I believe the Spiritual description of what has been happening at the cutting Edge of Christianity, and perhaps more so than anywhere from 2008 -2011 here online is this phrase taken from the Jewish Feast of Passover :Waving the Sheaf of Firstfuits.As Christians we have been retracing our steps to rediscover in a vibrant new way all that Christ accomplished for us in His Death and Resurrection, and this is changing the face of Christianity the whole world over, helped ofcourse by the global interactive nature of the internet.But first....a description of what the Feast is, and what it means for us as believers.
CHAPTER 4 - THE SHEAF OF FIRSTFRUITS
The waving of the Sheaf of Firstfruits before the Lord took place "on the morrow after the sabbath." Hence it would be on the sixteenth day of the first month. All the events, therefore in connection with the Feast of Unleavened Bread find their perfect fulfillment in the death and resurrection of Christ. The Passover event itself was on the fourteenth day of the first month, in the evening. That is the day of the crucifixion, which in the New Testament is called the Preparation, or the day before the sabbath. (See Mk. 15:42; Lk. 23:56). Then followed the days of Unleavened Bread, beginning on the fifteenth day, and continuing for seven days. Then on the sixteenth day, which was "the morrow after the sabbath" the Sheaf of Firstfruits was waved before the Lord.
It is clear from the New Testament that Christ rose "the third day." (Matt. 16:21; Lk. 23:54-56; 24:46), and according to the generally accepted terms of the day this was equivalent to saying he rose "after three days." (Matt. 27:63; Mk. 8:31). Therefore, to fulfill the type of the Old Testament, it is clear that Christ was crucified on the day of the Passover, the sabbath followed the next day, and the Sheaf of Firstfruits was waved before the Lord on the "morrow after the sabbath."
CHRIST, THE FIRSTFRUITS
Here we have a beautiful type, therefore, of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead on the "morrow after the sabbath." Mark tells us, "Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week..." (Mk. 16:9). It was the beginning of the harvest season, when the fields were beginning to show the first signs of a ripening harvest. Before there was any general harvest, however, one sheaf was garnered and waved before the Lord on the first day of the week, during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And therefore in the waving of that one sheaf, Israel would be reminded of the fact that soon a great harvest was to be gathered in.
Perhaps there was not a single person in the camp of Israel who saw anything more in that ordinance than the promise of a great harvest--but in type it spoke beautifully of "Christ, the firstfruits." (1 Cor. 15:20, 23). And just as assuredly as the one ripe sheaf testified to Israel that a great harvest was soon to be garnered, so surely did the resurrection of Christ testify to the fact that soon after that event there would be a great spiritual harvest of souls. And so there was! Thousands upon thousands came to know the Lord in the weeks that were to follow, when God sent forth the Holy Spirit and empowered His waiting disciples to preach the Gospel. Soon the revival spread to the Gentiles, and the apostle Paul was raised up to evangelize practically the whole Roman Empire.
THE CORN OF WHEAT MUST DIE
Jesus Himself testified, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." (Jn. 12:24). Except He die, there could be no harvest. And the fact that He did die and rose again was positive proof that there would be a great and mighty harvest. "Christ the firstfruits..." And if He was "firstfruits," then certainly there must be a great harvest to follow His resurrection. This explains, in part, the strange reply that Jesus gave to Philip and Andrew when they told Him of certain Greeks who desired to see Him. Incidentally it was the Feast of the Passover, when these God-fearing Greeks had gathered to observe the Feast of the Jews. Jesus' only reply was: "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." In other words, in His present position He had no ministry for them, for He had nothing in common with them. He must first go down into death before He could mean anything to them. If and when His death was accomplished, then He would be able to minister life to all men, irrespective of race or nationality, in the great harvest that would follow His resurrection. That great harvest constitutes the Feast of Pentecost.
What Has a Sheaf of Corn To Do With Us? - Chris Welch
This is the first part of a series on YouTube by Francois DuToit.
It doesn't contain a single reference to the Sheaf waved on Easter morning .
But , you see, it does......
The Biggest thing the world over, and certainly among the Christians I am associated with on Facebook is the rediscovery in the Spirit of the SHEAF.
Many believers have been born again. Many have had a personal Pentecost - an inundation of the Spirit, then burned out. But perhaps THE biggest thing that has happened in God's worldwide church for a while, has almost crept in the backdoor, and certainly is a large part of the online buzz among Christians....but as it has been Spirit orchestrated,
that is, not led by any one man or organisation, or wing of the church, it has not been easy for human pigeonholing....
BUT in the Spirit what the Church is (maybe belatedly) celebrating is the Easter Day Celebration, or Passover celebration of Waving the Sheaf. A large part of the Grace message is bound up right here. This is the distinctive that is now being shared widely here and in churches that are hearing the Spirit, and IS NOT being preached on in many of the former "hot" independent charismatic churches or denominational churches.
What is the Significance?
George above writes Jesus Himself testified, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." (Jn. 12:24). Except He die, there could be no harvest. And the fact that He did die and rose again was positive proof that there would be a great and mighty harvest. "Christ the firstfruits..." And if He was "firstfruits," then certainly there must be a great harvest to follow His resurrection.
I wrote a comment yesterday on Facebook to this passage
Chris commented:
we take for granted some of these sayings, forgetting that Jesus was in the same life process we are.This is a staggering Word of faith considering when it was said...and the fact that Phillip and the others were still saying "Show us the Father".I've been musing on the fact that the resurrections Jesus performed by His Word of faith were Father-organised events for Him as "dry runs". It's one thing to face a body or grave and say "Rise Up" and "Come forth"...it's quite another to say that over your own life. "In 3 days I will raise the Temple".The other staggering feature is that His previous words of faith....as practice runs....were only RELOCATIONS,REHOUSING. When Christ's Temple was raised it was REHOUSED in something that had never before been seen on planet earth. A body that could walk through walls. A totally different Model No. of body! How's that!"
The fact that Jesus can now walk through walls is very significant for us. Because by the Spirit now it is easy for Him TO WALK INTO US , and RELOCATE there.
The Greatest Unspoken significance of waving the Sheaf is this...
There is NO REFERENCE to the First Adam here.
The First Adam was included in Christ's Body when He died.
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At this point my finished blogpost got completely wiped from here when I finished at 3.30am. There is definitely purpose in this frustration. If I do my job right I want you to catch something and be very very excited.
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This morning Colin Lagerwell posted some scriptures on the new creation in Mystery Revealed Group on Facebook.
A few months ago I felt I received an apostolic key of legitimacy which meant I nolonger had to skulk around forever labelled as "nonconformist" or "not quite kosher", or worse still "mystic". This was the Two Goats Message
Waving the Sheaf of Firstfruits is another such apostolic Key.
Saints, when George Warnock was writing in 1951 the early Pentecostal movement was maturing into the Apostolic movement and the reemergence of the five fold gifts of ministry given to bring the Body to maturity.Ephesians 4. This cycle of revelation then penetrated the old stream churches in the following 40-60 years. The other thing that was happening was that the early pioneers of healing:Alexander Dowie, John G Lake and Smith Wigglesworth, then spawned a 1950s healing revival that George refers to in his introduction.
This whole move expanded into what people term the Word of Faith movement.All these things come under the umbrella of the section of George's book that we are about to encounter known as the Pentecostal Revelation or the second significant Feast of Pentecost. But in Andrea Garzon's article - The Curtain we see that as we all trek inwardly along the Holy Place we come to an altar of Incense and a Curtain.
Now saints, whereas Jesus has entered via the curtain of His flesh, IN OUR CONFUSION about WHO we were and WHO WE NOW have become, our Corporate experience of those facts ARE MUDDLED.
Several Encounter Points
On our way into the Presence of God , and remember I am speaking now of our corporate experience primarily, but ofcourse this is all bound up with us as individuals making the salvation of Jesus OURS, there were many points that we could have encountered the "slicing programme" introduced to the Garden of Eden after Adam fell. Guarding the Way into the Tree of Life were two cherubim with swords. This is related to spiritual circumcision of our hearts. This is also related to the scriptures in Hebrews 4 about the Sword of the Spirit.
12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
- We could have met this circumcision at the start of our Christian life. Many do. At the first brazen altar recognition of Christ our Passover Lamb. It is here that the Goats message should have taken effect and is the clearest injunction yet that THIS gospel is the one that evangelists should be ministering and DONT.
- We could have met heart circumcision as we went past the Laver of God's Word and experienced the baptism of water. and baptism into the Holy Spirit. And this is the message of Francois Du Toit's Mirror translation. For having received Jesus Spirit into our being the Laver experience, which remains continual, is us being washed with the Word. It is us Gazing IN A Mirror to see ourselves IN HIM. And gazing at our true selves in this way we are transformed from very glory to glory.
- We could have met circumcision of heart in the combined ministry of candlestick and Bread served up in the Holy Place. The candlestick represents the Spirit anointings and giftings which are given to prepare and build up the Bride. The shewbread is the ministered Word coming from Spirit prepared servants raised up all over the world, some ministering just locally , others penetrating right deep across the whole Body of Christ.
- Saints, But One Thing Remains Clear as we approach the Corporate Experience of Entering the Holy of Holies, of getting anywhere near the Final Summation of God's Purpose for The Body: there is absolutely NO WAY that anybody is going beyond the VEIL, or Past the Altar of Incense Uncircumcised
- And that dear friends is what the current move is about. We are retracing our steps to the part of the Passover message we missed centuries ago. We are going back to the Feast part that nobody ever told you, and was certainly never laid in the Spirit when they were telling you about Jesus.
- And that is what Waving the Sheaf of Firstfruits is!!!
Frank Viola at ptmin.org also runs a blog but at the moment is taking a sabbatical.He is hugely read in this current move and has written many books on Church Life, his most widely read being "Pagan Christianity" and "From Eternity To Here." You can subscribe to his newsletter which is how I just learned of his talk that has been touching many people. Most relevant to this post is Frank Viola's collaboration with Leonard Sweet about the Pre-eminence of Christ in their recent book "The Jesus Manifesto." Andrea Garzon - Quito ,Equador . She is on Facebook see this month's post on here "The Curtain" Jim Robbins runs the Good and Noble Heart community on Facebook Darin Hufford runs the Free Believer's Network on Facebook and is author of the "Misunderstood God" Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke run a podcast called "Growing In Grace" What Has a Sheaf of Corn To Do With Us? continued .... So ask practically anyone in the above list about the Sheaf and they either wont be able to tell you, or will answer correctly that it is Christ. Well it is.....it really is, but first may I say this. All of us who are sharing on the net and some into churches and Christian events, didnt get to understand stuff or even arrive here on the net because of some secret initiation Club into the teachings of the Tabernacle or by means of human organisation. Why not? Well, let's turn thing thing round. How many people on the Day of Pentecost or Passover were clued up on these events? Well, I suppose being Jewish they knew the outer forms. None of them knew they were walking slap bang into the Prophetic fulfilment of the these events in Christ, and in the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:10 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. John3:6.....Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit[b] gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You[c] must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”[d]0
Then afterwards comes the articulation .....but by then it's almost too late....because leaven is added.
The Christ foundation that has been missing from our Christianity, from our evangelicalism, from our Pentecostalism is PRECISELY what the Spirit has been insisting on through all these ministries in the past years, and nowhere less so than on Facebook. So now, NOT just purely as unrelated Christian individuals, but now sovereignly from all parts of the globe,
WE HAVE BEEN WAVING THE SHEAF.
AS A CORPORATE MOVE.
Waving the Sheaf is this.
Only Christ Rose from the Dead as the FIRSTFRUITS of a new Creation. We rose IN HIM. But NOT apart from Him. Colin's scriptures above are key.
3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
At your spirit centre, Christ took the real you, the spirit innercore of you down with Him in His Body into death. Every last affiliation you had with the First Adam: t
- recognising a totally New Creation
- Is a single Unity not a dual Unity, a single Union with Christ, Us in Him as a single Sheaf
- It has absolutely no reference to the Old Adam
- And did I add, this is fantastic. Awesome.....but it gets better
Fred Pruitt and Jim Robbins both minister on the fact we can trust our redeemed heart. Christ represents the whole of our life. He is in the WHOLE thing. This is what Graham Pulkingham meant all those years ago with the phrase and book "Celebrate the WHOLE of it". It began as a quiet grumble in the house church movement here in England as church leaders took sides. In particular John Noble, Nick Butterworth,Dave Bilbrough mentioned above, Maurice Smith were extremely frustrated that our salvation didnt actually visibly seem to work. People seemed unhappy. Everyone was familiar with gifts of the Spirit and the baptism in the Spirit, but in a day to day framework it didn't seem to make a scrap of difference. Some began to hear Norman Grubb on the fact that there is no independent self, and that Galations 2:20 says clearly "it is nolonger I but Christ". Norman felt impelled for decades to clarify the workings of the Spirit as expressed in the Word. And if his ministry could be summed up in the Spirit, it would be that he faced down a worldwide church that completely ignored this part of the Passover Feast and tugged it back from obscurity.... He forced the Church to begin waving the Sheaf of Firstfruits, this missing dynamo behind all the other Feasts. Waving The Sheaf of Substance In the Old Testament there are many forms of Offering to God. There is Oil. There is a special recipe of perfumed incense. But there is also the grain offering. Let's face it. Pentecostalism on its own, taken separately out of sequence from the other feasts is pretty meaningless. Darin Hufford particularly picks up on this in the Free Believer's Network, having been in a family that was in the pentecostal/charismatic arena. It's an endless round of praise and worship and gifts of the Spirit, followed by very incomplete teachings, largely with the twofold agenda of maintaining its own status quo and secondly bringing others into the same merry-go-round. Can you imagine the leaden dull weight of endless unfulfilled prophecies? Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick. Can you imagine the combined effect of a crowd of people in a room whose agenda is somewhat mixed. Somewhere in this mix is a desire to give glory to God in worship, but there is a large part that is similar to masturbation...just the desire for self-gratification, and a couldn't care less attitude as to whether the real Spirit of God turns up in any sort of meaningful way. This is then why we wave the sheaf of Firstfruits. We define to ourselves what God has already long accomplished. We focus afresh on God's actual crazy, romance for us. He is crazy about us. Relaying afresh a foundation of His unconditional love and grace gives substance to our walk every hour of every day. Meeting together is just a part of the whole deal. Waving the Sheaf As Our present Reality Both Rich Novek and Andre Rabe having been waving the Sheaf as Present Moment. God's primary description of Himself to Moses is I am. If we walk in the I am we are watching closely to see what God is up to now. Jesus said "I do only what I see my Father doing". This extract is by Andre Rabe What are the implications of what Jesus achieved for my present moment? So many people are so busy trying to figure out what it means for the future, that they completely miss the significance of this moment. These words of Jesus are as relevant today as when He first spoke them: “You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?” Luke 12:56 How many are caught up in prophesies and doctrines concerning the future, and ignoring … devaluing the significance of what Jesus provided for us. The gospel is not the good prediction, it is the good news! He has done it! Unless we understand the implications of what Jesus achieved for our present moment, our interpretation of what it means for the future will always be skewed … so start with the now of the finished work. … so lets do what Jesus suggested … let’s analyze this present time. At this very moment, your blameless innocence before God is not a goal … it is the reality of what Jesus achieved for you. At this very moment, God is not holding anything against you … in fact Heb 10:17 says “This is final: I have deleted the record of your sins and misdeeds. I no longer recall them.” At this very moment, God is as ready, as excited as He ever was, to overwhelm you with Himself. At this very moment, He is present, He is smiling and His eyes are burning with a passionate invitation to know Him intimately. If your beliefs, your doctrine, your revelations, your study of the scriptures, do not bring you into an awareness of Gods closeness … if they do not lead you to a place of interaction … intimacy … they are worthless at best. Many of us have heard messages where the emphasis is, ‘do, do, do’. When we discover the ‘done, done ,done’ of the gospel it enables us to enter a rest in which we cease from all our labours … all our efforts to please God. Did you know that Paul said: “I am no longer driven to impress God” Gal 2:19-21 MSG Waving the Sheaf as a Starter Flag for Unity 1 John 3:14 says "we know we have passed out of death unto life because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death." Unconditional love is our hallmark. Even the sheaf we wave is one of love. There are three feasts and through the progression of these, and also in the procession through the Tabernacle into the Holy of Holies we see the Body building itself up ever more in love. We maintain the Unity of the Spirit it says in Ephesians, until we reach the unity of the faith. The progression begins with Jesus as the first fruit sheaf, through the Firstfruit Harvest of Pentecost where this sheaf has now become a Body represented by 12 fragmented separate loaves, which finally becomes One piece of furniture in the Holiest Place - ONE THING IN GOD - containing both the Inworked Law and also the Living Word as expressed by the pot of manna. But as we found in the charismatic realms, we couldn't even build in any firm sense of unity while ever our own individual hearts were in disunity. As it says in Psalm 51 "Unite my heart to fear the Lord." And we cannot hope to establish a basis for ourselves if we don't WAVE THAT SHEAF. While we are depending on our own works. While we are failing to see our own authenticity in God's own imaginations before creation was even thought of. While we remain ignorant of just what Jesus won on our behalf.... We dont stand an ice cream's chance in the Sahara of seeing any unity...we are still in our own fragmentation. But waving that sheaf we are saying we are now one with Christ. It's more than Christ in me, as in two peas rattling around in a pod. No, it's Christ so fused to me, we are in Union. it is impossible to separate us out at spirit level. We are in fact empowered by Christ. We were always fashioned as containers, as vessels. But imagine the effect of many who have been consistent in their SHEAF WAVING, who( Heb 6:14 ) because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil..... Imagine a mature church oozing with this grace of love, between every race, agegroup, and between the two sexes.... and the world shall know them by their love. Haven't we "tried so hard" for decades.....and just now as many lie completely burnt out, God is speaking again His original intention which hasnt changed....it's just that we forgot the whole thing is in Christ alone. Isaac was in fact born to an elderly Sarah long after Abraham had given up naturally speaking....but inwardly he hoped against hope....and sure enough the promise was manifested.
So do you catch the way God has been using all different members to raise up this forgotten festival in the Church. Nobody seemingly knew what they were doing, and when George Warnock was writing the work had scarcely begun, so his paragraph was quite short.
