„1 SHALL bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven; they are the first-fruits unto the LORD.”
The “feast of weeks,” or Pentecost, during which the “two wave loaves” were presented unto the Lord, took place fifty days after the waving of the sheaf of firstfruits. It is both interesting and instructive that these two feasts, and only these two, were celebrated the first day of the week, “the morrow after the Sabbath.” In the one we have Christ in resurrection, and in the other the forming of the Church. The first day of the week is the Christian’s day not the seventh, or Sabbath day. How wonderful that we should have set forth in these Old Testament types the mind of God, namely, that the Church is inseparably connected with the first day of the week. This should silence all those who claim that the Christian ought to keep the Sabbath.
“The morrow after the seventh Sabbath... ye shall offer a new offering unto the LORD... two wave loaves.” Fifty days after the priests in the temple had waved the sheaf of the firstfruits before the Lord, on the very day when they were presenting the wave loaves, a new offering was being presented unto the Lord elsewhere. It was not now in the temple but in that upper room where the disciples were assembled. They were told to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit and on that very day, the first day of the week, He descended from heaven and all were baptized into one body. This was something new in the ways of God, never known before — the Church formed on earth and united to Christ, the Head in heaven. Just think of God giving us this in type long years before! How it showed His divine interest in that which was to be formed — that which was in His mind in that past eternity Christ and the Church.
When the wave sheaf was offered there was no sin offering with it, but when the new meat offering was offered, baked with leaven, then there was a sin offering to meet it. The Church is founded on redemption, set apart by the Spirit of God, and is God’s habitation on earth; nevertheless, there is flesh there — evil — but there is also that which meets it. When it is Christ, the wave sheaf, there was no sin offering, nor did it need any preparation; it was presented to the Lord just as it came from the field.
But there was leaven baked in the loaves for there is sin in the Church; however, having been “baked” in the oven, in type the judgment which Christ Himself bore upon the cross, the evil is not seen (before God) as active. Even though beliers, we have sin in us, that is the old nature, the flesh, as long as we are in the body; but it ought not to be active in our lives. We are called to reckon ourselves “to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. 6:1111Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:11). “For he that is dead is freed from sin.” v. 7.
The two loaves, we believe, speak of the Church of God composed of both Jews and Gentiles. In 1 Corinthians 10 we read, “give none offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God.” The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost; He has been here ever since. Thus throughout that long period of time God has been occupied with forming the Church. When the Church will be complete only God Himself knows, but when it is, Christ shall come and call her home to heaven. That is where she belongs — with Himself, His heavenly Bride.
ML-09/03/1972