(49 years), and then the next year (50th) was to be
the Jubilee year in which all debts were forgiven and the slaves
set free (Lev. 25:9-12).
Seventy sevens of years were determined
upon the Jewish people during which time God would bring to
perfection and completion His redemptive purposes (Dan 9:24-27).
The book of Revelation records the consummation of the Jewish
age. It uses the number seven more than 50 times.
Commenting on these feasts, one
commentator writes: "Four of the seven holidays occur in the
spring of the year. The fulfillment of these feasts are a "done
deal." In other words, they represent events in the life of
Messiah that have already taken place Death, Burial,
Resurrection, and Ascension. The last three feasts occur in the
fall of the year and represent events future and yet unfulfilled
in Bible prophecy".
As a preterist, I believe the seven
annual feasts or holy days of Old Testament Israel, which take
place in the first seven months of their agricultural year, were
fulfilled both prophetically and spiritually in the period from
the cross to the fall of Jerusalem, which equates with the
return of Jesus Christ, the end of the Jewish age, and the
consummation of the kingdom of God in A.D. 70.
These feast must be viewed in their
strategic order. Judaism today treats Trumpets as the New Year
and that is wrong, it is not the New Year. By doing that, they
can never really understand prophecy. The feasts have to be
viewed in their order from Passover through Tabernacles. The
feast actually convey two forty year exodus periods. The first
exodus period is one familiar to all of us. Israel, after the
flesh was removed from bondage, to Egypt at Passover, and they
were put in the wilderness on a physical journey to a physical
promise land. Now the more important and the spiritual exodus we
are not so familiar with: this exodus runs from the Cross to
A.D. 70. In this exodus, Israel, after the Spirit, left its
bondage to the law of sin and death (Ro. 8:2) and begins a forty
year spiritual journey to a spiritual inheritance, the Kingdom
of God or the New Heavens and New Earth.
In the New Testament, we learn that the
feasts of Israel were pictures of a spiritual reality, they were
prophetic, speaking of things to come:
Colossians 2:16-17 (NKJV) So
let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a
festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of
things to come, but the substance is of Christ.
Paul here calls the festivals a shadow
of things to come. Hebrews 8:5 says basically the same thing:
Hebrews 8:5 (NKJV) who serve
the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was
divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle.
For He said, "See that you make all things according to the
pattern shown you on the mountain."
Shadows and patterns can teach us a lot
if we follow them through:
1 Corinthians 10:11 (NKJV) Now
all these things happened to them as examples, and they were
written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages
have come.
The "them" in this verse refers to Old
Testament physical Israel. The "our" refers to New Testament
spiritual Israel. The end of the ages came upon the first
century saints.
The whole Levitical system was a shadow
of Christ, illustrating His person and work that was to come.
Jesus Himself testified to the fact that the Old Testament
pointed to Him in:
John 5:39-40 (NKJV) "You
search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal
life; and these are they which testify of Me. 40 "But you are
not willing to come to Me that you may have life.
These feasts are clustered according to
the rainy season in Israel. Passover, the Feast of Unleavened
bread, First fruits, and Pentecost come under a period known as
the latter rain. The latter rain brings forth
the beginning of the harvest, it comes in the Spring. Then you
have a four month or 120 day dry season, which I believe is the
building of the church between Pentecost and A.D. 70. Which is
also an analogy to Noah building the arc. That also was the end
of an age. Then we have the former rain that
occurs during the end time Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement,
and Tabernacles. Hopefully, we will see that these feast
represent the fall of Jerusalem, the end of Old Covenant Israel
and the establishment of the New Heavens and Earth where God's
tabernacle is with men. Hosea explains to us that the latter
rain comes first, then the former rain.
Hosea 6:3 (NKJV) Let us know,
Let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going forth is
established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain,
Like the latter and former rain to the earth.
The crops that were gathered at the
beginning of the harvest season were called firstfruits (Ex.
23:16). There are the first fruits of the barley harvest, which
represents Jesus Christ, and then fifty days later at Pentecost
there is the first fruits of the wheat harvest, which is the
church. You've got to get your firstfruits straight.
There are two different sets of firstfruits. The crops
gathered at the end of the harvest season were known as the
summer fruit:
Amos 8:2 (NKJV) And He said,
"Amos, what do you see?" So I said, "A basket of summer
fruit." Then the LORD said to me: "The end has come upon My
people Israel; I will not pass by them anymore.
This has negative implications for
physical Israel.
Let's look at these seven feasts and see
what we can learn from them.
1. Passover
Leviticus 23:5 (NKJV) 'On the
fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord's
Passover.
Passover is the foundational feast. The
other six feasts that follow are built upon it. Passover occurs
in the spring of the year, on the 14th day of the
Hebrew month, Nisan (March/April). In the same way that many
colleges have academic years and businesses have fiscal years,
Passover commences the RELIGIOUS year for Israel.
While the Jewish people have celebrated
the Passover annually since the time of Moses, in reality, there
was only ONE Passover. It occurred almost 3,500 years ago in
Egypt. It was there, at that time, that a lamb was sacrificed
and the blood was applied to each doorpost and lintel. When this
was done in faith and in obedience to God's command, that home
was "passed over," and the life of the firstborn was spared. All
subsequent observances over the centuries have been memorials of
that one and only first Passover. In the same way, there was
only one occasion when Jesus' flesh was pierced and His blood
spilled on the cross of Calvary for the sin of the world. The
Lord's Supper is an ongoing memorial of that one momentous
occasion.
The story of the Exodus is one of the
most dramatic and breathtaking accounts in all of Scripture. The
Hebrews were enslaved in Egypt. Pharaoh was a harsh taskmaster.
The lot of the Hebrews seemed hopeless. It was at that hour of
history that God spoke to Moses from within a burning bush. The
bush was burned and not consumed. Moses turned aside to see this
unusual sight. >From the midst of that burning bush, God would
speak to His servant and declare that Moses would lead the
children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage .
God would tell Moses that He had seen
the affliction of His people down in Egypt, that He had heard
their cry for help, and that He knew their sorrows. And now, He
was bringing a deliverer to bring them out of Egyptian bondage
and bring them into a Promised Land. He was bringing them out to
bring them in. Some 2,000 years ago, Jesus came to earth to
bring man out of his bondage and with a mighty hand brought us
out of Satan's grasp into the Promised Land..
God sent Moses to bring the nation out
of bondage. At that moment, the Hebrews were a motley group of
unorganized and uneducated slaves. They knew nothing on
nationhood yet that would happen at Mt. Sinai. This was
nothing more than a group of slaves who through the years had
basically forgotten their God.
Despite their unfaithfulness, God had
made a promise to Abraham. He was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. He had told them their seed would be as the sand of the
seashore and as the stars of heaven. This was a solemn promise.
God is a covenant-keeping God. What His mouth speaks, His right
arm of power performs. Despite the outward appearance, they were
still His people. He was aware of their affliction, and by His
reckoning, it was time for them to "pack their bags" and head
for home. After 430 years in slavery, God performed His word and
made good on the promise.
When Moses went to Egypt, he was not met
with open arms and a nice Pharaoh. Pharaoh hardened his heart
and refused to let God's people go. And then, plague after
plague was unleashed with deadly accuracy against the idolatrous
land of Egypt. With each plague, God hardened Pharaoh's heart
even more. Each of the plagues were directed against an Egyptian
deity, until, at last, the firstborn of each home in Egypt would
perish where a lamb was not slain, and the blood was not
applied. The plague reached even to the palace of Pharaoh
himself. Since the pharaoh of Egypt was worshiped as a god, a
god's son would die. Finally, in desperation, Pharaoh consented
to let the children of Israel go. Under Moses, the servant of
the Lord, it is estimated that more than a million slaves, with
all their possessions, marched past the Sphinx of Egypt into the
desert. What a scene! A million emancipated slaves marching off
into the desert. Unlike most ancient cities, there was no great
wall surrounding the nation of Egypt. None was necessary. The
inhospitable desert provided the best protection. And here were
the Hebrews, walking right into it men, women, children, and
livestock. Water, food, clothing and shelter; from where would
these necessities come? You know the answer. The Lord God
Jehovah. As David wrote in the Psalm, "Can God provide a
table in the wilderness?" The answer is YES!
They knew very little of where they were
going, or how they would get there. However, Moses knew the ONE
who was leading them. They would cross the Red Sea, they would
wander in the wilderness for forty years, and ultimately, under
Joshua, enter the Promised Land.
Of the many words that would best
describe what happened in Egypt 3500 years ago one word says
it best REDEMPTION. The events were real, the miracles genuine
all wrought by the God of the Hebrews, who was greater than
all the gods of Egypt. A group of slaves were redeemed, so they
could worship the true and living God. But such a redemption was
not without cost. Blood was to be shed to secure their
redemption. The blood of a lamb. A Passover Lamb. All of those
lambs sacrificed down in Egypt (one per household) pointed to
the one true Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world
(John 1:29). Writing to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul draws
the parallel for all time when he says, "Christ, our
Passover Lamb, was sacrificed for us."(I Cor. 5:7).
John 1:28-29 (NKJV) These
things were done in Bethabara beyond the Jordan, where John
was baptizing. 29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward
him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin
of the world!
By the time of Christ, Israel after the
flesh had deteriorated to a system that Paul referred to as a
"bondage of corruption" (Ro. 8:21). That is Passover type
language.
Notice what Peter says about the Law:
Acts 15:10-11 (NKJV) "Now
therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck
of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to
bear? 11 "But we believe that through the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they."
God uses graphic language to depict what
Old Covenant Israel had deteriorated into:
Revelation 11:8 (NKJV) And
their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city
which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our
Lord was crucified.
Here we see Old Jerusalem called
spiritually Sodom and Egypt, because Old Covenant Israel had
become a system of bondage for the people.
The cross is the beginning of the
deliverance of the bondage to the futile vain law system, or
what is called the weak and beggerly elements of Judaism (Gal.
4:3 and 9).
A good statement on what Passover means
to the New Covenant community is:
Romans 3:24-25 (NKJV) being
justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by
His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness,
because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that
were previously committed,
Jesus tied in his final Passover with a
change in covenants:
Luke 22:20 (NKJV) Likewise He
also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new
covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.
We can see specifically what is meant
here if we look at:
Hebrews 8:10-13 (NKJV) "For
this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their
mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God,
and they shall be My people. 11 "None of them shall teach his
neighbor, and none his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for
all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of
them. 12 "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and
their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."
13 In that He says, "A new covenant," He has made the first
obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is
ready to vanish away.
One of the features of this New Covenant
is found in verse 12: "I will remember their sins no more."
Now, remember the New Covenant is not totally consummated
at the cross, because the letter to the Hebrews was written
approximately A.D. 62-64, and in Hebrews 8:13, He talks about
the Old Covenant as still decaying and waxing old ready to
vanish away.
Passover is the beginning of the
redemptive process. Let's look at the Mount of
Transfiguration in:
Luke 9:29-31 (NKJV) As He
prayed, the appearance of His face was altered, and His robe
became white and glistening. 30 And behold, two men talked
with Him, who were Moses and Elijah, 31 who appeared in glory
and spoke of His decease which He was about to accomplish at
Jerusalem.
Moses and Elijah appear in glory and
they speak of Jesus' decease. The word for "decease" is the
Greek word exodos. There was an exodus that was to
begin at the cross and start another forty year journey.
2. Unleavened Bread
Leviticus 23:6 (NKJV) 'And on
the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of
Unleavened Bread to the LORD; seven days you must eat
unleavened bread.
God appointed another feast that was to
begin the very next day after Passover, on the fifteenth of the
Hebrew month, Nisan. It is called the Feast of Unleavened
Bread. It was to last for seven days. On the first night,
and again on the seventh, there was to be a time of meeting
(convocation) between God and man.
The Bible gives only three instructions
for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Special sacrifices were to be
offered in the Temple each day of the feast according to
Leviticus 23:8; Numbers 28:19-24.The first and seventh days of
the feast were Sabbaths with prohibitions on all work, (Exodus
12:16; Leviticus 23:7-8; Numbers 28:25; Deut. 16:8).
Another requirement was the prohibition
of ANY leaven. No less than six different passages emphasize the
prohibition of leaven during this feast Exodus 12:14-20; 13:6-8,
23:15, 34:18; Leviticus 23:6; Deut. 16:3 & 8.
Not only is the eating of leavened foods
(such as bread and rolls) forbidden during the feast, but even
the presence of leaven within one's house is unlawful. The Lord
commanded Moses:
Exodus 12:15 (NKJV) 'Seven
days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you
shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats
leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that
person shall be cut off from Israel.
Disobedience to the divine command
carried the death penalty. Another command stated:
Exodus 13:7 (NKJV) "Unleavened
bread shall be eaten seven days. And no leavened bread shall
be seen among you, nor shall leaven be seen among you in all
your quarters.
The extent of the restriction was
further emphasized:
Deuteronomy 16:4 (NKJV) "And
no leaven shall be seen among you in all your territory for
seven days, nor shall any of the meat which you sacrifice the
first day at twilight remain overnight until morning.
The clarity of God's command allows no
room for debate. Any leaven, no matter how small the amount or
how discreet its presence, is not permitted during the Feast of
Unleavened Bread. It is not enough to simply refrain from eating
leaven, or from touching leaven, or even from looking at leaven
by storing it away in a hidden place. All leaven must be purged
out. Failure to do so brought death.
This feast is celebrated today
throughout the world. Observant Jewish households begin their
painstaking preparations weeks before the arrival of Passover.
Everything from carpets to vacuum bags are tossed out or
scrubbed, scoured, cleaned, and aired in preparation. On the
night before Passover eve, after evening prayers in the
synagogue, the father of each household will perform the
Bedikat Hametz, or "Search for Leaven" ceremony. This
ancient ceremony purges the last vestiges of leaven from the
house. Earlier that evening, each mother will place a few bits
of bread in several corners or on window sills of the house so
that there will be some leaven present to be found.
After reciting the benediction for the
occasion, the father begins the search. He uses a wooden spoon
in one hand and a goose feather in the other. By candlelight, he
searches from room to room to discover the distributed bread
camps. The children follow behind with great excitement as he
carefully uses the feather to sweep the bread he finds onto a
wooden spoon. Finally, the bits of bread, the wooden spoon, and
the feather are placed inside a bag or wrapped in a cloth. This
is tied with a thread and set aside to be burned the next
morning.
This feast commemorates the Exodus. See
Ex. 12:17-20; 13:6-7; Lev. 23:6-8 and:
Deuteronomy 16:3 (NKJV) "You
shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you
shall eat unleavened bread with it, that is, the bread of
affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in
haste), that you may remember the day in which you came out of
the land of Egypt all the days of your life.
Old Covenant Israel was about to begin
her forty year journey out of Egypt and it was a walk to the
promised land. They had to eat unleavened bread during this
seven day period. When we look at some of the New Testament
texts of the Last Supper, we see that Jesus identified his body
with the unleavened bread. He does not identify his body with
the Passover lamb. This is clear from:
Luke 22:19 (NKJV) And He took
bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying,
"This is My body which is given for you; do this in
remembrance of Me."
Why the emphasis on unleavened bread?
What is the New Testament application of the concept of leaven?
Sin is often pictured as leaven in scripture. The ancient rabbis
also believed that "leaven represents the evil impulse of the
heart".
Matthew 16:6 (NKJV) Then Jesus
said to them, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the
Pharisees and the Sadducees."
Leaven rapidly permeates the dough,
contaminating it, souring it, fermenting it, and swelling it to
many times its original size without changing its weight. Leaven
pictures sin. Since this is the case and type, only
unleavened bread (matzah) was used in the Temple:
Leviticus 2:11 (NKJV) 'No
grain offering which you bring to the LORD shall be made with
leaven, for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey in any
offering to the LORD made by fire.
As with the other feasts of the Lord in
Leviticus 23, the prophetic meaning of the Feast of Unleavened
Bread is found in the work of the Messiah. Passover pictures the
substitutionary DEATH of the Messiah as the Passover Lamb. The
Feast of Unleavened Bread pictures the BURIAL of the Messiah and
the feast that follows FIRSTFRUITS, pictures the RESURRECTION of
the Messiah. The Hebrew prophets foretold a day when the Messiah
would be a sacrifice for sin. He would be the Lamb offered up by
God as the once-for-all sacrifice. The prophet declared of the
Messiah:
Isaiah 53:4 (NKJV) Surely He
has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed
Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
Isaiah 53:6 (NKJV) All we like
sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own
way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:10 (NKJV) Yet it
pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When
You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed,
He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall
prosper in His hand.
The Hebrew prophets also spoke of
Messiah's amazing burial. Isaiah prophesied:
Isaiah 53:9 (NKJV) And they
made His grave with the wicked; But with the rich at His
death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in
His mouth.
Normally, one who dies a criminal's
death receives a criminal's burial. But this was not the case
with Jesus. Jesus was executed as if He were a criminal, but God
did not allow His body to be cast outside the city onto the
garbage heap. Jesus was honored in His burial because He was a
pure, sinless (without leaven) sacrifice. He died not
for His own transgressions (He was innocent), but for ours (we
are guilty). Therefore, God honored Jesus with burial in a rich
man's tomb. Jesus was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathaea
(Matthew 27:57-60), a member of the Sanhedrin. This was God's
statement upon the innocence of Jesus.
Another key fact surrounding Jesus's
burial was the fact His body did not return to dust. King David
prophesied of the Messiah:
Psalms 16:10 (NKJV) For You
will not leave my soul in Sheol, Nor will You allow Your Holy
One to see corruption.
Obviously, David did not prophesy this
about himself. His grave has been a revered site in Jerusalem
for nearly 3,000 years. David's body did decay (as has the body
of every other person who has died in history), but Jesus' body
did not decay! The sons of Adam were sinners under the divine
curse: "To dust you shall return" (Gen. 3:19). As a
pure, sinless sacrifice, Jesus was not under the curse to return
to dust. Therefore, Jesus came forth from the grave on the third
day, after he had carried our sins far away!
Psalms 103:12 (NKJV) As far as
the east is from the west, So far has He removed our
transgressions from us.
Hebrews 9:26 (NKJV) He then
would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the
world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared
to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
Jesus fulfilled the Feast of Unleavened
Bread in that He was a pure, sinless (without
leaven) sacrifice. God validated this by Jesus' burial in a rich
man's tomb. Furthermore, the body of Jesus was not permitted to
decay in the grave, but was brought forth, because He was not a
sinner under the curse of death and decay.
Paul embraced the Feast of Unleavened
Bread in his exhortation to the Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 5:5-8 (NKJV)
deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh,
that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. 6
Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little
leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Therefore purge out the old
leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are
unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed
for us. 8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old
leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with
the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Paul's message is simple and direct. For
believers who have, by faith, accepted the sacrifice of the
Passover Lamb at Calvary, Passover is past history. The
deliverance of Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, has already been
experienced in their lives. They are now living in the Feast of
Unleavened Bread, where purity and separation from leaven is
required.
3. Firstfruits
Leviticus 23:10-11 (NKJV)
"Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When you
come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest,
then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your
harvest to the priest. 11 'He shall wave the sheaf before the
LORD, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the
Sabbath the priest shall wave it.
The third feast occurs on the SECOND day
of the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread. It is called the
FEAST OF FIRSTFRUITS. Passover occurs on the 14th,
Unleavened Bread occurs on the 15th (and lasts till
the 22nd); and "Firstfruits", by Jewish reckoning,
occurs on the 16th day of the Hebrew month, Nisan.
The barley harvest the first crop
planted in the winter is now, in the spring, beginning to
ripen. The first sheaf (Firstfruits) of the harvest is cut and,
in a carefully prescribed and meticulous ceremony, presented to
the Lord. The Lord's acceptance of the Firstfruits is an
"earnest," or pledge, on His part of a full harvest. As to the
significance of the Feast of Firstfruits, as with the other
feasts, there is no room for doubt or speculation. This occurs
in the midst of the week of unleavened bread. It occurs right
after the Passover Sabbath in the week of unleavened bread, and
it represents Christ's resurrection:
1 Corinthians 15:20 (NKJV) But
now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the
firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Note, this is the firstfruits of the
barley harvest. This is a reference to Jesus
Christ and his resurrection. The firstfruits were transferred to
the Lord and an assurance of Divine blessing on the harvest.
That is reiterated in:
Romans 11:16 (NKJV) For if the
first fruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is
holy, so are the branches.
The firstfruit consecrates the harvest.
The word for "firstfruit" is the Hebrew word re'shiyth,
which means: "the choicest of the choice". Jesus is really the
first of the first fruits:
Exodus 23:19 (NKJV) "The first
of the firstfruits of your land you shall bring into the house
of the LORD your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its
mother's milk.
Ezekiel 44:30 (NKJV) "The best
of all firstfruits of any kind, and every sacrifice of any
kind from all your sacrifices, shall be the priest's; also you
shall give to the priest the first of your ground meal, to
cause a blessing to rest on your house.
Usually it is flesh that is waved, but
here it is barley as if to say that God is getting away from the
fleshly system.
Passover pictures the substitutionary
DEATH of Jesus as the Passover Lamb. The Feast of Unleavened
Bread pictures the BURIAL of Jesus, this feast was to take place
the day after Passover - Jesus was buried the next day.
FIRSTFRUITS pictures the RESURRECTION of the Messiah. This feast
took place on the second day of firstfruits or the third day
after Passover. Jesus rose the third day. Are these just
coincidence, or was God teaching us the history of redemption?
