"And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 'Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first-fruits of your harvest unto the priest; and ye shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. And ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf, a he lamb without blemish of the first year, for a burnt-offering unto the Lord. And the meat-offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the Lord for a sweet savor: and the drink-offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of a hin. And ye shall eat neither bread, nor parched corn, nor green ears, until the self-same day that ye have brought an offering unto your God: it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, in all your dwellings." (Ver. 9-14.)
"But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the _first-fruits_ of them that slept." (1 Cor. xv. 20.) The beautiful ordinance of the presentation of the sheaf of first-fruits typified the resurrection of Christ, who, "at the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week," rose triumphant from the tomb, having accomplished the glorious work of redemption. His was a "resurrection _from among_ the dead;" and in it we have at once the earnest and the type of the resurrection of His people. "Christ the first-fruits; afterwards they that are Christ's at His coming." When Christ comes, His people will be raised "from among the dead [εκ νεκρων]," that is, those of them that sleep in Jesus; "but the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." (Rev. xx. 5.) When, immediately after the transfiguration, our blessed Lord spoke of His rising "_from among the dead_," the disciples questioned among themselves what that could mean. (See Mark ix.) Every orthodox Jew believed in the doctrine of the "resurrection of the dead [αναστασις νεκρων]," but the idea of a "resurrection from among the dead [αναστασις εκ νεκρων]" was what the disciples were unable to grasp; and no doubt many disciples since then have felt considerable difficulty with respect to a mystery so profound.
However, if my reader will prayerfully study and compare 1 Cor. xv. with 1 Thess. iv. 13-18, he will get much precious instruction upon this most interesting and practical truth. He can also look at Romans viii. 11 in connection.--"But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead [εκ νεκρων] dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." From all these passages it will be seen that the resurrection of the Church will be upon precisely the same principle as the resurrection of Christ. Both the Head and the body are shown to be raised "from among the dead." The first sheaf and all the sheaves that follow after are morally connected.
It must be evident to any one who carefully ponders the subject in the light of Scripture, that there is a very material difference between the resurrection of the believer and the resurrection of the unbeliever. Both shall be raised; but Revelation xx. 5 proves that there will be a thousand years between the two, so that they differ both as to the principle and as to the time. Some have found difficulty in reference to this subject, from the fact that in John v. 28 our Lord speaks of "the _hour_ in the which _all_ that are in the graves shall hear His voice." How, it may be asked, can there be a thousand years between the two resurrections, when both are spoken of as occurring in an "hour"? The answer is very simple. In verse 28, the quickening of dead souls is spoken of as occurring in an "hour;" and this work has been going on for over eighteen hundred years. Now, if a period of nearly _two_ thousand years can be represented by the word "hour," what objection can there be to the idea of _one_ thousand years being represented in the same way? Surely, none whatever, especially when it is expressly stated that "the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished."