EXPLORING GOD’S WORD
The Firstfruits of Salvation God is not trying to save the world now. He is calling only a few to the first of future harvests. by Peter Eddington
M
ost Christian churches teach that all of humanity is lost—consigned to an eternally burning hellfire—unless they “get saved” by accepting Jesus Christ as personal Savior now! You’ve probably heard television evangelists tell massive audiences that tomorrow may be too late. Many people become frightened into “making their decision for Christ” following an altar call. This belief implies that when Christ returns, He will be helpless to save anyone not already saved. But is this teaching found in the Bible? To the contrary, God’s Word presents the concept of “firstfruits,” teaching that God is not trying to save everyone right now but is seeding the world with the first of future harvests. The story of the two trees in Eden continues Notice what happened after our first parents, Adam and Eve, rejected God and the gift of everlasting life: “Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’— therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim [angelic beings] at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life”
18 Beyond Today
•
(Genesis 3:22-24, emphasis added throughout). The tree of life—representing access to salvation (eternal life)—became off limits to humankind. Since then the world has been barred from access to God and receiving eternal life, except for the comparative few God specially calls in His plan leading to His Kingdom. God initially worked with an individual person here or a family there. We’re familiar with Noah, Moses, Abraham and David. Now God is using more people brought together in His Church and called for this purpose, yet still very few among the world’s masses. Jesus described His Church not as the giant churches we see today, but a “little flock” (Luke 12:32), relatively speaking. They are referred to in Scripture as the “firstfruits”—an agricultural picture for a small initial harvest like the first ripe stalks of wheat, barley or corn from a field, the first few ripe vegetables from a garden or the first ripe fruits from a tree or vine. Far from trying to get every human being saved spiritually during mankind’s history, again except for the few He would call, God cut mankind off from salvation when Adam and Eve sinned and were expelled from the garden. All you have to do is look at today’s headlines to see clearly this is not God’s world right now in terms of its society. Access to the tree of life remains very limited. By contrast we see, in a sense, wide open access to
B Tm a g a z i n e . o r g
the tree Adam and Eve sinned in eating from, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Ever since they gave in to Satan in partaking of that tree, the world has been governed by him as the “prince of the power of the air,” an evil spiritual influence (Ephesians 2:2). Jesus said that none can come to Him unless God the Father specially calls them (John 6:44, 65)—and, again, He has called relatively few at this time. But please note that this does not mean those not called by the Father in this age are lost, as explained in our important Bible study guide God’s Holy Day Plan: The Promise of Hope for All Mankind. The short version is simply this: At Christ’s return, the Father will call everybody then living, and after a period of 1,000 years He will resurrect to mortal life all the billions of people who had not yet been called, offering them at that time the opportunity for spiritual salvation. Thus all of mankind will be called, but each in his or her own time order. Here, though, our focus is on the firstfruits. Firstfruits harvest and seed formation Jesus referred to His people as “the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). They currently represent just a sprinkling of truth around the world. At this very moment God is planting and raising up His firstfruits for reaping as the beginning of much greater harvests in the future.
