What is first fruit offering according to the Bible?

As God had claimed the first-born of man and beast, so also he claimed the first of the first-fruits, that they might be presented as an acknowledgement that God was the giver of them, and thanks be rendered for His gifts. All the males were to present themselves three times in the year before God, and these occasions were arranged at the times of ingathering of the barley (at the Feast of Unleavened Bread); of wheat (at the Feast of Weeks); and of the vintage (at the Feast of Tabernacles). Ex. 23:16, 19; Ex. 34:22, 26; Deut. 18:4; Deut. 26:10; Ezek. 48:14.

It is otherwise with regard to the firstfruits of the land — that which it yields. Enjoying those fruits of the goodness of God, the people gave Him back the firstfruits, as a testimony that all came from Him, and that all was His, and that His grace had communicated it to them (see chap. 26). Therefore the firstfruits were not for the people to eat: they offered them to God, and ate of all the rest. It was the recognition of God, while sharing His blessings. The firstfruits then were offered to God, and thus fell into the hands of the priests as their portion.

That it applies to Israel's possession of the land at any time is plain. The last words of the first verse imply as much: "And it shall be when thou art come in unto the land which Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest it, and dwellest therein, that thou shalt take," etc. Exodus 23:19; Leviticus 23; and Numbers 18:13, fully confirm this. It was a standing ordinance in the land. The spirit of the offering is also clear: a full profession before God that they possessed the things which He had promised to their fathers. Their father had been a Syrian ready to perish, a slave in Egypt, and redemption had brought them out thence, and into the good land of which they were now in full enjoyment. Therefore were they come up to own the Giver in offering to Him the first-fruits. They worshipped and rejoiced in every good thing Jehovah had given them, and this in grace, with the Levite and the stranger.

In the Old Testament instructions were given as to the way in which the children of Israel should return thanks to God when they were actually in possession of the promised land. They were to take the first of all their fruits and set them in a basket before the Lord their God, with an acknowledgment of His goodness on their lips (Deut. 26:1-11).

The first of the firstfruits of their land was to be brought into the house of the Lord their God. In Deut. 26 will be found a beautiful description of this obligation, together with the manner in which it was to be discharged. It is an inspired exposition of this injunction. Lastly, we have a most remarkable prohibition. (v. 19.) Three times it is found in the Scriptures. (Ex. 34:26; Deut. 14:21.) God will have His people tenderly careful, guarding them from the violation of any single instinct of nature. The milk of the mother was the food, the sustenance of the kid, and hence this must not be used to seethe it as food for others. Some have seen a spiritual teaching in this enactment. That analogies might be profitably drawn is undoubtedly true; but this would be more suited to private study than for public exposition.

The last two feasts of the first four, were bound up with the harvest, and necessarily they could only be kept in the promised land. The Feast of the Firstfruits took place at the early barley harvest, on the morrow after that of the Passover. A sufficiency of early ears was selected to form a sheaf, and this was the sheaf of the firstfruits. It was brought before Jehovah, presented to Him, and waved before Him.* The sample of the harvest in the land He had given to Israel was offered to Him, then by the act of waving it was taken back from Him as a returned gift. By virtue of the wave sheaf, the harvest could be ingathered; without it, the harvest could not be touched. (Lev. 23:14.) The firstfruits were holy, and thus the whole was holy.

In that "good land," the land of Canaan, "a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates" (Deut. 8:7 to 9) they lacked nothing. But in that good land, before they touched any of that rich harvest themselves, they must bring this sheaf of firstfruits to be accepted, — "The first of their firstfruits." "Ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering unto your God." (Lev. 23:14) That offering was a sheaf reaped from the ripe fields of grain in the land of Canaan, and carried to the priest, to be waved before the Lord to be accepted for them, followed by the burnt offering, meat offering and drink offerings; but please notice there was no sin offering. This First Sheaf, was a sample of the great harvest that was to follow. The Spirit of God has been careful to tell us the meaning of this feast also, as we read in 1 Cor. 15:20, "Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept:" and again "Every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His coming." (1 Cor. 15:23).

What then is the Wave Sheaf? Christ, risen and accepted before God for us — it could not be anything else. We read: "When ye be come into the land which I give to you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest to the priest: and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it" (Lev. 23:10-11). The full harvest was coming on, but God gets the first-fruits of it. God gets a great deal more out of the death and resurrection of Christ than we. We get a great deal, but God has infinitely more. "And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the selfsame day that ye have brought an offering to your God: it shall be a statute for ever throughout your generations in all your dwellings" (ver. 14).

Verse 14 insists that the children of Israel must not eat any of their harvest until they had offered the firstfruits to the Lord. God gave the increase, so He had prior rights, and especially so because the firstfruits symbolize the Lord Jesus as the firstborn from among the dead.

The firstfruits and the firstborn are to be offered to God. (vv. 29, 30; see Ex. 13:12-13.) They were thus to acknowledge both their dependence and the source of their blessing, and to avow that they themselves belonged to the Lord. It was God who would give the ripe fruits and the "liquors," and in token of this He required an offering to Himself. The firstborn of their children He likewise claimed, but on the ground, as explained in chap. 13, of the destruction of the firstborn of Egypt on the night of the Passover, and their own redemption through the blood of the Paschal lamb.