So, there is a specific sequence. First there is a weekly Sabbath, which we understand to be within Unleavened Bread. On the next day, there is an offering of a sheaf of barley that is waved before God for acceptance. That day marks the beginning of the harvest, as well as the beginning of a span of seven weeks. The day after the seven weeks are complete is a feast day when another wave offering is made, this time from the wheat harvest. So, the count begins with a wave offering, and then there is another wave offering after the appointed time is fulfilled. The seven weeks are basically bookended by wave offerings.
The waving of an offering involved holding it up and then passing it back and forth. It was as though God was examining every part of it. In addition to the wave offering acknowledging God, it also reminded the people of God’s examination of what was being held up to Him, as well as, hopefully, His acceptance.
The two wave loaves that are baked with leaven fit into this. Verse 17 says they are the firstfruits to the LORD. That means they are a representative portion of the earliest and typically best part of the harvest. They are presented to God, but they are given to the priest for his use. The presence of leaven means they could not be put on His altar.
As we know, the word “firstfruits” is used in several ways. Jesus twice is called “the firstfruits” (I Corinthians 15:20-23). A second usage is that Christians have the firstfruits of the Spirit (Romans 8:23). A third usage is that Christians themselves are firstfruits (James 1:18). A fourth usage is found in Romans 11:16, which says that “If the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy.” The context suggests that it is talking about Abraham. He was the early part of God’s work anciently. Along similar lines, a fifth usage is that the nation of Israel was also the firstfruits of what God was doing then (Jeremiah 2:3; Hosea 9:10).
Because there is a variety of uses, we must evaluate carefully before plugging one into the ritual here. In fact, when we look at all the instructions here, none of those symbolic uses of firstfruits provides a seamless fit. Most of them don’t fit at all. A major difficulty is the fact that the two loaves are baked with leavening, which is a consistent symbol for corruption throughout the Scriptures. That immediately rules out both Christ and the Spirit from being in view here.
But the leavening also poses a significant problem for identifying the church as the wave loaves. The New Testament teaches that when we are in Christ, we are unleavened. Paul says in I Corinthians 5:7, “You truly are unleavened.” He is very clear. We are unleavened because of Passover and the covenantal relationship it pictures. It is a state of imputed righteousness because we are in Christ, who is completely unleavened. So, it would introduce a contradiction to say that the two loaves represent the church in general.
However, there is a way out of the dilemma if we remember what God says these two loaves are. We need to further refine what is really in view here. Verse 16 says they are a grain offering. They consist of fine flour made from the first part of the wheat harvest, but they are specifically identified as a grain offering, which is a highly significant detail. In terms of symbolism of this ceremony, it changes everything.
As a review, the grain offering pictures the fruit of one's labors out of what God has given for the benefit of others. Back in Exodus 23, we read that God calls this Feast, “the firstfruits of your labors.” The grain offering typifies dedication to fellow man through making use of what God has given, and this service toward fellow man is then an offering to God. Unlike the burnt offering or the sin offering, the grain offering is not substitutionary. That means it does not represent an individual or a group. Instead, it pictures the individual's labors from God's bounty. It pictures devotion to others, including … . . .
We are here on the seventh day of this feast in response to this command, as we find there in verse 8, to keep this day. But on its heels comes instruction about another feast, a separate feast. That is the Feast of Firstfruits, as it is called here, we often called it the wave sheaf offering. But on the day of the wave sheaf offering, or the Feast of Firstfruits, a sheaf of barley is waved before the Lord for acceptance. And this signals, as we saw there in verse 14, the beginning of the early grain harvest. They could not eat any of the other grain until this particular ceremony was completed. It marked the opening that on that day they could go out and harvest their early grain, mostly barley, and bring it in. So it is called the Feast of the Firstfruits. Those were usually the sheaf that was cut and offered and was the first ripe grain of the season and it was also, we could say, the whole harvest was the first harvest of the year. So it is the firstfruits of all their labor.
Now, it says this occurs the day after the Sabbath. The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week, the day after it would be the first day of the week, and so this wave sheaf offering was always to be made on a Sunday, the first day of the week. The only real clue we have as to which Sabbath this should be counted from, or which Sabbath should be the one after which we make the grain offering, is that this command appears immediately after the command to keep the Days of Unleavened Bread. And so it is only reasonable and logical to think that the Sabbath that God is mentioning here is the one that the people have just passed through, as it were, during the Days of Unleavened Bread.
This year the first Day of Unleavened Bread was a Sabbath and so that was the day, the Sabbath day, the weekly Sabbath that we should use as the start of this particular account. It is only one day, but it is on the day after the Sabbath during the Days of Unleavened Bread. So that meant that the Feast of Firstfruits for this year (2018) was last Sunday, which just happened to be the same day that the people of this world were keeping Easter Sunday. And as we see in verses 15 and 16, this particular day, the Feast of Firstfruits, is the first day of the count to Pentecost. So fifty days from that day, fifty days after the Sabbath, seven weeks then from that day, is the Feast of Pentecost.
