“You shall count from the day after the sabbath; from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, there shall be seven complete weeks. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh sabbath” (Lev. 23:15-16a). The feast of Pentecost was the feast of the fiftieth day, counting from the day after the sabbath, the day on which the sheaf of the wave offering was brought to God, to the day after the seventh sabbath. This signifies the resurrection of Christ in its sevenfold fullness reaching the realm of the complete fullness, bearing the full responsibility (signified by the number fifty, which is ten times five, the number of responsibility) for the testimony of resurrection.
When the angels look at us from the heavens, they see us as testimonies of Christ’s resurrection. We, however, may still have the feeling that we are unclean and leprous, that we have unclean discharges, and that we are surrounded by confusion and all kinds of religion. But in the sight of God we all are a part of the testimony of Christ’s resurrection. Now that we are in Leviticus 23 and in the feast of Pentecost, we should forget all the negative things. Here there is no uncleanness or leprosy. Instead, there is the extension of Christ.
“Then you shall offer a new meal offering to Jehovah. You shall bring from your dwellings two loaves of bread of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour as a wave offering; they shall be baked with leaven as firstfruits to Jehovah” (vv. 16b-17). This signifies that the fine flour, typifying Christ at the stage of the firstfruits, has become the two loaves, typifying the church in two sections at the stage of Pentecost, one of which sections is the church of the Jews and the other the church of the Gentiles, both of which had sins (signified by the leaven) within them, offered to God as the new meal offering for God’s satisfaction.
The type in Leviticus 23:17 does not speak of one loaf or of three loaves but of two loaves. These two loaves signify the two parts of the church as the Body of Christ, the Jewish part and the Gentile part. These two parts are represented by the saints in Jerusalem and by those in the house of Cornelius.
Why were the loaves in 23:17 to be baked with leaven when according to Leviticus 2 there was to be no leaven in the meal offering? The reason is that in each part of the church as the Body, as typified by these two loaves, there still is sin. We see this clearly in the book of Acts, for example, with the sin of Ananias and Sapphira in chapter five and the murmuring over the distribution of food in chapter six.
As the type indicates, not only is Christ the firstfruits but the church also is the firstfruits. The two loaves that were baked with leaven and that typify the church were firstfruits. Christ, the firstfruit as the fine flour, was the firstfruit on the day of resurrection. Eventually, this fine flour became the two loaves. Hence, these loaves are the increase, the expansion, of the fine flour that came out of the firstfruit on the day of resurrection. Typologically this indicates that Christ has become the church, that the church is the enlargement of Christ. As such an enlargement of Christ, the church with its two parts is offered to God for His satisfaction.
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