He makes men 'the many brethren,' of whom He is 'the first-born' and He, by the overflowing power of His life, raises from the dead the whole harvest of which He is the first-fruits. In His case the ideas attached to the expression are not only that of consecration, but that of being the first of a series, which owes its existence to Him. He is 'become the first-fruits of them that slept': and it was no mere accidental coincidence that, in this character, He rose from the dead on the day on which, according to the law, the sheaf was to be presented in the Temple.
Now, in the New Testament, both these ideas of 'the first-born' and 'the first-fruits,' which run as you see parallel in some important aspects, are transferred to Jesus Christ. Both were regarded as in a special sense consecrated to and belonging to God.
A similar law applied to the first-born of men and of cattle. No part of the harvest was permitted to be used for food until after this acknowledgment, that all had come from God and belonged to Him. '.That we should be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures.'- James 1:18Īccording to the Levitical ceremonial, the first sheaf of the new crop, accompanied with sacrifice, was presented in the Temple on the day after the Passover Sabbath.
