I Corinthians 15:20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
This passage is commonly used as a Easter Sunday sermon text. That is appropriate. However, in this post we are considering that even more can be taught from this text than might be first thought.
The most common and accurate point from this text that is taught is the reality of solidarity between Christ and the believer. This solidarity is of such a nature that what is predicated about Christ in terms of His resurrection is predicated about the believer. This is true, however this passage teaches more than solidarity, it teaches Union with Christ … it confirms what Christ Himself said earlier when He said;
5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
There is a vital union between Christ and the believer of such a nature that in life the believer produces the fruit of Christ and in death the believer, because of their union with Christ, is part of the harvest because he is one with Christ.
Referring back to I Cor. 15:2o we are told that Christ in His resurrection was the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. As is well known firstfruits comes from the Hebrew agricultural world. Paul’s usage of it here in relation to the resurrection is the motif of this whole chapter. Firstfruits, in the OT described the firstfruits of sacrifice that were brought each year at the beginning of the spring grain harvest in Israel (e.g., Ex. 23:16, 19; Lev. 23:10, 17, 20; Prov. 3:9). Obviously enough, what was being communicated in part was the idea that with the cultic sacrifice the firstfruits were promissory of the whole to follow. However, there is more going on then mere temporal priority. There is also the idea communicated that their is a vital union between the firstfruits and the harvest that will eventually follow. The firstfruits harvest represents the harvest of the whole crop which will come. Christ as the resurrected firstfruit, is promissory of the whole crop because the firstfruits with the whole crop are one.
This whole Pauline concept teaches that just as the harvested firstfruits offered could not be separated from what was to to soon be harvested from the whole field so Christ as the firstfruit of the resurrection life cannot be separated from the whole crop that will follow. To talk about a firstfruit without a following harvest is like talking about a bride walking down the aisle that doesn’t end with a “now you may kiss the bride.”
So, there is more going on here than just the idea that because God raised Jesus from the dead therefore God will raise believers as well, as absolutely true as that is. The more that is here is that in Christ the resurrection harvest has begun and since believers are all part of that same harvest resurrection in Christ the firstfruits, believers themselves as the latter fruit have already experienced the beginnings of resurrection. In Christ’s resurrection, God has begun fulfilling the promise that includes our resurrection.
Dr. Richard Gaffin in his book, “In The Fullness of Time,” provides a helpful illustration;
“If we were to have Paul at a prophecy conference or some other venue and were to ask him, ‘When, Paul, will the resurrection event take place in which believers share?’ The first thing he would likely say is, ‘It has already begun.’ In Christ’s resurrection, the final harvest of bodily resurrection has become visible. He will argue that in some detail later in the chapter, particularly in 15:42-49.”
In having union with the resurrected Christ we as Christians because of our union with Christ likewise partake of His resurrection. This is explicitly taught in Ephesians
2 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
Because of our union with Christ, objectively we were made alive with Christ in His resurrection while subjectively this resurrection awaited our regeneration where the objective truth was published to our consciousness. And all this because as the Elect in Christ we were united with Christ from eternity.
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world,
With this teaching that Christ’s resurrection is our resurrection because of our vital union with Christ we see that even though Christ’s resurrection lies in the past, because His resurrection is organically related to our future resurrection we can say that the past resurrection of our great Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, lies still in the future. Christ’s resurrection is the initial part of the eschatological harvest of the resurrection of the saints at the end of history and because of our union with Christ His resurrection has entered into history because Christians are partakers of Christ’s eschatological life. With Christ’s resurrection, the age to come is operational in this present wicked age, through those who have been, because of union with Christ, been raised up with Christ.
A couple implications here. If this is accurate (and it is) then the whole idea of the errant theology of “full Preterism” comes crashing down. Full Preterism teaches that bodily resurrection of the saints is already past and that the age to come has already arrived, not only in an inaugurated sense, but in all its fullness. For the full Preterist (at least some variants. They argue among themselves) there is no “not yet.” All there is for them is realized eschatology. I have even had one of their teachers tell me that while the person will be resurrected his body will not be resurrected. This thinking breaks the chain of logic that unites Christ’s bodily resurrection with His people’s bodily resurrection.
Secondly, given this explanation we should understand that given the tight relation between Christ’s resurrection and the believers future resurrection that we are not talking about two different events here but rather are talking about one event though separated by a time lapse. Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection is of one piece and really is the same event.
So, Christ’s resurrection was the firstfruits of our resurrection to follow but that firstfruits, because of its union with the rest of the harvest, was, in principle, the resurrection of the whole crop. Since our great Liege Lord has been resurrected and since we have union with our great Captain we Christians experience now the inaugurated resurrection life that is itself promissory of the fact that what we live now as inaugurated will one day be completely realized in the future as we, as latter day fruit, follow the firstfruits into God’s presence. This, of course, means that we in Christ are living, in an inaugurated sense, in the future age to come while living at the same time in this present wicked age.
