Christ the Firstfruits: Resurrection Explained Verse by Verse

Hello, and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Well, it's good to have everybody in again today, and for those of you in the studio, you can be turning with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and we're going to drop in where we left off in our last program in verse 20. Again, we always like to let our television people know that we have all the past programs available in video and little books, and we normally show them on the screen. We also have now the little audio cassette book type things with the same six hours as the videos and the books have. And again, I always like to emphasize, we aren't pushing these to make money on them. We don't make enough on it to amount to anything. But in fact, the books, we feel like we lose a few cents on every one we send out. But we do it only as a service, and because we've had so much demand for them, and I want folks to know that when you order and pay for a book, you're not contributing that amount to the ministry, or the same way with the videos. But anyway, they are available as a service and a courtesy, and you call us or write to us and we'll be glad to get them out to you. Okay, now I think we're going to get right back into the text, because after all that's what we're here for, is to study the Word. Now in verse 20, Paul has been rehearsing the whole scheme of resurrection in this chapter in the first 18-19 verses, that if Christ did not raise from the dead, if He was not raised from the dead, then we have no hope. Because at the very core, the crux of our Gospel is the fact that Christ did be raised from the dead. He was resurrected. Now again, I always like to define that term resurrected, because I think even a lot of times our ministers and so forth, totally use the word resurrection out of its true meaning. In other words, anyone that has been raised from the dead, miraculously back in Scripture, such as the widow's son under Elijah, and such as Lazarus who was raised from the dead, they were not resurrected. They were merely brought back to life, and they died again. Resurrection speaks of that which only Christ began, and that is that He arose from the dead into the eternal, never to die again. And so when we speak of resurrection scripturally, don't think of someone who has merely died and has been called back to life, because they're going to die again, as Lazarus did, and the widow's son did, and others. But once Christ rose from the dead, never to die again. That was resurrection. When we experience resurrection, it's going to be final. We will not again have to die and be brought back to life, and what have you. So resurrection is something that only began when Christ arose from the dead. He was the first to be resurrected. Keep that straight, because just the other day again I heard of someone speaking of Lazarus being resurrected. No, he was not. He was brought back to life, but he was not resurrected, because he died again at some later date. So we've been talking about the resurrection from the dead all the way through chapter 15, on up to verse 19 where we quit, and now verse 20, Paul again as I've used the expression often on throughout the Book of Corinthians, he shifts gears. Now all of a sudden, instead of just talking about the resurrection of Christ at the time of His death, burial and resurrection, now he goes clear to the end of the age, and he brings up resurrection as a part of the whole picture of God's plan of the ages. Now again when we teach the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, this is the way I like to do it. This is God's plan for the ages. Now when I say it's God's plan, I'm sorry Monty, I guess it's because you're back in the audience. But here we're going to go right from I Corinthians 15, and I'm going to take you back to Acts. You know every time I do this, why Monty kind of looks up and says, uh -huh, I knew it. But whatever, come back with me to Acts chapter 2. Keep your hand in I Corinthians 15. But when I speak of God's plan for the ages, what I'm trying to imply is that God before anything was ever created, the triune God put everything in motion. They already had it all blueprinted, and as I've told my classes here in Oklahoma over and over, one of the most amazing things, and one of the things that I find hard, and I'll admit it's hard to comprehend, is that God from the beginning gave men and nations their free will. And they have been operating under that free will, governments make decisions, they invade other nations, they raise up navies, and they produce air forces, supposedly under a free will. But yet from the beginning of time until the end of God's plan for the ages, everything falls in place exactly as God has predetermined it. Now think about that. Isn't that amazing? How that He can leave men and nations with a free will, they do pretty much as they think they want to do, and yet the end result is bringing everybody and everything to the end of God's purposes. Now how did it all begin? Well I like to use this verse in Acts chapter 2, where Peter is preaching here on the Day of Pentecost, and he's preaching of course to the nation of Israel, but he's rehearsing the fact that they had crucified their Messiah. But that's not so much the point I want to get out of this verse, as what I've just said, that God has had a plan for the ages from eternity past. verse 23. Acts 2. And speaking of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they had crucified, Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and crucified and slain. What's He saying? somewhere, way back in the eternity past, the Triune God in consul. Now they didn�t have to sit there for a whole afternoon and batty this thing back and forth, but nevertheless the Triune God sometime back there in the eternity past, came into the Trinity and in a split second of time or whatever you want to put on it, they determined. Now that�s a plan for the ages. And in His foreknowledge He could see every detail of it coming on down through history. Now in that determinate plan that God laid out way back before anything was created, the highlight of it all was the cross. And that�s what He goes on to say. That in God�s predeterminate counsel of understanding, of planning, or whatever you want to put on it, Israel has taken and crucified and slain. Was God caught by surprise? No! It was all in that eternal plan of the ages that Christ must suffer. And of course all the way through the Scriptures we have this, that this was all in God�s blueprint for the ages. And this is why I�ve got my line on the board, and I told the class before we started. I still haven�t made up my mind whether to use it at this moment, or wait until I get to chapter 15 verse 51. But what I want folk to see and understand, and of course in my classes we go over it almost periodically, and I haven�t done it now on the program in a long time. And like I told Iris driving up this morning, the thing that holds me back from repeating a lot of these things, is the fact that so many people have bought the tapes, they�ve bought the books, and I just sort of feel as though I�m cheating them when I repeat something on the program. But on the other hand I have to remember that probably 95% of our audience never write to us, and never order anything, and so they are not getting it repeated. So anyhow if you�ll come back now to 1 Corinthians 15, according to this predetermined plan of the ages that Christ would suffer and die, but He would also be risen from the dead. Now back to 1 Corinthians 15 verse 20. But Paul says, Now is Christ risen from the dead, and He has become the firstfruits of those that have slept, or have died. Now the only way you can really understand this kind of language is to go back to the Old Testament, and of course if you don�t understand the Old Testament you can�t understand the New. But come back with me to Leviticus chapter 23. The seven feasts of Jehovah, as we refer to them, and they were feast days for the nation of Israel in their temple worship as they progressed through the year. But as they came to the barley harvest, which of course was the first crop that Israel harvested in Palestine, which would be shortly after the Passover of course. But he comes down into verse 9 of chapter 23 with the third of these seven feasts. First is Passover, and then unleavened bread, and then you come to verse 9 and 10. They have this feast of firstfruits. Now verse 10. Leviticus 23a "...the Lord tells Moses, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are come into the land which I give unto you, and ye shall reap the harvest thereof..." Now you want to remember that Israel was an agrarian little nation. They weren�t metropolitan. They were all living off of the land. They had their herds and their flocks, and they raised their grain and so forth. So they were an agricultural people. So he says, "...when ye are come into the land, and reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheath of..." What? Firstfruits! See there�s the word. "...then ye shall bring a sheath of the harvest unto the priest." In other words they were to go into that field of barley. Maybe I can put that on the board. I think I�d better. I�ll come to my lines later. But let�s just say there�s a little tract of land, 10, 12, 15 acres or whatever, and barley was their first grain to be harvested in the spring of the year. And everybody who knows anything about small grains, wheat, barley, oats and so forth, as the field is still green and all headed out as we say, all of a sudden scattered throughout that field will be yellow heads of grain. I�m sure you�ve all seen it. And it just sprinkles throughout the field with early ripening heads of grain. They have ripened before the mass of all the other stems around them. Now then, what were these Jews supposed to do? They were to go into that green field and pluck those early ripened stems with the heads, enough so that they would have a sheath, and then they would take it to the priest, and it was a wave offering. Now read it again. When you are come into the land, and ye shall reap the harvest, you shall bring the firstfruits to the priest. Now while you�re in Leviticus you might as well back up to chapter 19, because we�re going to look at this a little bit later, but I�m not going to have you come clear back to Leviticus unnecessarily. I�m going to make you file this in your little computer. Now back here in chapter 19, another part of the harvest, after they had gone in and harvested the main part of the field, then you see they had these instructions. Leviticus 19 verse 9, after the harvest has been taken, then they were to reap the harvest, and thou shalt not wholly or completely reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of your harvest, and they shall not glean the vineyard, and so on and so forth. Then you come to the last part of chapter 19. Now you have three aspects of the Jewish harvest. First they would go in and take that sampling of the early ripening heads of grain. Then they would go and take the main harvest, but they had to leave the corners and their gleanings for the poor. Now keep that process in the back of your mind as we now come back to I Corinthians 15 again. So when Paul gives us the clue, that�s what I call this, when he says that Christ has risen from the dead, and He has become the first fruits of those who have died. In other words, I think he�s telling us, now go back and use the Israeli system of harvest as an illustration of the resurrections that are coming. Now we have to always qualify, and this takes a lot more time than what I�ve got here. In fact I�ve used the illustration so often, and I get caught in this every time I come up here to tape four programs. I�ve given it before that when Martin Luther was heading to wherever they were going to meet with him after he nailed his 95 Theses on the church door, and he was supposed to meet with the authorities from Rome, as he and his entourage were evidently riding on horseback to wherever city they were going, Martin Luther made this classic statement, and I love it because I find myself there constantly. He said, �Gentlemen, if only I could tell these men everything that I want to tell them in the first 30 minutes.� Now what did he mean? If he could just unload it all on them before they would have time to reject it, or close their mind to it, or whatever. Well, this is the way I feel so often. There is so much in these next few verses that I wish I could just compact it all into 30 minutes, but you can�t do it, and so you�ll have to bear with me. It�s going to take some time. Now then verse 21. Verse 21. That was Adam when he rejected God�s discipline, and was disobeying Him, and ate the fruit, and Adam died spiritually immediately, but he died physically of course 900 years later. So by Adam then came death, and by man came also the resurrection of the dead. Boy now that throws a curve at you, don�t it? Well I can understand how Adam plunged the human race into sin and death, because he ate of the forbidden tree. But how in the world did he bring back life to the human race? Well you�ve got to be careful and compare Scripture with Scripture. Now come across the page, at least in my Bible, to I Corinthians chapter 15, and let�s look at verse 45 and 46. Now this will explain then what he�s saying here in verse 21. I Corinthians 45, and so it is written, �The first man, Adam, was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening or a life-giving spirit.� Now verse 46, �Howbeit that was not first, which is spiritual, but that which is natural. Afterward that which is spiritual, because the first man is of the earthy, the second man, the second Adam, the last Adam, is the Lord from heaven.� Now here we have these two federal heads, if you want to call it that. Adam as the head of the natural progeny of the human race, plunged us into sin, and sin precipitated death. Let�s look back a minute. I want to do all this with Scripture, because I�m always telling everybody, don�t go by what I say, but what does the Book say? Well I�m going to show you what the Book says. Go back to Romans chapter 5. We�re not going to hurry because we�ve got a lot to cover, and I�m not going to squeeze it into 30 minutes like I�d like to. We�re going to take all afternoon if necessary. Romans chapter 5, verse 12. Romans 5. Romans 5. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death entered by sin, sin. And so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned." Alright, that�s what Paul is referring to now by inspiration of course of the Holy Spirit. Now come back to I Corinthians 15 again, and so the first man, now come back to verse 46 and 47 before you go back to verse 21. So come back to verse 46, �How be it that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and after that which is spiritual.� Alright, now I�ve made the point in this program ever since we left Genesis that the format of all of God�s dealing is first the natural and then the spiritual. Now just stop and think about it. First Cain the natural, Abel the spiritual. You can go a little further, Esau the natural, and Jacob the spiritual. Go back a little further than that, Ishmael the natural, Isaac the spiritual, King Saul the natural, and King David the spiritual. You go all the way up through Scripture, and then you bring yourselves into the picture. Here we are as sons of Adam, we are born what? Natural, we�re of the flesh. But after we have experienced salvation, we�ve been born from above, and now we�re what? Spiritual. The Antichrist will come, the man, the natural, and then the Christ will come, the spiritual. And this is the Law of Scripture, and that�s what Paul is referring to. First the natural, Adam, then the spiritual, Christ. Come back into the text. Verse 47, �So the first man is of the earth, he was earthy, he was created from the dust of the earth. But the second man is not a created being, it is the Lord Himself from heaven.� Now here�s where we have to have that solid understanding that Christ was not just another created being, He was the Creator Himself. And see here�s where I have to get adamant against some of the false teachings that are coming in on us like a flood. That Jesus Christ was God, is God, He�s the Creator, He�s the Sustainer of the whole universe, and we must never lose sight of that. Otherwise our Gospel is a farce. But He is who He says He is, and that is, He is the Lord from heaven. Now let�s move on down to verse 48, �For as is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy. And as the heavenly, so are they also that are heavenly.� Now those of you who have been with me all these years, you remember that when I taught Genesis 1.1, the first point I made, in the beginning God created heaven and earth. Everything in Scripture is going to be connected to those two entities. It�s either that of the earth, and it�s earthy, or it�s going to be that of heaven, and it�s heavenly. Israel then as you come on up through the Book of Genesis becomes the earthy, and the Church becomes the heavenly. And there the two can meet, because there is that golf fix that you cannot mix the dealings of God with the earthly people of Israel, and mix them with the heavenly people which is the Body of Christ, the Church. And if only people could understand that. They are so totally different. Israel is earthy, the Church is heavenly. Now let�s go on to the next verse. Genesis 1.1 "...as we have borne the image of the earthy, that is being born into the human race by way of Adam, by way of our human parents, we are earthy. But we�re not going to stay earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly, and that�s our prospect. We are not for eternity going to be bound as earth beings. We are going to one day be transformed into that which is heavenly, and we�re going to have bodies like Christ�s. Now it�s going to come up hopefully in the next three programs after this, because I had someone ask again in the class last night, �Well what kind of a body are we going to have in the next life ?� Well I just turned right back to Philippians chapter 3, and what does it say? We are looking for the Lord from heaven, and He will change our bodies so that we will be fashioned after His glorious Body. Well what are you going to use for an example? Well I tell everybody if you want to get just a glimpse of how we are going to function in eternity, you go back into the Gospel accounts and just study Christ�s 40 days after resurrection. And there you have the perfect picture. When Mary saw Him in the semi darkness of that early dawn, she thought He was a gardener. So did He look weird? No. He looked very common and ordinary, but she just couldn�t define His features enough to know who He was. The disciples saw Him cooking fish on the shore, and they came up and asked, �Well have you got any food? Have you got any meat? No. Well put your net on the other side.� See He was very normal in all of His appearances, and then when the net came full, then Peter said, �It�s the Lord!� Well now if Jesus looked bizarre and weird and different, then Peter and the 10 would have understood. But they didn�t know who He was, He looked like just another person. And then wonder of wonders, and especially in the Luke account, when they sat down for breakfast, what did Jesus also do? He ate! He ate with them. And so He had all the outward appearances of another human being, but He was now immortal. He didn�t have to go through the door, He could go through the wall, He could go through the ceiling. He could be transported from one place to a jillion miles away in a split second of time. I think that even the speed of light is going to become nothing for us when we get into the immortal, when we get into the eternal. And so we have this glorious prospect that we�re no longer going to be tied to this old earth, and be simple monuments of clay. We�re going to have new, resurrected, immortal, heavenly, eternal bodies. And we�re not going to look weird. We�re not going to look like something out of some Hollywood concoction, but we are going to look just as normal from all human outward appearances as the Lord Jesus did in those 40 days from His resurrection until His ascension. Now again, even at His ascension, did He go up in some puff of a spirit or a cloud? No. What did the angel say? This same Jesus as you have seen go, will come back, and He�s going to stand on this same mountain. Well you know how I�ve always put it. How did He leave? Head first. He went up from the Mount of Olives head first. How is He going to return? Feet first. Zechariah tells us as plain as day, that when He returns His feet will stand at that day on the Mount of Olives. And the Mount of Olives is there yet today, and it�s waiting for Him, and one day soon He�s coming to it. Less Feldick Ministries, Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK 74552 That�s Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK 74552 Through the Bible with Less Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time, for Through the Bible with Less Feldick.