What is the meaning of the expression "First of Sabbaths?" The expression "the first of the Sabbaths" refers to the wave sheaf offering.
What is the wave sheaf offering? The wave sheaf offering was a yearly offering made to God from the first grains of the harvest. This HOLIDAY falls every year on the first Sunday after Passover Feast. As you can see in the following chart, Jesus WAS RESURRECTED on the day of the wave sheaf offering.
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Why is the wave sheaf offering called the "First of Sabbaths?" If we read Deuteronomy 16:9-10 we realize that there is a PERIOD OF 7 WEEKS that are counted from the day of the wave sheaf offering until Shavuot/Pentecost. Within these seven weeks there are seven Sabbaths. The wave sheaf offering is an annual holiday (not a weekly Sabbath) and MARKS THE BEGINNING of this period of 7 weeks.
Deuteronomy
16:9 You shall count seven
weeks
for yourself; you shall begin to count seven weeks from the time you begin to
put the sickle to the standing grain.
Deuteronomy 16:10 Then
you shall celebrate the Feast
of Weeks [Shavuot/Pentecost] to
YHWH your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you
shall give just as YHWH your God blesses you;
The Feast of
Weeks/Pentecost
comes from the Greek root "penta" which means five. This is
because there is a total of fifty days. Please refer to the above
timeline.
We calculate the
day of Pentecost in the following way: seven days X seven weeks plus one day
( 7 X 7 ) + 1 = 50
days. The
Feast of Weeks was therefore celebrated on the 50th day. The Feast of
Weeks/Shavuot/Pentecost is one of God's Annual Holy Days in which no servile
work can be done. See our file Holy
Days.
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Leviticus
23:15 'You shall also count for
yourselves from the next day after the Sabbath, from the day when you
brought in the Wave
Sheaf Offering;
there shall be seven perfect Sabbaths. Leviticus 23:16 You shall count fifty days to the NEXT day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall present a new grain offering to YHWH. |
Therefore the
wave sheaf offering is presented ONCE A YEAR, and always on a SUNDAY (the NEXT
day after the weekly Sabbath).
The day the
counting was initiated was when the Wave
Sheaf Offering
was offered.
Christ is the
"wave sheaf offering" that was sacrificed for us and He presented
himself to the Father as an offering on the exact
day the wave sheaf offering was being waved in the temple! He is the
"FIRST FRUITS" of the harvest of souls. He is the first person who
died and was resurrected to spirit -- THE FIRST BORN OF MANY BRETHREN.
John
20:17 Jesus said to her, "Don't touch
me, for I haven't yet ascended unto my Father; but go to my brothers, and tell
them, 'I
am ascending to my Father and
your Father, and my God and your God.'"
Not only is Jesus
the wave sheaf offering who presented Himself as an offering to the Father on
the day of His resurrection, He is also our Passover lamb sacrificed for us on
the 14th of Nisan, the day the lambs were being sacrificed for the Passover
feast of Nisan 15. See our file Holy
Days.
| Exodus 12:21 Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said to them, "Draw out, and take lambs according to your families, and kill the Passover. |
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Therefore, the biblical translation "First day of the week," is incorrect. The original Greek says "first of the Sabbaths," which as we already saw refers to the wave sheaf offering, a day which occurs once a year as stated in God's calendar!
These holidays are in the Bible in order for us to understand the plan of God and to have hope as we see the fulfillment of prophecy.
In our file The First Resurrection. we explain in more detail what Jesus meant by "you need to be born again," as with His resurrection, which happened on the day of the wave sheaf offering, He became the first one to be born again.
