What are the stages of the harvest as it pictures resurrection?
The harvest pictures resurrection in three stages: firstfruits taken as a sampling, then the main harvest of the field except corners and gleanings, and finally the gleanings left behind are harvested last. Every person is resurrected within his company; the firstfruits already occurred with Christ and the Jewish saints.
Les explains that Christ is the first to have ever been resurrected from the dead. After His resurrection, Jewish saints came forth and comprise the sheath indicated in Leviticus, completing the plural “firstfruits.” The feast day of firstfruits took not just one stem of grain but many, a sampling of the crop to come, and they were brought together in a sheath and taken to the priest. Then 1 Corinthians 15:23 says every man is resurrected within his company; church age saints are not resurrected with Old Testament saints and are not part of the firstfruits, because that already happened. The harvest process shows firstfruits taken out as a sampling, then the main harvest (all but the corners and gleanings), and finally what was left harvested last of all.