He is Risen! Our Faith is not in Vain!

Now I would remind you, brothers,  of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared…

…Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

(ESV)

Jesus the Tithe

What follows was inspired by our dear sister Amie who posed some very thought provoking questions based on my last post and some meaty discussion going on over at Mikes blog.

This was going to be a response in the ‘comments’– but I figured it was substantial enough to present as it’s very own post.

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“We agreed that the first fruits were offered up on behalf of the entire harvest. Why do you think that they were offered in the old testament?”

Well, like I said, I’m no scholar, but the best I can offer you is this:
It was a picture of Christ.
The first fruits were a tithe and a tithe is like a seed.

Here is an excerpt from a great article I found which expresses, quite well, my thoughts on the first fruits/tithe:

The Tithe Is Your Seed

God is blessed by your tithe as an expression of your love and obedience to Him, yet tithing is primarily for your own benefit so that God can bless you. There is a universal law that God has placed in both the natural and spiritual realms. This is the law of sowing and reaping. “…God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Gal. 6:7). The tithe is “seed” that you plant in God that will bring the harvest of prosperity.

All farmers understand God’s law of sowing and reaping. After a harvest in Bible times, before the farmer would use any of the grain as food for his family or livestock, he would first go through the harvest grain and pick out a percentage that exhibited the best qualities of size, weight, color, and set this aside as seed for the next season’s crop planting. This early form of genetic selection helped assure that the next generation of crops would produce higher yields and greater quality.

This illustrates our tithe, why it cannot be the 10% that is left over after we pay everything else. The part that God claims and uses as seed is the first and best 10% of your increase, called the firstfruits. “Honor the LORD with your possessions, And with the firstfruits of all your increase; So your barns will be filled with plenty, And your vats will overflow with new wine” (Prov. 3:9-10).
Don’t “eat your seed grain.” Do not use the Lord’s tithe for anything else! Because if you don’t sow, you can’t reap.

Now I’m not one who insists that we, living in the New Covenant, are supposed to ‘tithe’.
That is all beside the point.
My point is that the first fruits, or the tithe, is a picture of Christ.
He was offered up so that mankind would be (more than just) blessed.

“God said that he desired mercy and not sacrifice, and again according to Hebrews 10, it served no real purpose”

Ok, a little context …

This portion of scripture is from Hosea 6. It was written during a time when God was disturbed with Ephraim and Judah.

First we read Hosea’s exhortation for the kingdoms of the north to turn away from their idolatry (which, earlier in the text, Hosea metaphorically illustrates with his own experience of life with his adulterous wife):

6:1-2
Come, and let us return to the LORD;
For He has torn, but He will heal us;
He has stricken, but He will bind us up.

After two days He will revive us;
On the third day He will raise us up,
That we may live in His sight.

See Jesus there, with us IN Him?
Hallelujah!

Hsa 6:3
Let us know,
Let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD.

Amen!
We want KNOW Him, and we get to KNOW Him, because WE ARE ONE WITH HIM through Christ!!

His going forth is established as the morning;
He will come to us like the rain,
Like the latter and former rain to the earth.

The sense that I get from the first line is simply, “As sure as the sun will rise, He is coming”
“Morning” speaks, I believe, of resurrection life.

Apparently, there is a lot of discussion these days as to what the ‘latter rain’ is.
I’m not sure what this speaks of exactly, but I am sure that it speaks of a time of ‘refreshing’ and perhaps a time for the sprouting up and growing of more ‘fruit’.

Early rain gets the seed to sprout while later rain causes it to grow.

All of this is fulfilled in Christ.

6:4
“O Ephraim, what shall I do to you?
O Judah, what shall I do to you?
For your faithfulness is like a morning cloud,
And like the early dew it goes away.

Here, the LORD, through Hosea, expresses his despair over His ‘adulterous’ people.
He calls them out, rebuking them for their lack of faith.

“…like the early dew”, insinuates that although there appears to be something there, it vanishes rather quickly in a short passing of time.

That word faithfulness in the Hebrew is pronounced “checed” and it also means ‘goodness’ or ‘mercy’.
(As a matter of fact, it is the same word that the ‘King James’ folks used for mercy in verse 6, but we’ll get to that in a moment.)

I believe Hosea is also revealing to us the contrast of the faithfulness of Christ compared to that of Ephraim and Judah; an early and latter rain, compared to a morning cloud and an early dew.

6:5
Therefore I have divided them by the prophets,
I have slain them by the words of My mouth;
And justice is like light that goes forth.

I think it is safe to say, in context of the writings of Hosea, and the circumstances going on in Ephraim and Judah, that the prophets spoke hard words to those who were ‘living out of the way’ (or in unfaithfulness).

This text is also a picture of Christ, as He was made sin (as whatever is not of faith is sin) for us, and lifted up as  was the bronze serpent on Moses’ staff.

And now for the quote you mentioned:
6:6
For I desire (faithfulness) and not sacrifice,
And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him”.

God desires a people of faith, and this He has also accomplished in the person and work of Christ Jesus, and all those who are in Him.

This phrase is echoed by Jesus later on in the New Testament. Here is one account:

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“Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.

And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

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It is here that we see Jesus’ heart.

He came for the ’sick’, not the ‘well’.

The poor, the weeping, the hungry, the seekers of righteousness, the meek, etc…

In Christ, our needs are met, and we are made whole.

This is mercy,…kindness, goodness.

And this He does so that we might turn back to God in faith.

The way that I understand all of this is that, because mankind was unfaithful through (and in) Adam, God Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, became the faithful man that He always wanted, the head of a new creation, while at the same time He was also the sacrifice, the Lamb of God who was slain, for the world, before the foundations of the world.

After all, Love is sacrifice, albeit a willing One.

To those in darkness, His death on the cross is seen only as the execution of a man, to those born of His Spirit we see (among other things) the offering up of the ‘first fruits’ in order for all of mankind to be “blessed”.

Consider Genesis 1:11 for a moment:

And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, [and] the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed [is] in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

Again, I see Christ.

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So much more could be said of all of this, but it’s what I have to contribute at this time.

Thank you, Amie, for the thought provoking questions that you have posed!
Searching these matters out has resulted in a great blessing to me, personally.

I’m looking forward to any responses and also to more discussion in the days ahead!

Peace.