I read the book of James in my private Bible reading this week and thought about its statement regarding firstfruits: “Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures” (Jam 1:18). This experience motivated me to share my thoughts, even though I recently wrote a few paragraphs about this topic (here).
I’ve spent considerable time and effort developing a better framework to interpret biblical prophecy. Some might call inmillennialism1—the name of my framework—a theory, and that’s fine with me. One definition says a theory is “a plausible … body of principles offered to explain phenomena.”2 And that is what I want inmillennialism to do—explain prophetic “phenomena” in various passages.
A biblical theory proves itself true when it interprets a wide variety of passages in a self-consistent way that agrees with other clear doctrines. If its significant elements agree with the text of the Bible, we gain confidence in it. I believe the New Testament’s use of “firstfruits” confirms and reinforces inmillennialism.
This prophetic model says Israel in the Exodus was a type or picture of the church in the “last days” of the Mosaic age. I base this observation on Paul’s statements in 1 Corinthians 10:1–11. My post Miraculous Gifts shows a few of the many types and antitypes (i.e., fulfillments).
The Old Testament says Israel in the Exodus was the firstfruits of the Mosaic age.3 Jeremiah said,
Moreover, the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Go and cry in the hearing of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: “I remember you, the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothal, when you went after Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown. Israel was holiness to the LORD, the firstfruits of His increase. All that devour him will offend; disaster will come upon them,” says the LORD.’” (Jer 2:1–3)
Through Hosea, God said, “I found Israel Like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the firstfruits on the fig tree in its first season. But they went to Baal Peor, and separated themselves to that shame; they became an abomination like the thing they loved” (Hos 9:10),
The first generation of old-covenant Jews were firstfruits of God’s Mosaic-age kingdom. I am unaware of any Scriptures that apply this concept to a later generation.
So what do we find about firstfruits in the New Testament, and how does it reinforce inmillennialism? According to Paul’s typology, we should limit this term to Christians—those with faith in God, the true Jews (Rom 2:28–29)—of the “last days” (Heb 1:2) of the Mosaic age. A brief survey of New Testament references will show that inmillennialism allows us to preserve Paul’s perspective regarding this term.
First, let’s notice that Christ’s resurrection produced the firstfruits of the resurrection. Paul said, “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15:20). His resurrection guarantees an entire crop later, at the end of the messianic age. We should not refer to the future resurrection as the firstfruits; it will be the complete harvest, not the first of the crop. And Christ’s resurrection occurred in the “last days” of the Mosaic age (i.e., AD 30–70), which was simultaneous with the first generation of the messianic age.
Second, consider how Paul refers to a Christian named Epaenetus. The Apostle told the Romans to “greet my beloved Epaenetus, who is the firstfruits of Achaia to Christ” (Rom 16:5). As John Gill says, he was “one of the first that was converted to Christ in those parts; the allusion is to the first-fruits under the law, which were offered unto the Lord, and were pledges of, and sanctified the rest.”4 We should not refer to modern Christians living in this region as the firstfruits of the messianic age.
Third, in his Roman letter, Paul uses the idea of firstfruits in another context:
I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. (Rom 11:13–16)
Here, the term “firstfruit” refers to Christian Jews in Paul’s generation, in the “last days” of the Mosaic age. “By them are intended the first converts among the Jews, under the Gospel dispensation; it being usual with the apostle to call those persons, that were first converted in any place, the first-fruits of it.”5 Paul means the same thing as James (Jas 1:18). We should not apply this term to later Jewish converts.
Fourth, Paul uses this term in 2 Thessalonians to draw a contrast between unbelieving Jews (2 Thess 2:1–12) and the believing saints in Thessalonica: “But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thess 2:13 ESV). Paul here uses this term for Thessalonians in his generation.
Fifth, this understanding of firstfruits provides a powerful confirmation of inmillennialism’s view of Revelation—that John wrote it before the temple’s fall in AD 70 and that the book is mainly about that event. In his fourth vision, The Vision of the Seven Mystic Figures (see here and here), the Apostle says,
Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His Father’s name written on their foreheads.… These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. (Rev 14:1–5)
John’s use of firstfruits is consistent with the other New Testament passages; he means people living in his generation, in the “last days” of the Mosaic age. This usage shows John is writing about events in his immediate future, just as inmillennialism says (see Rev 1:1, 3; 22:6, 10), not events at the end of history.
Conclusion
The inmillennial “theory” accounts for the use of firstfruits in every New Testament passage. Other prophetic theories cannot do so and must redefine this term in Revelation.
Footnotes
- For a full-length account of this prophetic model, see Michael A. Rogers, Inmillennialism: Redefining the Last Days (Tullahoma, TN: McGahan Publishing House, 2020). It is available here. For a summary, see the free PDF here.
- “Theory,” Merriam-Webster Dictionary, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theory
- The file for the image in this post is here and is in the public domain (PD-US). It was released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License and the GNU Free Documentation License.
- John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, 9 vols. (1809–10; repr., Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 8:586.
- Gill, “Exposition,” 8:534.
