4 - Bible Commentary | Karuna Sadan

First Fruits Offering

Then it shall be, when you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance, and you take possession of it and live in it, 2 that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His Name (Presence). (Deuteronomy 26:1-2)

"First fruits is a principle of faith that God has established from the beginning. In Hebrew, it is the word bikkurim, and it literally means “a promise to come.” First fruits means the first in place, order or rank; the beginning, chief or principal thing.

This idea of first fruits that God was sowing in His people’s minds had a much bigger scope than just harvests, beasts, or property. God was preparing and priming humanity for the entrance of Jesus and the kingdom of God. The New Testament flings away the veil to reveal the full meaning of first fruits.

Adam was the first person God created. When he became contaminated with sin, everyone else became contaminated, too. No one was to touch the tree of God’s knowledge and headship for their own use. Its fruit was the ‘devoted thing’ Adam took for himself and brought a curse upon all of us. We inherited Adam’s sin because he was the firstfruit of the family of man.

“Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.” (Romans 5:14)

The first man, Adam, was a template or a pattern of everyone else to come. This is the principle of first fruits, or ‘a promise to come.’ The way you govern first things in your life sets a pattern for how the rest of those things will flow or come to fruition. Since Adam fell into death, death reigned until a new firstfruit was sent and a New Covenant was made – the ‘promise to come.’

“For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.” (1 Corinthians 15:22-23)

Who is our Promise to come?

God wanted a family. He sowed a son, and reaped many children. Jesus had to present Himself to God the Father as the firstfruit so we could become the sons of God. Jesus became the firstfruit offering. The Old Testament vaguely pointed to Him, but the New Testament proclaims about Him!

In Romans 8:29, the Bible declares:

“For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate [to be] conformed to the image of his Son, that he (Jesus) might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

Jesus is the firstborn, or firstfruit, among many brethren, brothers and sisters in the family of God. Jesus is our pattern now. We no longer live under the failure and shame of Adam; we have the victory and confidence of Christ!

Jesus is our pattern and template. We are destined to be conformed to His image. He is our pattern, and we come in many designs. The Old Testament commanded God's people to offer the best of their “first things” to God in a basic, rudimentary way. But in our new agreement with God, we can offer God the best of ourselves in a more full, and more complete way which comes from the heart.

The way we do this now is summed up in Romans 12:1:

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, [which is] your reasonable service.”

When we offer up our bodies as a reasonable service to God, we offer Him the best of our everything, in a greater, more full way than God's people ever did with their beasts and harvests in the Old Testament. We offer ourselves to God just as Jesus did – as living sacrifices.

I have brought the firstfruits of the land which you, O Lord, have given me. (Deuteronomy 26:10)

We only give to God what He has given us in the first place

We must always recognize this fact when giving to the Lord

All that we have is what the Lord has given us and we give back to Him from what He has given us.

Chapter 26