11. Firstfruits

This firstfruits sheaf was the first of the harvest – which, since it occurred in early spring, it seems it must have been winter wheat. As the first of the harvest, it represented the entire harvest. Jesus, arising from the grave at the very moment of the Feast of Firstfruits, is the prototokos, the firstborn, the first One of our kind. He is the guarantee that we are just like Him. But there is also a firstfruits at the end of this age.

Here is the entirety of what Moses says about the Feast of Firstfruits.

•    When you come into the land which I give to you, and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest.

•    He shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted on your behalf; on the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.

•    And you shall offer on that day, when you wave the sheaf, a male lamb of the first year, without blemish, as a burnt offering to the Lord.

•    Its grain offering shall be two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, an offering made by fire to the Lord, for a sweet aroma; and its drink offering shall be of wine, one-fourth of a hin.

•    You shall eat neither bread nor parched grain nor fresh grain until the same day that you have brought an offering to your God; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. (Leviticus 23)

•    – Then, the count to Pentecost begins at the moment of firstfruits.

We saw that the Passover was prepared on the fourteenth day of the first month, to be sacrificed at twilight, the beginning of the fifteenth day. That day, the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread was treated as a High Sabbath. But the seventh day of the feast was also treated as a Sabbath, thus one or both of those special Sabbaths had to not coincide with the regular weekly sabbaths. We assume that the fifteenth day of the first month was, in fact, a regular weekly sabbath. Whether this is true or not, I have yet to see explained by Scripture alone.

Thus, this celebration of firstfruits must fall on the day after that first Sabbath, that is, on the sixteenth day of the first month, or, in our reckoning, on Sunday morning.

But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.1 Corinthians 5:20-23

There is no question from the gospel accounts that Christ rose from the dead in the early morning hours on the day after the Sabbath, the first day of the week, that is, early on Sunday morning, which seems also to have been the pagan holiday celebrating the goddess Diana/Astaroth or Easter. The King James Translators chose “Easter” instead of “unleavened bread,” thus we are stuck with “Easter” instead of “Firstfruits.” This change of terms contributes to the absence of knowing Jesus as the first One of our kind.

The important thing, however, is that Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits all merge into one. Passover and Unleavened Bread, being born again and Christ living as us, on the fifteenth day of the first month, and firstfruits on the sixteenth day of the first month,  point towards, I believe, the coming fulfillment of Tabernacles. Firstfruits is NOT essential to knowing Christ living as us, but it is essential to the fulfillment of God's purposes.

Now, this Feast of Firstfruits was to begin only AFTER the children of Israel had entered into the Promised Land. Thus we must place the waving of this firstfruits sheaf entirely into the full experience of all the life of Christ. Christ is much more than Christ as me. Christ Jesus is also every Word God speaks. Christ is a Spirit of Power (God-power, which is always coming up from weakness, springing forth into life), and Christ is a Corporate Body.

This firstfruits sheaf was the first of the harvest – which, since it occurred in early spring, it seems it must have been winter wheat. As the first of the harvest, it represented the entire harvest.

Jesus, arising from the grave at the very moment of the Feast of Firstfruits, is the prototokos, the firstborn, the first One of our kind. He is the guarantee that we are just like Him. 

But there is also a firstfruits at the end of this age.

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 . . . They sang as it were a new song before the throne . . . and no one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand who were redeemed from the earth. These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no deceit, for they are without fault before the throne of God. Rev. 14:1-5

I know that God uses numbers with purpose. But I have known preachers getting too carried away with numbers, finding all sorts of connections and meanings. Somehow, numbers do not interest me that much. The idea of whether this 144,000 is literal or figurative or what meaning it might have simply does not concern me.

Only Christ concerns me, and He is One revealed through millions. – The point is firstfruits.

John gives here a heavenly view of this company; however, we know that the earthly side of things looks entirely different. More than that, we draw from the breadth of the gospel and from the anointing of the Spirit to understand God's purpose for a firstfruits now upon the earth.

Of truth, I find the sense deep inside of me that the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles represents firstfruits and the final day represents the entire harvest of Christ. Thus I am suggesting that those who, in fulfillment of the Day of Atonement, do that one thing that changes everything, are then the first to know all the fullness of God filling them in all outward manifestation, who then walk in that revelation through the days of Tabernacles until the entire harvest is complete. The full harvest is added to the firstfruits.

This firstfruits are utterly for the entire body of Christ. They are in no way elitist; they pour out their lives for the sake of every little member of Christ regardless of present circumstance. It is their entire life and joy to be poured out by God for the sake of all. In fact, that is the meaning of the great action of the Atonement.

Just as David was called forth by God as a man after His own heart before David was ever born, so this firstfruits is called forth by God before they are ever born again. Being firstfruits is not God having mercy on us, but God using us as the ones through whom He will have mercy on all.

All who are in that final harvest of the entire Church of Christ, which is presently separated between those living in both heaven and earth, though ignorant of heaven, and those living in heaven only with no earthly form, are Christ living as them from the moment they are born again on, whether they know it or not.

But all are not firstfruits.

Thus we know that many who are born again, many who rejoice in Christ as them, many who move in the gifts of the Spirit, many who draw near to the tree of life, are not part of God's firstfruits. That is NOT a condemnation. The truth is, those who are not part of God's firstfruits don't really want to be and thus give it no thought.

Those called to that firstfruits are those who can never escape a groaning deep inside that just dominates their lives. They are those who never seem able to fit in, those who will not jockey for place or power.

Those called to firstfruits are those who cannot imagine themselves to be found anywhere else.

Those called to firstfruits are those who want to be firstfruits, not because they imagine it to be a place of privilege and superiority, for it is NOT. Rather, because they want to know God and to know Jesus-sent.

Firstfruits is the opposite of privilege and superiority; it is life laid down; it is love poured out.

God places firstfruits both into the early morning right after the Passover Sabbath and into the early experience of the Promised Land. Yes, Jesus' resurrection is firstfruits, but His resurrection lives now inside of us.

But just as a man after God's own heart was not shaped in a day, neither is firstfruits. Thus, in this letter, I want to explore the setting aside unto Himself, this firstfruits, from before they were even born again, and all the paths of their preparation for the Day of Atonement and for the release of Tabernacles.

The truth is, no one ever really “needs” to go beyond Passover, beyond being transferred utterly from the power of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son. No one “needs” to know more than simply Christ living as me, as I find myself to be right now in this world. No one “needs” to be firstfruits in order to know the full revelation of Christ in their appointed season.

But there are some who simply cannot be anything else. And thus God has a path beyond Passover, beyond Christ as us, never “leaving” Christ as us, not for eternity, yet beyond the limitation of Christ to whatever we are right now.

Maybe part of what I'm trying to say is that there is an experience of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles that is general to all believers, all the way through. And then there is an experience of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles that is known only by the firstfruits. Again, this is not “special.” My God, to be firstfruits is to be used by God for others. And this God, who spares not His own Son, how much more will He not spare us for the sake of all.

To live inside the heart of God is to live inside of One who is meek and lowly of heart, One who is always beneath the least and the lowest, One who carries all, even His enemies, inside Himself all the way out of death into life.

The many will be blessed forever. The few will know continually a God who gives Himself away through them that the many might be blessed forever.

Most people don't like this part of God, His heart, very much. Some cannot live anywhere else.

The mystery, the hidden secret, of the firstfruits is found from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22, but it is hidden, tucked in here and there. It is known only by those who will know it. Those who will not know firstfruits argue vehemently against it, not seeing it in the Bible at all.

The mystery of firstfruits is found in Scripture only by those who groan deep inside by the Holy Spirit to know it. All others will stare right at the same words on the page and see nothing at all.

When God spoke over Jesus, a few heard the words audibly, while most claimed that it had only thundered; thunder was all they heard.

So how does this “firstfruits” appear in Scripture?

For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.Ephesians 5:30-31

A mystery is a divine secret known only by those initiated into its knowing.

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory . . . God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God . . . Now we have received . . . the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. 1 Corinthians 2:7-12 (excerpts)

This secret is always concerning Christ AND His church, that is, Christ revealed in, as, and through us.

In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.  All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” Then He turned to His disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see; for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear, and have not heard it.” Luke 10:21-24

What is it that the firstfruits see that no one else sees, and hear that no one else hears?

That God is fulfilling Christ, in all that He is, in all that He did, again, a second time, through us, as the second witness of Christ upon this earth, the second proof of Christ to all creation. That God intends to prove His word, Christ, all that He speaks, in the place into which it was spoken, this planet, through vessels of weakness.

You see, God did not take Israel straight from Egypt into the Promised Land. The text says because they were not ready for war, yes, but what did they need in order to be ready to live in all the revelation of Christ? – In between coming up out of the passage through the waters of the Red Sea and approaching the promised land, God gave the Israelites five things essential to living in all the affliction and glory of Christ.

1. Spirit-written Word (Pentecost).

2. Pattern (According to the Pattern).

3. God present in Person (A Second Passover)

4. Sacrifice

5. Order (The Order of Melchizedek)

These are the next five chapters in this series.

We can see that much of the book of Hebrews is devoted to these things, and thus we know that we cannot know the full meaning and impact of the elements of the New Covenant without drawing in the pattern of the Old as the writer of Hebrews does, going back and forth between the old and the new in both contrast and comparison. In other words, it is clear that the writer of Hebrews presents the two covenants as both opposite each other and, at the same time, like each other; that is, the details of the old inform us of the reality of the New.

I have been laboring in my heart before the Lord over these next five chapters for some time now, particularly “Sacrifice.” Part of that labor is that I have compiled every New Testament verse with any reference of meaning to the sacrifice of Jesus, which I will place on my website. I am convinced that we have not known that sacrifice rightly. I am also confident now to be able to assert boldly that Jesus did not die “because of” sin. Nowhere in the New Testament is there any even slight indication that Jesus died because of our sin. That idea is from Catholic intellectual tradition and continues to be forced violently by almost all onto everything God does say about the sacrifice of Jesus.

More than that, I am convinced that the church has never understand Paul's words concerning Christ in Philippians 2:5-9 as they truly mean. The primary reason is that no one, it seems, reads it as the command of God through Paul to us, that is, the creative word of the Father spoken into us: Let this mind be in you – firstfruits.

Define “Let this mind be in you.” In fact, let every Christian who names the name of Jesus write out his or her own definition of “Let this mind be in you.” I have no doubt that almost all will severely limit their definition away from the obvious reality that it speaks, everyone except firsfruits, and even few of them will dare to state what it so clearly says. You see, the words “Let this mind be in you” mean that Paul is not just defining Jesus in Philippians 2:5-9, but also us, just like Him in nature and in purpose.

Here is another firstfruits verse. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 1 John 3:16

Again, almost all Christians will severely limit the “And we also” down to something entirely less than Christ revealed again through us in all fulness, in nature and in action, right here on this earth, right now in this life. Yet those who are firstfruits find that this line catches something deep inside of them, something they hardly dare to know, yet it is there, it is real, the groaning of the Spirit for the full birthing through us of all the Word God speaks.

This letter is a foundation, a positioning of the truth set by God that I hope to explore in the next five letters. And that pattern of truth is one-half of the foundation for the Day of Atonement. The other half of that foundation is the life of David.

Let's go back to the positioning of the Feasts. Moses lists seven feasts in Leviticus 23. The first three are together as one. Passover is the beginning of the fifteenth day, Unleavened Bread begins the fifteenth day, and Firstfruits is the sixteenth day. Then the count of 50 days to Pentecost begins on the sixteenth day of the first month, firstfruits. Pentecost stands alone, a one-day feast. Then, the Feast of Tabernacles contains three feasts, but these are separated completely from each other with non-feast days in-between. Trumpets is the first day of the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, the tenth day, and Tabernacles itself begins on the fifteenth day.

I am convinced that God set Passover as a momentary act that immediately launched the Feast of Unleavened Bread to show us that the moment a person is born again, that person is utterly complete in Christ, that Christ alone, all that Salvation IS for the individual, now lives as them. Thus all Christians ought to live utterly in the freedom and joy of Christ with the full knowledge that there are NOT two lives in them, but that they are at peace with God and that Christ carries all that they are inside Himself all the way into life.

Nothing can be added to Christ living as us right now in this world.

But God's PURPOSE is not about the redemption and inclusion of the individual person. Such redemption is essential and glorious and by it we sing His praises forever, but God's purpose is far beyond such redemption.

God intends to reveal Himself to the universe through man, His body, His dwelling place, the visible representation of an invisible God.

Christ as us, complete and now, does not reveal God as He is; Jesus did.

But Jesus revealed God as He is prior to the resurrection. The resurrection is firstfruits. Thus Jesus said, “You will do greater works than I do because I go to the Father (resurrection).” Most Christians view these “greater works” as displays of power; Jesus meant greater displays of Father.

Jesus meant that we will reveal Father more than He did.

He that has this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure.

Firstfruits.

This purification is something quite different from the outer acts of “holiness” as pursued by too many of our brethren. Yes, there is a separation from this world that comes up out of Christ as us by nature, but this purification is something God alone in Person in us can accomplish.

Thus I am convinced that God placed the Feast of Firstfruits on the day immediately after the Sabbath of Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread, in the early morning hours, to point to a further work He will be doing in the lives of those whom He has chosen out from the many. That work will prepare them to be the firstfruits of Tabernacles so that, by them, all the Church of Christ can come into the full experience of Tabernacles, that is, God revealed. That is why, then, the count to the second great feast, the Feast of Pentecost, begins from the moment of the resurrection of Christ, the firstfruits from the dead.

Pentecost could be called the feast of leavened bread; on the day of Pentecost everyone ate leavened bread.

Some of you may have noticed a little verse on leaven that was tucked into the last letter that I did not expand on.

And again He said, “To what shall I liken the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.” Luke 13:20-21

The woman is the church; the three measures of meal are the fulfillment of the three feasts of the Lord in the life of the church. Leaven is dishonesty.

We will look at this leaven more closely in the next letter, “Pentecost.” It is clear that the feasts can be understood only out from the context of Israel's journey.

There are three groups of people in the church of Christ. This strata of leveling into three groups is unlike any other distinction of groupings among people we have ever known or considered.

God wants most believers in Jesus to be happy and good all the days of their lives, to live in blessing and honor, in peace and joy, abounding in all the treasure of Christ. God wants most believers in Jesus to know the hope in God that ministries like Joel Osteen teach, to know the delight of living in “Christ as us” as most union with Christ and present grace teachers teach, to know the overflowing abundance of the Spirit as ministries like Bill Johnson teach. God wants most believers in Jesus to live in the full assurance of faith and peace with God as the Baptists teach.

Yet the call to God's elect, His firstfruits, echoes all through the New Testament. It echoes through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, going on to perfection, being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. It echoes through the “just as” verses, be holy as I am holy, love as I love. It echoes through all the verses of Tabernacles filling the New Testament, being filled with all the fulness of God, rivers of living water flowing out of our bellies, casting down the accuser.

Many, many hear that call out from the blessedness God intends for most who believe in Jesus. Yet of all those who answer that call, there are found two quite different groups. The difference between these two groups who hear the call to the fulfillment of the Third Feast in the life of the church cannot be noticed, not at first, but in the end the difference becomes more and more apparent.

Here is the outward difference between these three groups in the church: happy – sad – happy!

The first happy ones are those who live in the redemption of Christ as God intends for His people in the present time, resting in joy in all the goodness of God. This happiness flows out from the gift of God and is God's intention for His people.

The second happy ones are those who are truly the elect, who have found the answer to all the cry of their hearts over many years, the Father's heart, now beating in their breasts, a life layed down, a love poured out. These are happy outwardly just like the majority; however, their happiness comes out from the depths of their guts and is much more real than the happiness of the many.

The sad ones are the ones who muck it up for everyone. Yet even these serve a purpose in God. The elect become the elect in large part by escaping the sad ones.

From 1972 on, over many decades, the shopkeepers of Fort St. John, British Columbia, easily and instantly identified those individuals coming into their stores and places of business from the move of God Christian communities scattered on wilderness farms in the Fort St. John area. They were the saddest people on earth, sad as the Pentecostal Holiness people are sad, and so on, you know what I am referring to: the sadness of those who are convinced that there are two lives inside of them.

This sadness is the leaven of Pentecost.

Any sadness the elect might bear is tucked away deep inside in the secret places inside the Heart of Father filling them full, inside of a Love that suffers long. Those who see the elect outwardly, see only joy and peace, a complete rest inside of the goodness and kindness of God, yet, if they will look more closely, they will see also a fierce expectation of glory, unknown in most human eyes.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Romans 8:18

If you want proof of firstfruits in the New Testament, I don't know that you will find it more clearly than here in Paul's consideration.

We would like very much for this letter to be on firstfruits alone and not on the sad Christians who muck it up for everyone else. Our problem is this. We can rejoice and worship God together with all the many who rejoice in the goodness of Christ's redemption, however they know it. Yet it doesn't take long to know that there is no interest, no call, no determination inside to know the living God as He really is here and now. In the end, fellowship with these good and dear people leaves one feeling empty and disconnected.

Thus we are drawn to anyone who speaks of or senses the call of God to go on to firstfruits, to the fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles, to drawing near the Holy of Holies by the Altar of Incense.

Yet this high and holy calling makes these people (all of us at one time in our lives) so very, very sad.

Thus this second group in the church, these sad ones who muck it up for everyone, are our dear and close brethren, the ones we know and love, the ones with whom we have walked, the ones who throw spears at us.

Earlier I said that in this letter I want to explore the preparation of God's firstfruits. Of truth, we will do that when we get to David.

Saul was anointed by the Holy Ghost; he spoke in tongues and prophesied by the Spirit as a prophet of the Lord.

And Saul was very sad.

And he threw spears.

And David would never have been the man God intended without Saul.

This letter is for positioning God's call to firstfruits.

Everything of redemption is complete in Christ, now and here. Everything of redemption, complete in Christ, is pictured for us by the fantastically complete picture of Passover - Feast of Unleavened Bread - crossing the Red Sea. Yet tucked inside that picture of Christ alone, there is this brief consideration of “firstfruits.” It is brief in the thought given to it in the overall celebration of Passover. It is brief in it's explication by Moses. And it is brief in that it did not even begin until after Israel had crossed the Jordan with Joshua and entered the Promised Land.

Yet this brief element in Israel's feasts became for us the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

During the first century of the Christian church the resurrection of Christ, the rolled away stone, the defeat of death, life forevermore, was the symbol and joy of Christians everywhere. Multitudes were added to the church because of the joy people saw in these Christians and because of how much they loved one another.

But it didn't take long for the sadness of the “called out ones” to prevail and then to dominate all. Before too many years, the cross replaced the resurrection as the symbol of Christianity. Christians became the saddest people on earth, and they imposed their sadness on everyone.

The hatred against Christianity in the western world today comes primarily from the history of the Christian church of not being content with being the saddest people on earth, but needing, with missionary zeal, to make everyone as sad as they. The belief in a God of eternal hellfire is a big part of what makes Christians so very sad, and what makes them impose their sadness on others. I am convinced that those who believe in a God who tortures His enemies cannot ever know the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, though they are well able to be redeemed and to know the Holy Spirit of Pentecost and to draw near to the Holiest.

People's belief in Hell is what causes them to reject the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Christ as us, and their belief in Heaven is what causes them to reject the Feast of Tabernacles, the revelation of Jesus Christ through us. “Heaven” is the greater wickedness; “Hell” is close behind. The realms of spirit are real, but they are so very different from the fantastical imaginations of sad Christianity.

The other thing that makes these Christians so very sad is their hatred of human flesh, unlike Paul who said that normal people love and cherish their own flesh as Christ does the church.

Thus the woman who put leaven into all the fulfillment of the feasts of the Lord in the life of the church, that leaven is this pretend, outward sadness.

And that pretend outward sadness comes from imagining that the call to firstfruits is a call toChrist-and.

Thus this sadness is rebellion, the same rebellion the writer of Hebrews warns us against.

Look at the argument of everyone who speaks against Joel Osteen (and I refer to him only because he has been our pastor, not because he is the most influential pastor in Christian history). They speak against him because he gives God's people hope in the goodness of God. Their argument is always that the duty of Christian pastors is to make their people sad, that sadness is the only “true” gospel. Thus you will find these people going around trying to make everyone they speak to sad about the Christian life. You will find them going around teaching that Christ is okay, Christ is great, BUT! You must also - - - . Christ-and.

The worst thing of all, though, is that many of these call their sad gospel, their sad “good news,” their “Christ-and,” they call it firstfruits, the call of God to bring redemption into the full manifest experience of all.

They are wolves in sheep's clothing.

Yes, just as David was under Saul's ministry for ten years of his life, so God's real firstfruits must pass through a season among and even looking like these sad, sad Christians.

What is it that brings God's firsfruits out of this sad Christianity? It is the fierce joy of the Faith of the Son of God, Christ Jesus Himself in Person, living now as us in all that we find ourselves to be, and revealing Himself now through us as the poured out One, as the life of God laid down for all.

It's all Jesus.

Christ alone; Christ not I.

God puts firsfruits into the early morning hours just after the Sabbath day of Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread and then says, “Okay, now count from this moment, RESURRECTION, fifty days to Pentecost, and by implication to all the rest God is inserting between Christ as us now and all the fullness of Christ revealed to all.

God must insert all this other stuff because it is how He purifies His firstfruits. Yet many who are not firstfruits hear the same call and thus see all this other stuff as Christ-and.

It is not and never was Christ-and. All the in-between stuff comes out of Christ alone all the way through, the faith of the Son of God.

Here is the Scriptural proof of that claim.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Corinthians 3:18

Notice that Paul did not say from sadness to sadness or even from sadness to glory. He said from glory to glory, Christ alone. Our transformation into all the fullness of Christ, at every point along the way, is Christ alone.

I am overwhelmed at how clear God made His pattern; I had no idea.

God has five things coming into the life of His people in-between leaving Egypt by redemption/baptism and entering the Promised Land of Christ. These five things are Spirit Word, Pattern, God Present, Sacrifice, and Order. Not one of these things are Christ-and. Yet all are essential to opening the door wide open for all into Christ revealed in all fulness, the wondrous task of firstfruits, those who are the servants of all.

The problem comes entirely from turning away from Christ, attempting to have both Christ and Egypt, both Christ and the old man, the desperate, ungodly, satanic need to claim “There are two lives in me.”

The problem is wandering around in a wilderness that exists only inside the imaginative idiocy of remembering the Adamic human, something that has not existed in reality for almost two thousand years. It is the folly of walking by sight and not by faith, of imagining that outward appearance speaks truth and not Christ, the all-speaking of God.

And so sad Christianity, those hearing the call to firstfruits as a departure from Christ alone, takes these five things essential to God's preparation of His firstfruits who will usher in the age of all the joy of Christ revealed in fulness to be enjoyed forever by all, takes these five things - Spirit Word, Pattern, God Present, Sacrifice, and Order - and uses them to split God's people into two, Christ and flesh, good and evil, carnal and holy.

They do it for the sake of malice. There is no better way to control people; in fact it is the exact same technique used by satanist/government mind control, splitting a person into two.

You cannot control a person who is One and at peace and filled with joy.

Our job as firstfruits right now is to find Christ-alone in every element of that great work of God in transforming us into those who lay down our lives for all, the brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ, of His same Kind.

And in finding Christ alone in all things, do that one daring thing, that one action of the Day of Atonement that changes everything for everyone.