Basic HTML Version
lives. And this is pictured to us by the SEVEN DAYS OF UNLEAVENED
BREAD which follow the Passover. On the 14th day of the first
month, God's sacred calendar (month called Abib, or Nisen), is the
Passover. And in the 15th day of this same month is the FESTIVAL,
for seven days. The first and last of these seven days are HOLY
days---annual Sabbaths. The days of unleavened bread remind us
annually we are to put sin COMPLETELY out of our lives, by keeping
God's Commandments.
But the Plan cannot stop there. We are justified---
reconciled to God---by the DEATH of His Son, but we are SAVED, not
by His death, but by His LIFE (Rom. 5:10). If Christ remained
dead, we could never be saved. For "if Christ be not risen, . . .
your faith is also vain. . . And IF Christ be not raised, your
faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins Then they also which are
fallen asleep in Christ are PERISHED." (I Cor. 15:14-18).
And so, during these seven days of unleavened bread, the
Eternal commanded: "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 firstfruits of your harvest unto the priest: and he
shall wave the sheaf before the Eternal, to be accepted for you: on
the MORROW AFTER THE SABBATH the priest shall wave it." (Lev. 23:
10-11).
God used the material food harvest to picture the harvest
of SOULS. This was the season of the early GRAIN harvest. This
first sheaf of grain pictured the RISEN CHRIST. It had to be
accepted BY THE ETERNAL for them---as Christ had to be accepted of
God FOR US. It was ON he morrow after the Sabbath---the weekly
Sabbath during the days of unleavened bread---that the risen Christ
had to be presented to God, to be accepted of Him, for us. It was
on this sunday morning---the day after the weekly Sabbath---that
Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene. When she recognized Him, she
would run forward and embraced Him for joy. But Jesus restrained
her. "Touch me not," He said, "for I am not yet ascended to my
Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, "I ascend unto my
Father, and your Father." And the angel instructed Mary, "Go your
way, tell His disciples and Peter He goeth before you into Galilee:
there shall ye see Him, as He said unto you." (John 20:17; and Mark
16:7). The same evening Jesus met with them, and then they could
touch Him. He was the antetypical Wave Sheaf, and on that Sunday,
the morrow after the Sabbath, He was accepted FOR THEM of God. Thus
the wave-sheaf pictured the RESURRECTED Christ.
Now notice verse 14, Lev. 23: "And ye shall eat neither
bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day."
The wave-sheaf was the first sheaf of grain cut. None could be
harvested or used UNTIL that first wave-sheaf had been accepted of
the Eternal. Likewise he first harvest of souls could not even
begin until Christ, first of the first-fruits, had been resurrected
and accepted of God. Until then the Holy Spirit could not come---
the New Testament spirit-filled Church could not START. (See John
7:37-39; and 16:7).
Counting Pentecost