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The Daily Word of Righteousness
The First Four Feasts, #10
For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. (I Timothy 4:8)
The Gospel of the Kingdom teaches us how to please God in the present life. However, the Gospel places greater emphasis on our preparation for the Kingdom that is coming to earth with the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Believers who become occupied with the affairs of the present world are running the risk of selling their vast, eternal inheritance for a "bowl of lentils."
The concept of the firstfruits is prominent in God's plan of salvation. For example, Romans 8:23 informs us that we Christians possess "the firstfruits of the Spirit." We have a firstfruits, or first installment, of the Holy Spirit at the present time. (Can you imagine what receiving the balance of the Holy Spirit will be like?)
If we "hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end" (Hebrews 3:14) we will come to the day when we reap the remainder of the harvest—the fullness of the Holy Spirit permeating every part of our personality, just as is true of Jesus, our elder Brother.
Sanctifies the entire harvest. Another dimension of the feast of Firstfruits is that the sanctifying of the firstfruits sanctifies the entire harvest. "If the firstfruits be holy, the lump is also holy" (Romans 11:16).
This principle explains how it can be true that we are without condemnation in Christ even though we still may observe sinful tendencies in our body. Our will already has been reaped (Romans 7:18) and our spiritual inner man delights in the law of God (Romans 7:22).
Our "members which are upon the earth" (Colossians 3:5) are sanctified through the fact that our inner born-again spiritual life is holy to the Lord. Our spiritual life is holy because Christ has been born in us.
Our personality is under the covering of the Passover blood because we have received the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Also, the justice of God has been appeased because by faith we have received the benefits of the atonement made by Christ as our sin-offering.
Our eternal life (the inner spiritual life) is "hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). A firstfruits of our life already has been "waved" before the Lord (Leviticus 23:11).
The day will come when our mortal body also will be harvested (Romans 8:23), completing the reaping of our personality by the Spirit of God unto everlasting life (I Corinthians 15:54).
We see the principle of the firstfruits operating in the resurrection of Christ from the dead. "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept" (I Corinthians 15:20).
Because He (Jesus) was "waved" as a holy offering before God, we also—the harvest of the earth—are holy in the sight of God.
We too shall be raised from the dead. "But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming" (I Corinthians 15:23).
To be continued.