I have already shown the character of the sabbath, and how God introduced it in a manner altogether peculiar. He presented it at the very beginning of the feasts, though in fact its accomplishment, viewed now as a type, will be at the end. It is the great purpose to which all lead. As a present witness to this God attached such importance to the sabbath, that, differing from all the other feasts, it was to be repeated at the end of every week.
Further, it is a mistake to suppose the sabbath is done with, for it is to be in force throughout the millennium. I am not speaking of the Lord's day, when we very properly meet together as Christians; and I believe, so far from its being a mere question of man or churches appointing that day, that it has the very highest divine sanction. So true is this, that a Christian in losing sight of the import, object, and character of the Lord's day, would be more guilty than a Jew that dishonored the sabbath day. But as the Lord's day came in by the resurrection of Christ for the Christian and the church meanwhile, it will be the sabbath, and not the Lord's day, when the Lord God establishes the kingdom and our Lord Jesus Christ reigns manifestly; when idolatry shall be abolished, superstition swept away, and every kind of iniquity that now raises its head will have met its end; when every creature in this world will be restored. For I pity the man who thinks the world was only made to be spoiled; certainly he who does not believe it is spoiled must be more lamentably wrong; but it is a gloomy and false thought that God made creation only to be ruined. As surely as the first Adam was the means of universal ruin for the creature, so the Second Man will be the great Deliverer not only of us but of it. He will reconcile to God all that He made, that is, all “things:” I say not all persons, for this is fatal error. In Scripture you never read of all persons being reconciled.
One little word makes all the difference between blessed truth and hateful error. What can be more false than the infidel dream of universal restoration? God will judge all whose sins have not been borne away to faith in Christ and His cross.
There is a day coming when all creation will rejoice, when the heavens and the earth and all in them will sing together. God has taken particular pains to express the earth's joy also, and it is a singular proof of the infatuation of man that he cannot see it though clearly revealed. This will be the rest of God; and, when it comes, the sabbath and not the Lord's day will again be the distinctive sign of God, which He will have observed and honored through the whole earth. You will judge then from this that I am anything but an anti-sabbatarian. Yet it is an indisputable fact now that all is changed. We do not keep the last but the first day of the week. And what principle lies at the bottom of the change? That the Lord is risen indeed, and not only so, but is gone to heaven; and the first day of the week shines from the person of the risen Lord Jesus in the heavens, now opened, on a heavenly people who are as yet here, but going to be with the Lord Jesus there. Hence it will always follow that, when men confound the sabbath and the Lord's day, they are earthly-minded. As the sabbath is bound up exclusively with the earth and an earthly people, so is the Lord's day with those who are heavenly.
The next feast, indeed the first of the feasts proper as here begun, is the passover. “In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is Jehovah's passover.” The foundation of all the ways of God for a fallen people is laid not in grace only but righteousness; it is the death, the efficacy of the blood, of the Lamb. Theology would have ordered otherwise, and made it the law or Christ's obedience of it. But mark it well: the first feast is not even a witness of the incarnation, nor of the Lord's path on earth; but His blood staying divine judgment. God begins with Christ's death: and no wonder; He could not overlook our sins; and there they were for the first time righteously met, and one may add, as far as the type goes, for the last time as well as the first. They were perfectly met for us by Him. It made no difference to the revealing Spirit whether the facts were present or future, so far as the communication of God's mind was concerned. All was before His eyes, though in Christ and after redemption the truth comes out with deeper and infinite fullness. But every scripture is divinely inspired, and it was just as impossible that God could lie before His atoning work was accomplished as when it was; and that is in part my reason for taking this chapter to speak on. It is high time for every Christian to stand for the word of God, and for every written word of His. The difficult times of the last days are come. Those that hesitate their dislike, or openly declare it, against what they call “verbal” inspiration, are apt to lose all right sense of God's word. It might be profitable, for such as shrink from the inspiration of the word, to say what remains for themselves to depend on. If you give up to the infidel the words of scripture, he will not leave you the thoughts of God. You may try to separate the truth from the words of God; but truth is communicated by words; and the apostle claims to speak “in words which the Holy Ghost teacheth.” The Bible is the only book which possesses such a character; and the Christian who is led by the Spirit in searching the word of God will learn how worthy of all confidence is the only and absolutely perfect communication of the mind of God.
On the paschal night God acted as Judge. This was necessary and righteous. And let me remark here how dangerous it is when people talk about His love, where they ought to think of their guilt and bow before His solemn judgment of sin.
I do not deny love for an instant; but even the boundless love of God cannot treat with sin, except by His own judgment of it. If sin were to be judged in our persons, we must be lost forever. But then grace provided an offering, the only adequate one, in Christ on the cross; and, accordingly, all the holy unsparing force of God's judgment fell on the head of the Lord Jesus there and then. It is not merely that He died in love in order to meet our need—this He did most surely; but there was far more and of deeper import, for He met the judgment of God. He suffered what sin deserved at the hand of God. And this is so essential to truth that one could not call a true believer in the atonement him who only sees Christ dying in love to man, and so only takes at the outward fact and human side of the cross.
It is patent to all that those who that day only saw Christ crucified were none the better, but rather worse. They were hardened at the sight, and afterward more careless than ever. Those whom grace gave to believe what God wrought therein were saved from wrath. Shelter from judgment was shadowed in the blood of the slain lamb.
Thereon immediately (and there is nothing morally more remarkable in these feasts) follows the feast of unleavened bread. Indeed, as may be seen elsewhere the two are so bound up together that they are both sometimes called the passover. Not one day is allowed to separate them; and this because God will not allow that the remission of our sins brought in by the blood of the Lamb shall be forever so little separated from our responsibility to holiness. The moment the Israelite was under the shelter of the blood of the lamb, he was forbidden to eat leavened bread, or to have leaven in any shape within his house.
The Wave-Sheaf.
But now we come to another principle. It was not merely that God was at the cross as the Judge of sin. What was shown at Christ's resurrection? Without doubt, as it is written, that God, the very One Who smote Jesus, raised Him from the dead. Sin was condemned, not for every one, but for those who believed. For those who do not believe there will only be the greater condemnation; for their sins are aggravated by the fact that, in the face of God, they have despised and rejected the Son of God; and, more than that, the Son of God dying as a propitiation for sins. Thus the divine judgment of sin on the cross makes the case of the unbeliever incomparably graver; for he is not only a sinner, but refuses the grace of God that would save him.
Here we come to a new section, and indeed a new utterance of Jehovah to Moses, not precisely a new feast, but at any rate introductory to a new feast and indeed the whole pivot on which it turns. “Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest” (ver. 10). What is the bearing of this? I am addressing those who, it may be taken for granted, believe that every word of God has a meaning, and a most important meaning. You do not require to be reminded that God's word before Christ is just as truly inspired as the New Testament.
The wave-sheaf then is introduced as quite separate from the passover and accompanying feast of unleavened bread. But in point of fact the wave-sheaf was waved on the first day of the week that followed the passover. So the Lord was crucified on Friday, lay in the grave on the sabbath or last day of the week, and rose on the first day or Sunday as the Gentiles called it. He was raised from the dead on the very day the wave-sheaf was waved before Jehovah. Little did the priest who waved it conceive the power and character of the truth set forth in the first-fruits he was thus presenting before the God of Israel. But the Risen One and Raiser of the dead had left the grave and broken its power for believers, whether they knew it or not; and if the Jews refused to listen, the Gentiles by grace would hear. Indeed there is no apter figure of resurrection in the Bible than that of the grain falling into the ground and dying, and then springing up. It is the Lord's own illustration in John 19: 24: “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Of whom was it spoken? Of His own death and resurrection, with its mighty consequences. If He is not raised, vain is apostolic preaching, and vain the Christian's faith. But Christ is raised from among the dead, first-fruits of those fallen asleep. So here it is said, “And he shall wave the sheaf before Jehovah, to be accepted for you” (ver. 11). Nor is salvation ever known without it, though souls may be born again. For it is the light of His resurrection which chases away all gloom and every tear of anxious sorrow. It is the resurrection of the Lord which brings out the acceptance of the believer without question before God. In His death our evil was dealt with atoningly, the sole righteous basis for the forgiveness of sinful man; but Christ's resurrection declares that the sins are forever gone for those who believe. “He was delivered for our offenses, and raised for our justification.” “On the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.” The type is fully confirmed by the striking coincidence of the facts.
This then is what we have prefigured in the wave-sheaf: Christ raised by God's power and the Father's glory. For His power entered the grave of the Lord Jesus, after all that He felt and could do against sin was exhausted in the cross. Therein was God glorified so, that it was His right to raise up Jesus from the dead, never ceasing till He set Him at His own right hand in heaven; and gave Him a name which is above every name. As man He died; as than He is raised up and exalted. As a divine person, the Son has everything; but He became a man, and humbled Himself, yea, to death on the cross; and now, in resurrection, He is taken up as man by the power of God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God.
With the wave-sheaf there was to be no offering for sin. This is a remarkable exception. If Israel or the Christian had been meant, there must have been a sin or trespass offering. Here it is Christ, and as fittingly there was no such offering. When it was a question of bringing Israel out of Egypt, blood was put on every door-post. The passover was thus a striking type of blood shed and sprinkled to stay divine judgment, with holiness following. Here is a fresh truth in the wave-sheaf. For there are two great principles: one displayed in the death of Christ; the other in His resurrection and they are so distinct that God employs two different types to show them forth in our chapter.
It is certain that this typifies Christ's resurrection and none but His; for we see there was no offering for sin connected with it. He was the only man since the world began Who could be presented to God without blood. An offering for sin was needed, even for the high priest, “as for the people, so also for himself;” but not so for Christ, Who died for our sins. Ver. 12: “And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf, an he-lamb without blemish, of the first year, for a burnt offering unto Jehovah: and the meat-offering thereof shall be two tenth-deals of fine flour, mingled with oil; an offering made by fire unto Jehovah for a sweet savor.” It is clearly then a question of Christ only. For here we have the two great offerings of sweet savor: the burnt-offering and the meat-offering, both speaking of acceptance personally in His perfection; and of a double perfection—perfection of life, lived in the meat-offering, and perfection of life given up, or of death, in the burnt-offering. As usual, there was of course the accompanying drink-offering, but not a trace of anything inconsistent with the savor of rest that God found in Christ; for it is of Him, and of Him alone, that the Spirit here speaks prophetically.
I would direct your attention for a little to the next verse, and for this reason. It helps to explain an expression in Luke 6:1, about which I dare say some here present have found difficulty, as certainly most people elsewhere. “And it came to pass on the second sabbath after the first that He went through the corn-fields; and His disciples plucked the ears of corn and did eat, rubbing them in their hands.” What is the force of “the second sabbath after the first"? For this I fear it is of little use to send you to the commentators; for they are all at sea about it as about most real difficulties for which you want their help. Some have had recourse to a very harsh way of getting out of the difficulty, and that is cutting out the word (for in Greek it is only a single word) δευτεροπρώτω: a very dangerous principle where the Bible is concerned. One celebrated critic thus guilty repented, virtually confessing the fault by replacing it. But it is no bad moral lesson for us to have to say, “I do not know.” This at least is true and, lowly; and if one looks up for light, it is well, for then God can give what is lacking.
Without saying more at this time about the critics, let us look at verse 14, for it is important, and helps to clear up a phrase otherwise dark. Now it is a vital claim of piety all through scripture that God must have His portion first, before the believer can becomingly take and enjoy his. One feels how right it is that God should be considered in the first place; it is due to Him, and true in everything; and if we do not render it, we must suffer the bitter consequence. So distinctly was this impressed on the statutes and ways of Israel, that no godly person there would have attempted to touch his corn before the first sheaf had been waved before Jehovah. How blessedly this applies to Christ, we all feel! Once Christ is the waved first-fruits, what may not follow?
For remember that Christ is a man (not only the eternal Son of God), but One Who having become man has accomplished redemption. To His resurrection the wave-sheaf pointed in type, and this for our acceptance. As man risen from the dead He goes up to heaven. He was not taken up in a merely exceptional way, as an individual, like Enoch or Elijah; He was head of the new family whose sins He had borne, going up into the glory of God, accepted for man, that is, for those who believe. By man, when He was here below, we know how He was rejected and crucified; but God raised Him up from the dead, and gave Him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God.
And now the disciples were going with their Master through the corn-fields; and, being hungry, on that sabbath according to the gracious permission of Jehovah they plucked and ate the ears of corn. Now it is said here that this particular sabbath was “the second after the first,” or second-first. How striking that this should be the first sabbath on which it was allowable! It was of no use to show this to unbelieving Pharisees. For what did they care for the truth? Their only wish was through the disciples to damage the Lord, being blind instruments in the hand of Satan. But the Lord vindicates amply His guiltless followers. On this I need not enter, but will just explain the force of the term in question. The first sabbath of the paschal feast was emphatically said to be a high or great day (John 19:31). And no wonder when we take in what God foresaw. But so it was in Jewish estimate. Alas for man! It was the very day in which Christ lay in the grave, the only day, sabbath as it was, marked by that awful crime throughout its entire evening and morning. There was only a part of the other two days, out of the three, which was reckoned day and night. On that first sabbath, immediately before the wave-sheaf, as it was, no Jew would have partaken of the corn. The day after it was the first day of the week, when the wave-sheaf was offered. The following sabbath was “the second-first” immediately after the wave-sheaf. The one was the first, the next the second-first, because associated with it.
But why do I mention all this? Just to show how precious is scripture to explain scripture. Nothing else, as a general rule, can: but we need the Holy Spirit to give us it aright. The word “second-first” occurs nowhere but in this verse of Luke. We see the value of the Old Testament to understand the New, not only of the New to understand the Old. Holy scripture is inspired and profitable; yet it is a fact, as singular as it is sure, that we only begin to appreciate intelligently the Old when we are at home in the New. They both go together for faith and blessing, as they ought; and the key to both is found in Christ the Savior alone, but Christ, King of Israel, as well as Head of the church and of all nations too, for we must not limit or confound His glories.