Who was resurrected first in God's order of resurrections?
Christ was resurrected first in God's orderly sequence of resurrections. He is identified as very first, before those who came out of the graves in Matthew 27 after His resurrection, which comprised the first fruits pictured in Israel's harvest days. The next main group will be those in Christ at His coming.
Les explains that the resurrections are brought out in an orderly way. First, Christ in His resurrection was very, very first. Then those who came out of the graves in Matthew 27 after His resurrection were taught to comprise the first fruits, as it was in Israel's harvest days. The next order in the resurrections is Christ at His coming—those who are in Christ. Les distinguishes every believer's natural belonging to Christ as Creator from the positional term "in Christ," which is uniquely the Body of Christ, a Pauline term never used of the Jew in the economy of law. Therefore verse 23 speaks of those in Christ as the next main group resurrected after the first fruits at Christ's resurrection. Les stresses that Israel and the Church are two separate economies that cannot be mixed; keeping them sorted is necessary to understand this verse.
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
See the rest