Christ The First Fruits
This
message was written by Brother Jack Hodgdon from U.S.A. on 3rd May 2000
and
published here with his blessing.
Today has been a wonderful day. As my wife Beverly was shopping, I was waiting in the car looking for a scripture in my bible, and the Holy Spirit stopped me on Romans 11:16 and from there I was enlightened with some truth that has had me confused for a long time.
In Psalm 51:6 David makes a profound statement. “Behold, (pay attention) you desire truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom”. Today is one of those days when I was given wisdom from the Holy Spirit, the revealer of all truth. Jesus said “ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”, John 8:32. It’s very lonely here in this desert town but days like this that make it all worth-while. So with this introduction come with me on a journey and you check these things out to see if these things be so.
A wonderful truth just came like lightning. It all starts in the verse which the Spirit stopped me on in Romans 11:16 which reads, “for if the first fruits be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy so also are the branches”. This word holy took me into the bible to Leviticus 23:10. “Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, when ye come into the land which I give unto you, and ye shall reap the harvest thereof, then shall ye bring a sheaf of your harvest (Barley) unto the priest; (an Omer or handful and Ye shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be excepted for you: on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it”.
This was all done when Christ the first sheaf was offered. He died and was in the grave 72 hours, three days and three nights. He descended to the lower parts of the earth even as the record shows in 1Pet. 3:18-20 “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit; by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometimes were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is eight souls were saved by water”. “And having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it”. Col.2:15.
The result of his triumph was as Rev.1:18 says,” I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forever more, amen, amen; and have the keys of hell and death”.
According to Eph. 4:8-10, Jesus descended to the lower parts and led captivity captive. He himself led the exodus from the lower parts and began a brand new creation. He gathered a first-fruit company of old testament saints who had been sleeping in their graves out of captivity. They were the saints who are spoken of in Hebrews 11 as the heroes of faith. Listen to what the apostle Paul says in this resurrection chapter, 1 Co 15:20. “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept”. Under-score those words, “THEM THAT SLEPT”. It is clear that Paul is speaking in this 20th verse, of a handful of old testament saints who were raised up as one of those infallible proofs of Acts 1:3. The record once again is proof that this resurrection were saints who lived under the law and even from the beginning of time.
Matt. 27:51-53 says this: “And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake and rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints that slept arose, and came out of their graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many”.
There are many wonderful Truths being revealed unto his Elected ones who want to know Truth rather than doctrines, which divide and destroy the Truth of God.
I have known for years like many others that a first-fruit Company was being reared up, but we only saw the tip of the iceberg. Now with clarity I can give hope of what is meant by Christ the first- fruits that Paul is speaking of in 1Cor.15:20-23. So those in 1Cor.15:20 were the overcomers that Paul speaks of in Hebrews 11. They were raised up but not made perfect even as Hebrews 11:39-40 says. They are now waiting in the heavens for us to be made perfect so we all together can have an entrance into the everlasting kingdom.
First-fruits of 1 Co. 15: 22-23
Now let us move on to this 22 & 23rd verse that I have had much understanding of over the past (40) years. “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” These old testament saints had no Life, as eternal life was never possible until Jesus came and destroyed the last enemy. Hebrews 11:35 “…and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection.”
That “better resurrection” awaits all the dead and the living at His appearing and His kingdom, 2 Timothy 4:1. Under Jesus everything is better. Even those who were raised up as the first- fruits under the old covenant is what all first- fruits await, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. So, 1Cor.15:23 is speaking of a better resurrection than even those saints experienced in Matthew 27:51-53. They were raised but never received perfection and glorified bodies.
Perhaps this is what Romans 8:17 is speaking of when it says, “and if children , then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, THAT WE MAY BE GLORIFIED TOGETHER”. 1Cor15:23 says this: “But every man in his own order: (rank and company) Christ the first fruits; afterwards they that are Christ’s at his coming”. The concordant literal says of this verse, “yet each in his own class: the first- fruit, Christ; there upon those who are Christ’s in his presence”. The definite article is missing in Christ the first-fruits, which means it is speaking of a company of living saints who have come into what Paul in Philippians 3:11 calls “those out of resurrection”. The resurrection is that moral Spiritual resurrection, according to Bullinger’s companion bible and Dr. Charles William’s translation.
This is what Bullinger says of Philippians 3:11. The Greek word for “resurrection” in all places is “ANASTASIS” except in Philippians 3:11. In this verse it is the only place in all the new testament where the prefix (ex) precedes the word Anastasia. Could this resurrection be what Paul is talking about in 2 Cor 5: 2-4? Is this passage in Cor.5 the joining of the mortal of this earthly realm with the heavenly realm? I and another friends have been talking about what Paul talks about in Phl. 3:11 and 2 Cor.5:2-4; are they one and the same thing? Maybe Paul never understood Phl. 3:11 when he wrote 1Thess 4: 15-17 seeing that there was a ten year span of time difference.
Bullinger says here in his foot notes on page 1778 “resurrection from the dead” (ek nekron) implies the resurrection of some, the former of these two classes, the others being left behind. See Luke 20:35. In Acts 4:2 Peter and John had no doubt of attaining to this, as may be seen from 1 Thess. 4:15-17, WRITTEN SOME TEN YEARS BEFORE. The “exanastasis” must therefore mean a further selection of some, before the anastasis of 1Thess. 4:14 and Paul was not sure of attaining to this. Perhaps he had the assurance when he wrote 2 Tim.4:7. It is note worthy that there is no reference to any living ones being caught up, or any “Parousia” of the Lord here, as in 1Thess. 4:15-16. This, I believe, is what Paul had in mind when he says Christ the first- fruits… in 1Cor.15:23.
According to what Jesus says in Matthew 16:28 there were “some standing here that shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom” which is fulfilled in the following chapter in verses 1-8. This all happens after six days on the seventh day and Luke 9:28 suggests about eight days.
We are now beginning the seventh millennium since Adam.
There are many in his hour who are looking and expecting their change from this state of death to the butterfly state of FLYING HIGH into a place no mortals have ever experienced before. We are even now awaiting our full change, from the former mind of carnality, that is logic, and understanding things from a natural view point. Many are experiencing the mind of Christ and are being changed from Glory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. In my present understanding, I understand we have only the earnest of the Spirit. That means we are going from Glory to Glory awaiting that entrance into the land of promise, where we no longer have only a part of our inheritance. When Israel went into the land they got the whole inheritance not a part. There were 42 encampments in all, that took 40 years. Each encampment brought them closer to the promised land. What did those encampments mean to us under this age of going from Glory to Glory? Before they could enter the land of promise they had to cross over Jordan. Moses brought them through the Red Sea out of 430 years of bondage. Moses took them out but Joshua/Jesus brought them into the land to possess their inheritance. Jordan was a type and shadow of this death that the first Adam had put on us all. I am impressed about what Dr. Bullinger says about the title of the book of Joshua. Joshua, Hebrew Jehoshua= “Jehovah the Saviour.” In the Greek it means “Jesus”; see Acts 7:45, Hebrews 4:8 and Matt.1:18
Joshua in types and shadows was Jesus who took them into the land of promise. It’s interesting that Moses died two months before Joshua took them over. It was our Joshua/Jesus “… who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel”. 2 Timothy 1:10. Jesus was Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last as seen in Rev.1:14-15. A many membered Christ.
The Elect of Jude 14 shall be given the responsibility to rule and reign with Christ.
Jack
