623. The firstfruits unto God and the Lamb, signifies the beginning of the Christian heaven, which acknowledges one God in whom there is the Trinity, and that the Lord is that God. By "firstfruits" is meant that which is born first, also what is first gathered, thus the beginning, in this case, the beginning of the New Heaven from Christians; by "God and the Lamb" is here meant, as above, the Lord as to the Divine itself from which are all things, and as to the Divine Human, and also as to the proceeding Divine, thus the one God in whom is the Trinity. Here something shall be said concerning the firstfruits. In the Israelitish church it was commanded that:
The first of thy ripe fruits, of all corn, oil, and must, of the fruits of trees, as also of the fleece, should be given to Jehovah as holy, and they were given by Jehovah to Aaron, and after him to the high priest (Exod. 22:29; 23:10; Num. 13:20; 15:17-22; 18:8-20; Deut. 18:4; 26:1 seq.). And likewise, that:
They should celebrate the feast of the firstfruits of harvest and of bread (Exod. 23:14-16, 19, 26; Lev. 23:9-15, 20-25; Num. 28:26 to the end). The reason was, because "the firstfruits" signified that which is born first, and afterwards grows, as an infant grows up to a man, or as a young plant grows up to a tree, and hence they signified all the subsequent stages even to the completion of the thing, for all that is to follow exists in the first, as the man in the infant, and the tree in the tender shoot; and as this first exists before its successions, in like manner in heaven and in the church, therefore "the firstfruits" were holy unto the Lord, and "the feast of the firstfruits" was celebrated. (The like is signified by "firstfruits" in Jer. 24:1, 2; Ezek. 20:40; Micah 7:1; Deut. 33:15, 21).
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