The Bible gives us a fundamental understanding to enter into the essential experience of our salvation — to come to the “norm” of a believer’s life and develop the full functionality and faculties of a spiritual living. As Christians, our “norm” should be a life in resurrection. The experience of resurrection life is not a one-time event, or something so “miraculous” that we only encounter it at special or specific times. Actually, it is a moment-by-moment experience. As saved ones, we should live freely and entirely by the resurrection life of the Lord. Hallelujah, we can drop all of our human bondage and baggage, putting to death everything of the old to be resurrected to the new! Effortlessly, we can be in this life cycle, constantly receiving real nutrients and substance to live a resurrected human life, gaining the substantial, vital elements for our inner life to be sustained and developed.
As normal Christians living out the resurrection life in the church, we are learning to realize two things in our experience: firstborn and firstfruit. For fallen human beings, the firstborn is something physical. For example, in the Bible, we see Jacob fighting to be the firstborn from his mother’s womb (Gen. 25:26). By nature, human beings fight physically to be first: to have the highest achievement among men, whether as entrepreneurs, philosophers, gold-medal Olympic athletes, or Ivy-League students — all are striving to be the “firstborn.” But human beings are limited; eventually, we come to understand that we are not God, and our natural firstborn nature will only end in death. We need another source of life to replace this natural man; in the end, no matter who we are or what we’ve done — whether we are lowly people or Nobel Prize winners — we still need to be found in Christ, who is the only Firstborn of God, the Firstborn of all creation (Col. 1:15).
But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Cor. 15:20).
But Christ is not only the Firstborn of all creation, but also the Firstborn from the dead, or the firstfruits of resurrection (Col. 1:15, 18; 1 Cor. 15:20). While our natural firstborn only ends in death, in the true Firstborn, there is also the firstfruits! We must follow not only Christ as the Firstborn, but also Christ as the firstfruits to come out from death. Physically speaking, human beings are born and they die, but from a spiritual perspective, as believers, we are physically born, we die on the cross with Christ, and we are born anew in resurrection. Christ’s death and resurrection give us a true spiritual birth to enter into eternal life in new creation; we may fall asleep, but it is only a death to the old creation. Through Christ, we enter into a new realm of life.
This is not a new concept, but a fulfillment of the Old Testament. In Leviticus, the firstfruits is introduced as part of the feasts to be kept by the children of Israel. On the eighth day, the sheaf of the firstfruits is waved for our acceptance alongside a male lamb without blemish, the fine flour mingled with oil and a drink offering of wine (23:10-13). Christ is this unique one — the acceptable offering without blemish, the bread and the wine, the One who was resurrected on the third day (eighth day according to the calendar given by Jehovah during their exodus from Egypt; Ex. 12:2). In this way, Christ is both the firstfruits of resurrection and also the Firstborn, the first one raised from among the dead, that He might be the Head of the Body (Col. 1:18). Since He, the Head of the Body, has been resurrected, we, the Body, also will be resurrected (1 Cor. 15:20).
Because the Body life is a life in resurrection, we don’t need to struggle over dying to our flesh in the old creation. As believers, we must constantly step into His resurrection, joining ourselves to Christ as the firstfruits emerging from the cross. The cross is the key to our living a proper life as a believer; crucifixion is the guaranteed pathway to resurrection. Do we struggle to be in the church life in a proper condition, or constantly find ourselves reacting in the flesh? In these moments, our natural firstborn should be crucified. We don’t need to strive or impress, but simply mingle with Christ, taking the true Firstborn as our replacement, and enjoy Him as the firstfruits of resurrection. This should be our everyday experience; otherwise, our Christian life will always remain theoretical, and even reading the Bible or pursuing spiritual understanding will only lead us to death, not life. Today, the believer’s life is so free because there is the experience of the firstfruits through death and resurrection. Without experiencing Christ as the firstfruits, we can never experience the full and true freedom of God’s salvation.
Today, we pray that the Lord moves us on. We do not need to be distracted by our own striving to be the natural firstborn in the old creation. We have the secret now! The secret is through Jesus Christ, the true Firstborn of all creation, the Firstborn from the dead, and the firstfruits of resurrection. Today, we have a place to go: our destination is on the cross, which ushers us into resurrection and bears the firstfruits. Today, we can join Him in His death to be “real deal” believers in the Body, over which He is the Head, and in which is nothing of the old, natural man — only the new! There, in the Body, we have all the substantial elements of life to grow and mature. There, we have the opportunity each day and each moment to bear fruit — the Lord Himself. There, we are transformed and find ourselves and the saints surrounding us as fellow firstfruits. The fruit of the exercise of a normal, healthy believer’s life is the church in resurrection!
(Above is part 1 of a series compiled from notes of fellowship taken from a gathering on 3/21/2021, not reviewed by the speaker. Read part 2 here.)