“First Fruits” is not a Feast (High Sabbath)

Some Christian pastors have invented yet another feast day or annual Sabbath for themselves, namely “First Fruits”, by which they mean the day of Jesus' resurrection. They often use it to refer to the alleged “Resurrection Sunday” (Easter Sunday). 

This was originally a teaching based on the theology of the earthly-minded Sadducees, a sect that did not believe in the existence of angels, spirits or the resurrection (Acts 23:8), whose teachings and ignorance of the Bible Jesus warned us about (Mt 22:29). They interpreted the “day after the Sabbath” mentioned in Leviticus 23 as the “day after the [weekly little] Sabbath”, the “first day of the week”, not the „day after the [annual High] Sabbath (Exodus Sabbath, 15th Nisan)”. Constantine the Great (*ca 280; †337) and later the popes, in particular Pope Gregory XIII (*1502; †1585), indirectly endorsed this idea because Sunday was the most important day of the week for the Romans; they dared to change the feast days and the law of God (Daniel 7:25) so that Christians could also rest on the same days as the Gentiles. To support this process, the doctrine of the alleged resurrection of Jesus on a Sunday (“Firstfruits Sunday”) was circulated, while all Bibles at the time spoke only of Sabbath (see Old Bibles). The Sabbath mentioned by name 7 times in the resurrection chapter of the NT was reinterpreted in the sermon as an alleged “Christian Sabbath", i.e. Sunday. This explains why there are so many texts by mostly Catholic church fathers that report the alleged resurrection of the Lord “on the first day of the week“, although the first Christians took the Bible literally and only knew of the resurrection „on a Sabbath“ morning. 

An example: Gregory of Tours (French: Grégoire de Tours; Latin: Gregorii Turonici; *538; †594) came from a distinguished Gallo-Roman family and was Bishop of Tours in Gaul as well as a historian. His most important work was the Ten Books of Histories (Decem libri historiarum), written in Latin in the years 574-593, which are also known as “Historiarum Francorum Libri Decem” (History of the Franks in 10 books) or Histories for short. In it, the bishop describes the events in the church of his time. Although Gregory knew the Vulgate, he mainly used non-biblical writings and opinions for his book. The first book (ch. 23) is about the day of the Lord's resurrection (De die resurrectiones dominicae). Although he defends the church doctrine on Sunday, he writes something very interesting: 

“But the Lord's resurrection took place on the first day, as we believe, not on the seventh day, as so many think“ (Dominicam vero resurrectionem die prima facta credimus, non septimam, sicut multi putant).”

Here he makes it clear that not just a few, but even MANY in his time thought that Jesus rose from the dead „on a Sabbath" (the seventh day of the week). But this is no surprise at all, as all Bibles at that time (meaning both the basic Greek texts and the official Latin translation Vulgate) clearly reported that the women came to the tomb „on a Sabbath“ (una sabbati = on a Sabbath). 

Unfortunately, there are many theologians who claim that supposedly all historical church texts only speak of the Sunday resurrection. This is a terrible heresy (lie), as not only the text of Gregory of Tours proves, where even in the 6th century AD "MANY" still believed in the resurrection of Jesus on a Sabbath morning. In addition, we have the ancient Greek New Testament and the many correct translations that report the resurrection „on a Sabbath“ or even „on a Saturday“, which many theologians ignore or deliberately want to conceal. And they also ignore the fact that many historical texts had to be burned if they contradicted the official teachings of the church, especially with regard to the Sabbath, which is hated by many. Even the translations of the Bible into other languages had to be burned in many places, so that there are no or only a few copies of some works. Instead, almost all churches only quote the verses that they like and that speak in favor of Sunday. Surprisingly, this includes not only Catholics, Protestants, Jehovah's Witnesses and free churches, but also (what is even worse) the Sabbath churches, such as the Adventists and the many splinter groups of the Church of God, because they believe the church founders (Ellen White and Herbert W. Armstrong) more than Jesus. Their doctrine is mainly based on the text of the King James Bible (KJV, with all the many errors, examples), but not on the basic Greek text and the many correct Bible translations worldwide (see Old Bibles). They bend their quotes to suit themselves, just to stick to the respective church doctrines and avoid problems.

In 1582, the Catholic Gregorian calendar, named in honor of Pope Gregory XIII, was developed so that all Christians would finally distance themselves from the calendar of the Bible, regard it as something "Jewish" and celebrate only Sundays every year: [1.] weekly Sunday, [2.] Palm Sunday, [3.] Easter Sunday (Firstfruits Sunday), [4.] Pentecost Sunday, [5.] Advent Sundays, while the Sabbath was at the same time degraded to just a small preparation day. Christians were supposed to isolate themselves from all biblical festivals because they were classified as "too Jewish" and no longer wanted to have anything to do with the so-called "Lords murderers", who often had to suffer terrible persecution. The aim was that Christians should no longer even know how God defines his own 7 feasts (which are assembly days with Him), so that they would all gather for the new (false) feasts and cut themselves off from the presence of God, but instead turn to the Catholic Church, his Pope and his own traditions and feast day calculations. The plan has worked almost 100%, because today there are hardly any Christians who know the biblical calendar and who know that there are always 3 preparation days and 3 Sabbaths in the Passover week every year. They only know one Sabbath and for them that is Saturday. Almost no one has ever even heard of a "first Sabbath" (Mark 16:9), but they all know the "first Advent". We do not condemn Christians who spread these first-fruits-feast teachings and thus consciously or unconsciously upgrade Sunday, but according to our conscience and the mandate of the Bible, it is our task to at least point out this error so that we do not make ourselves complicit through our silence.

The term "Feast of Firstfruits" is not used throughout the Bible, but many Christians refer to the day on which the first wave offering is made. This is not a problem, but only as long as no new holiday (High Sabbath) or a new day of rest or Easter Sunday is made out of it. Just as there are festivals of God, there are also festivals of people. God loves festivals, so he has given us times of rest and recuperation for humans and animals. There is a weekly holiday, the 7th day of the week, the Sabbath, which from its name means "cease" or "rest". In addition, God has appointed exactly 7 annual holidays (High Sabbaths, days of cessation, days of rest), which fall on different days of the week each year, on which an even greater rest was ordered. These are also the days of assembly (Hebrew: moed) with God. Only on these days was God present to gather with his people. The feast days of God have nothing to do with the feasts devised by man and follow a different calendar. All 7 feasts are precisely described in Leviticus 23. These are the 7 High annual Sabbaths of God, which are also described in detail in the Calendar chapter:

The 7 days of assembly with God are these (Hebrew name in brackets):

Spring (feast of spring fruits: barley): 

1)     1st month Nisan, 15th day: Passover 1, 1st day of unleavened bread  (Pesach 1)

2)     1st month Nisan, 21st day: Passover 7, 7th day of unleavened bread  (Pesach 7)

Summer (feast of summer fruits: wheat):

3)     The 50th day after the first High Sabbath: Pentecost  (Shavuot, Feast of Weeks) 

Autumn (feast of late fruits: grapes and fruits):

4)     7th month Tishrei,   1st day: Day of Trumpets  (Yom Teruah) 

5)     7th month Tishrei, 10th day: Day of Atonement  (Yom Kippur)

6)     7th month Tishrei, 15th day: Feast of Tabernacles  (Sukkot, 15th-21st day)

7)     7th month Tishrei, 22nd day: Last Great Day of Assembly (Shemini Atzeret, 8th day of assembly, conclusion)

As can be clearly seen, there is no great Sabbath of "firstfruits" in Leviticus 23, which many Christians would like to have, but the day of firstfruits (the day after the Sabbath) is a normal working day on which the priest went into the field to harvest the first stalks of spring grain. After the stalks of grain had been offered as a wave offering in the temple, the people of Israel began harvesting barley on the same day. The Israelites worked, not rested, on Firstfruits Day. They did not have a firstfruits feast day, but a firstfruits work day. But many Christians don't accept this, they don't want to work on this day, they want to rest. And because they want to have exactly 7 feast days (instead of 8, because the addition of firstfruits created an 8th feast day), they have to remove one of God's last feast days from God's feast list. No Israelite will ever accept this and neither will Jesus. The uncomfortable truth for many is that the last two High Sabbaths of the year are holy days of assembly with God, while the day of firstfruits has never been and never will be a day of assembly with God:

Lev 23:33-36: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 34 Speak to the people of Israel, saying, On the 15th day of this 7th month and for 7 days is the Feast of Booths [Tabernacles] to the Lord. 35 On the 1st day [Tishri 15] shall be a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. 36 For 7 days [= from 15 to 21 Tischri] you shall present food offerings to the Lord. On the 8th day [Tishri 22] you shall hold a holy convocation and present a food offering to the Lord. It is a solemn assembly; you shall not do any ordinary work.”

We have not invented the feast days of God ourselves, but only quote the Bible. And on this point we agree with the Israelites, TorahCalendar and many Christians worldwide who know God's calendar. We have not established a new doctrine, but refer to the ancient order that the Israelites have followed for thousands of years to this day, which is even described in detail in several articles on Wikipedia. But some Christians do not accept this important order from Leviticus 23 and have turned a normal working day into one of the biggest feast and rest days of the year, namely Firstfruits (= Easter Sunday), and have simply wiped out God's last High annual Sabbath or made it only a small part of the Feast of Tabernacles. As can be clearly read from Lev 23:33-36, the Feast of Tabernacles lasts, quote, "for 7 days" (not 8 days). The 1st day is the 15th Tishri (night of the full moon) and the 7th day is therefore the 21st Tishri. But this is not the end of the fall festival season, because after that comes a very important High Sabbath, namely the 8th day of the assembly on the 22nd Tishri, which can be seen in every Jewish and biblical calendar (e.g. TorahCalendar). This is the last holy day of assembly with God, the great solemn conclusion of the festival season. But the „day after the weekly Sabbath“, on which the firstfruits were waved, was a completely normal working day within the Passover season. 

The website TorahCalendar shows the sequence of days on the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) 2024 very well. It is also wonderful to see how the Fall Equinox is in the middle of the festival. But in the inaccurate 2024 Jewish calendar, which has inserted the 13th leap month at the wrong time, the 7th feast Sabbath Shemini Atzeret is only on October 24, 2024, a whole month too late. The 22nd Tishri is the last day of assembly (High Sabbath) on which no work may be done, but the 16th Nisan (Firstfruits) is the day on which there is NO assembly with God and on which work must be done. This is the biblical difference between the two days.

The removal of the last High Sabbath creates yet another major problem and an even greater error, because symbolically God's timetable for these Christians ends with the Millennial Kingdom (Feast of Tabernacles). But in the 8th day, God's timetable speaks of the time AFTER the Millennial Kingdom, namely the Last Judgement (also called the Last Day) and eternity thereafter. Christians must overlook this important element in God's plan when they end the festive season with the Feast of Tabernacles, which is a symbol of the 1,000-year kingdom. However, God's plan does not end here, but in the final judgment that follows and the time after that. By the way, those who have falsified the word of God and His calendar could also find themselves here, as God (not us) has always warned (Dt 4:2; Prov 30:5-6; Mt 18:6; 1Cor 4:6; Rev 22:18-19). This is the important spiritual difference between the annual Sabbaths and this important 7th Sabbath at the end of the year, which Christians simply want to erase or make smaller so that they can insert their Catholic Sunday in between as a feast of first fruits. No Israelite accepts this and no Christian who knows God's biblical calendar. The last great day is extremely important in terms of spiritual and symbolic significance:

John 7:37-39: “Rivers of Living Water. 37 On the last day of the feast, the great day [lit.: in now the last day the great (day) of the feast], Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

Both wave offerings were always offered at the time of the morning sacrifice, i.e. at 9 a.m. (the evening sacrifice was at 3 p.m.). In concrete terms, this means that if the wave offering had been offered on the same day as the resurrection, then the priests would have celebrated Jesus' resurrection with the symbolic waving of the first fruits more than 3 hours too late, because Jesus was resurrected during the night phase (before 6 a.m.), immediately before sunrise, i.e. at least 3 hours earlier. In other words, those who celebrate the Feast of Firstfruits at 9 a.m. must know that they have missed Jesus' resurrection by more than three hours or are celebrating it too late, because by the time the first barley stalks were waved, Jesus had long since risen and appeared to the women. 

For Jesus, the decisive and most important thing was that the world acknowledged the fulfillment of his visible sign of the Messiah, but not the brief invisible ascension to the Father. No one would have accepted such an invisible sign and the Pharisees would only have laughed at Jesus for such a sign because it could not be proven. In other words, Jesus repeatedly emphasized the resurrection, not the ascension. Jesus speaks of the sign of the Messiah about his RESURRECTION and not about his invisible ASSUMPTION, therefore the symbolism of the resurrection has a much greater significance than the symbolism of the ascension, which is only mentioned in passing and in very few places in the NT. It is therefore illogical for Christians to relate the offering of the firstfruits only to the ascension and not to the resurrection, because if the omer is offered at 9 am, then Jesus' resurrection has been over for hours and is symbolically celebrated far too late or not at all, but only the ascension. 

Now it becomes clear why the wave offering of the firstfruits had to be offered BEFORE the resurrection. It was a sign for the whole world that the resurrection of Jesus was imminent, after Jesus had freed us from the power of sin, which was celebrated on the first feast day of Passover (Nisan 15). It means goosebumps: „Get ready, the Lord will rise again shortly, namely on the coming night, because this was the 3rd and last night of the 3 days and 3 nights“. And the Lord rose from the dead the very next night. So there was a perfect fulfillment, a perfect timing, because on the day after the annual Sabbath, when the firstfruits were offered, the women bought the ointments and prepared them fresh so that they could go to the Lord the following night (on the weekly Sabbath). 

The wave sacrifice at Pentecost also does not mean that the bride of Christ will be resurrected and raptured at 9 a.m. on that day. Otherwise no one would have to be awake because we would all know not only the exact day but also the exact hour when the Rapture takes place. Only the question of the year would be open, but no one would have to keep watch until Pentecost. No, because this sacrifice is also only a sign of the coming rapture of the church: „Get ready, just as the Lord has risen, you too will rise.“ 

Then there is the legitimate question of whether it is even possible that Jesus ascended to the Father in heaven at exactly 9 o'clock when the sacrifice was offered. The Bible does not answer this question, but in view of the great sensation of the resurrection and the time at which Mary came to the tomb, namely during the night phase and when the Roman soldiers informed Pilate and the priests, it cannot be assumed in the context of the events described that Jesus would have ascended to the Father so late, namely after more than three hours. Why would Jesus wait such a long time? But even if it was at 9 a.m., it is completely irrelevant to our question because it was on a different day of the week, as the day of the resurrection is clearly referred to 7 times in the Bible as the "Sabbath" and not as the „day AFTER the Sabbath.“

So this whole discussion here is completely superfluous. It doesn't matter what some Christians think and how much they want Firstfruits Sunday, because the Bible clearly states in the basic Greek text (and many translations) that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was „early on the first Sabbath“ (Mk 16:9) or „on the one/first of the [seven] Sabbaths“ (Mt 28:1; Mk 16:2; Lk 24:1; Jn 20:1, 19). This is easy to understand, it couldn't be clearer. 

If, according to the Bible, Jesus was resurrected “ON the first Sabbath”, then this can never be the day of the offering of the first fruits, because this must be the “day AFTER the Sabbath”. You can see how easy it is to refute this first fruits Sunday feast biblically. 

Precisely because many Christians desperately want Sunday, they turn the biblical Sabbath into a non-biblical Sunday, choose revised Bible translations for it, simply erase the sign of the Messiah (although it was the most important sign in the history of mankind) and also remove the 7th annual Sabbath, the last great day, although it symbolizes the Last Judgement and eternal life afterwards. 

For some Christians, it fits perfectly into the picture that the first fruits were offered „on the day AFTER the Sabbath“, because for them this seems to be biblical proof that Jesus' resurrection supposedly took place on a Sunday. They do not look at the Bible in its ENTIRE TOTALITY and cannot distinguish between the minor Sabbaths and the major Sabbaths. They tend to overlook all the many Bible passages that speak of Jesus' resurrection „on a Sabbath.“ Consequently, they are forced to reinterpret or even falsify many biblical passages just to maintain their Sunday theory. They also deny the sign of the Messiah (3 days and 3 nights) or interpret it as an allegedly “symbolic speech of Jesus”. No, Jesus is the Word of God and no one can express himself better than Him and when he speaks of His sign of the Messiah, which the people (priests and people) wanted to see as proof of His legitimacy as the Messiah, He expresses himself extremely clearly so that ALL (Jews, Gentiles and Christians) in the world recognize this sign and so that there are no misunderstandings.

Most Christians are not familiar with the Old Testament (OT), so they do not know that Leviticus 23 does not refer to a weekly Sabbath, but an annual Sabbath (15th Nisan) (see below for evidence), which falls on different days of the week from year to year. Thus the so-called "Feast of Firstfruits" also falls on different days of the week from year to year, but only rarely on a Sunday. As many Christians do not want to have God's calendar at all, they prefer to follow the Pope's calendar and feast days, which have nothing to do with God's calendar. They have many Sundays: Palm Sunday, Easter Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, the 4 Sundays of Advent and of course the weekly Sunday. So they do not gather with God (many not even once in their lives) because they are religious but not obedient to the Lord and follow a different calendar that Jesus does not accept because it goes against the 7 High Sabbaths of the Bible. If someone says that the Pope or another church leader has allegedly received the right from God to introduce new „Christian Sunday feasts“ on the basis of the authority of the church, he must first prove this to us on the basis of Scripture. Why should a person place himself above the word of God when Jesus himself did not do so? Instead, we read:

Hebr 13:8: „Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.“ 

And one aspect must not be overlooked: The world celebrates the weekly holiday of the murderers of Jesus. It is the same day that pagan cultures placed first in the week as a major holiday in honor of the invincible sun god Sol Invictus. This is why this day still bears the name of the sun god (Sun Day) and not the name of Jesus (Jesus Day or Christ Day). In God's calendar, the "day after the Sabbath" described in Leviticus 23 rarely falls on a Sunday, but in the Roman Catholic calendar it ALWAYS falls on Sunday, because there are only Sundays as feast days, but no Sabbaths, as these have been converted into new preparation days for Sunday. 

Today we know exactly how Jesus and the first Christians calculated Pentecost, namely in the same way as the Pharisees, just as the Hebrews have done for thousands of years. They never had an annual Pentecost Sunday in their calendar, but this false doctrine was later spread by the Sadducee sect, which Jesus warned against, and then adopted by Christians. But even when calculating Pentecost Sunday, there are many possibilities, because either [1.] the Jewish calendar or [2.] the biblical calendar or [3.] the Catholic calendar is used, as Amir Tsarfati does, for example. Some do start counting the Omer from the 16th of Nisan, but many always start from the Sunday, which from year to year is either at the beginning, middle or end of the Passover week. This means that the 3 calendars alone give us 3 different Pentecost Sundays, as became clear in 2024, when the Jewish calendar was celebrated a whole month after the biblical calendar and after the Catholic Easter. Thus, the numerical-symbolic meaning of the 50 days between the physical exodus (on the 15th of Nisan) and the spiritual exodus (the founding of the church) on Pentecost (50th day) is lost, because there are consequently more and more days between the first and the third High Sabbath in between. In the biblical calendar (e.g. TorahCalendar) as well as in every Jewish calendar, the connection of the 50 days between the first High Sabbath (Passover, 15th Nisan) and Pentecost (50th day) is ALWAYS given, in every year without a single exception. This spiritual symbolic meaning (7x7=49) between the liberation (exodus) of the first bride (Israel) and the second bride (Christians) is very important and must not be destroyed. However, anyone who only begins to count the Omer from a Sunday in the middle or at the end of the Passover has destroyed this context of the 7x7 numbers, because the resurrection of Jesus belongs in the overall context of the Passover and in the years in which the Sunday falls at the end of the Passover, there are far too many days between the crucifixion (14th Nisan) and the alleged First Fruits-Sunday (this could be the 19th or 20th Nisan, for example). This means that there are always more than 50 days between the first annual Sabbath (15th Nisan) and the third annual Sabbath (Pentecost, 50th day). All of this is impossible in God's calendar, which emphasizes this relationship to the physical/spiritual exodus each year.

And it gets even more complicated, because there are even several possibilities for Sunday: Not only are the three calendars mentioned above used, but some begin counting the 50 days from the Sunday after the 15th of Nisan, while others begin counting from the Sunday after the 21st of Nisan, the last day of Passover. Thus, among Messianic Jews and the many Christian denominations, there are not just two or three Pentecost Sundays to choose from, but a total of about 7 to 8 so-called "true Pentecosts", as is claimed. Satan has managed to create absolute chaos. Why? Because many Christians lack the humility to examine everything, and because they want a Pentecost Sunday with all their might in order to distance themselves from the Israelites. So they gather on the wrong days, but not with the God of the Bible and His Son Jesus Christ, because God only has one day of Pentecost, not 8 days of Pentecost.

Most Christians are not familiar with the Old Testament (OT), which was the basis of the first Christian church. As a result, they do not know God's biblical calendar, but follow the Pope's Catholic calendar (Gregorian calendar) with its own feast days, which are celebrated at times other than those biblically ordered by God. The new festivals, which are not mentioned in the Bible, were deliberately placed on other calendar days because they wanted to distance themselves as far as possible from the „festivals of the Jews" and celebrate their own so-called „Christian festivals“. In reality, they are not Christian festivals, as they all fall on ancient pagan feast days, because they wanted the Christians to rest on the same days as the pagans. It is very important to always keep this in mind, that today's Christian feast days are not based on the biblical calendar, but were instead moved to ancient feast days of the pagans, because everyone (pagans and many Christians) wanted to distance themselves from the biblical feast days because they seemed „too Jewish“ to them. They wanted to completely separate themselves from the traditions of the Jews. For this reason, the „day after the Sabbath“ was not redefined as the „day after the annual Sabbath“, but as the „day after the weekly Sabbath“ (Sunday).

Because most Christians lack this basis of the OT, most think that each week has only one Sabbath. This is wrong, because there are also the 7 High Sabbaths that fall within a week. Now comes the crucial point: Every year on Passover there are not just one or two, but actually 3 Sabbaths within 7 days, namely the two High Sabbaths (feasts) on the 15th and 21st of Nisan (which fall on different days of the week from year to year) with the one minor weekly Sabbath in between. This small weekly Sabbath can be at the beginning, middle or end of the Passover week, because the 15th Nisan (and therefore also the 21st Nisan) fall on different days of the week from year to year. And this is where the problem begins, because God did not say which of these 3 Sabbaths is meant in Exodus 23:

Lev 23:10-11: “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, 11 and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it.”

Lev 23:15: “You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering.”

So we know that this first sheaf (the first bundle of grain stalks with the ear) had to be offered „on the day after the Sabbath“ as a wave offering. But which of the 3 Sabbaths is meant? There are 3 possibilities:

1. the day after the first High Sabbath of the year (15th Nisan), i.e. always the 16th of Nisan, which falls on different days of the week from year to year.

2. the day after the first small weekly Sabbath, which follows the 15th Nisan. But be careful, because this does not mean that this Sabbath falls on the 16th of Nisan, as it can be either at the beginning (16th or 17th Nisan), in the middle (18th or 19th Nisan) or at the end (20th Nisan) of the Passover festival week. It is therefore not possible to name a specific Nisan day for the weekly Sabbath, as it falls on a different calendar number each year (16-22 Nisan).

This minor Sabbath between the two major Sabbaths (15 and 21 Nisan) in the Passover feast week is the „first Sabbath“ in two respects, because on the one hand it is the „first Sabbath“ AFTER the first annual Sabbath (15. Nisan, Feast) and it is also the „first Sabbath“ of the 7 weekly Sabbaths that must be counted each year between Passover (15th Nisan) and Pentecost (50th day) and are found in every Jewish and biblical calendar. All these 7 weekly Sabbaths can be clearly named each year with Gregorian (Catholic) dates. This is why this „first Sabbath“ (singular) is also called the „first of the [seven] Sabbaths“ (plural). With this designation, everyone in Jesus' time knew which of the three Sabbaths on Passover was meant, because this „first Sabbath“ only occurs once a year. Since the Sadducees and many Christians define the day of the first sheaf mentioned in Leviticus 23 as „the day after the [weekly] Sabbath“, it is clear that they must celebrate Sunday every year, which means that they also have a Palm Sunday and a Pentecost Sunday every year. This is a practice that NEVER existed in God's biblical calendar, as any Israelite can confirm.

3. the day after the second High Sabbath of the year (21st Nisan), i.e. the 22nd Nisan, which falls on different days of the week from year to year.

Since there are these three possibilities, there is now much room for dispute. Specifically, it means that the sheaf of firstfruits could have been offered from year to year on either the 16th or the 17th or the 18th or the 19th or the 20th or the 22nd of Nisan. God could have made it very easy for himself and could have told us that this „day after the Sabbath...“

- should always be the 16th of Nisan

- should always be the „first day of the week“

- should always be the 22nd Nisan

This would put an end to all discussions. But God deliberately did not do that. Question: Why didn't God say more clearly from which Sabbath to count? Answer: Quite simply so that God can test people's hearts to see how much they love His WHOLE Word or not. The point here is to test whether people consider the WHOLE Word of God or just pick out individual passages from the Bible to establish a different doctrine that contradicts God. Incidentally, this does not only apply to the question of the “day after the Sabbath”, but to ALL biblical topics, as the respective information is always distributed in many places in the Bible. In this way, God ensures that not all people receive this precious knowledge about ALL topics in the Bible, but only the children of God. The answers are always scattered throughout the WHOLE Bible and only a humble Christian (with the help of the Holy Spirit) can put these many individual building blocks together and only then gain knowledge. Other Christians cherry-pick a few verses to justify and spread a false doctrine with an alleged biblical background. 

There are many theologians and pastors who exploit this very uncertainty with the “day after the Sabbath” in order to bring the pagan Sunday into the Bible and establish it as a new holiday. They will only succeed in part, because unlike most Christians, the Bride of Christ looks at the WHOLE of Scripture and does not change God's calendar or the statements of the Hebrew OT and Greek NT. Once again in all clarity: God did not specifically mention the 16th of Nisan by name because He wants us to look at the Bible in its ENTIRETY. Then we can be sure not only that the „day after the [High annual feast] Sabbath“ was meant, but also that the weekly Sabbath must be the day of Jesus' resurrection. Only then do all the biblical passages fit together perfectly and there are no contradictions. 

To all Christians who say that God has not said that the sheaf of firstfruits must ALWAYS be offered from the 16th of Nisan, we can reply: „God has also not said that the firstfruits must always be offered not after an annual Sabbath, but ALWAYS only after a weekly Sabbath (i.e. always on a Sunday).“ God could have simply said that the sheaf of firstfruits should always be offered „on the first day of the week“ and that Pentecost should always be celebrated „on the first day of the week“. Or He could have named Sunday by name. It would be so simple. But God did NOT say that because he set up a calendar in which the cutting of the first fruits falls on different days of the week from year to year, because the first annual Sabbath (15th Nisan) also falls on different days of the week every year. To avoid an eternal dispute in Christendom, we need more historical and biblical information. Let's first look at how the 3 preparation days and the 3 Sabbaths on Passover are arranged in God's calendar in 2023 and 2024:

The illustrations above show the 3 preparation days and the 3 Sabbaths during the 7-day Passover, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026. This alone makes it clear that the doctrine of the Sadducees and Catholics to wave the firstfruits on the day after the weekly Sabbath must be wrong. This is because in some years (such as 2022) the wave offering is even offered on the High annual Sabbath (15th Nisan), in other years in the middle (2023) and yet in other years (2024, 2025) at the end of Passover. The reference to the Exodus with the Exodus on the night of the full moon is thus completely lost. In 2026, the first High annual Sabbath (Nisan 15) falls on the minor weekly Sabbath, i.e. on Saturday. In this case, we speak of a "double Sabbath". This means that the firstfruits of barley will be offered on the same day in the biblical and Catholic calendars in 2026, i.e. on 16 of Nisan. But there is an important difference because Catholics make a holiday of Easter Sunday out of the working day of 16 Nisan. For anyone who really knows God's calendar and observes it from year to year, it must be clear that the „day after the Sabbath“ referred to in Leviticus 23 can only mean the 16th of Nisan, because this automatically removes several questions and contradictions. Only then is there a clear connection between the exodus from Egypt on the night of the full moon and the founding of the church at Pentecost, which means an exodus (exodus) from this world, because through the Holy Spirit we have become children of God and will therefore receive a spiritual body and live forever.

In this table above, the dates according to the Jewish calendar are NOT entered (identical only 2023), because this would only lead to confusion, because the Jews always keep firstfruits on the 16th of Nisan, but since they do NOT pay attention to the correct beginning of the month (new light), their day of the firstfruits sheaf is 1-3 days too early or too late in many years. For example, their 16th of Nisan in 2022 falls on the High Sabbath of Passover (15th Nisan) in God's biblical calendar. In 2024 it is even more dramatic, because there they celebrate the feasts even a whole month too late. So we have at least three days of firstfruits, namely according to God's calendar, the Jewish calendar and the Catholic (Gregorian) calendar. In addition, various Christian groups deviate from this calculation because they always count after the 21st of Nisan, for example. Many Christians then speak of a "true Passover" or "true Pentecost", but in reality these are all fake feast days, because biblically there are only the ONLY assembly days that follow God's calendar, which He has defined, not many different ones, where each group can choose the assembly day they want.

It is unbelievable that so many Christians have fallen into this trap and have completely separated themselves from God's biblical calendar, although this was not only the basis of our Lord Jesus Christ, but also of the first Christian church, which in the first decades only had the Greek translation Septuagint (LXX) in addition to the Hebrew Bible. The New Testament (NT) writings only came into being much later and only a few Christians had all 27 books of the NT at their disposal. Since nothing is written in the entire NT about an alleged change or shift in the feast day order, it is clearly proven that the first Christians also continued to have the firstfruits on the 16th of Nisan and continued to orient themselves to the same feast days that the Jews had.

On the other hand, the biblical tradition stood in stark contrast to the Roman festivals and as the Roman rulers wanted the Christians to rest on the same days as them, the pagan festivals were declared Christian festivals. This meant that every year there was Palm Sunday, Holy Friday, Easter Sunday, Pentecost Sunday and the four Sundays of Advent leading up to Christmas, which was celebrated on the day of the winter solstice according to the Julian calendar. This was the day on which the sun god worshipped by the pagan peoples celebrated his birthday, because from this day onwards the days became longer. As you can see, there was a dramatic shift in holidays when Christians broke away from the biblical calendar and adopted the Catholic calendar worldwide, which most Christians in the world still follow today. The aim was to determine the new "Christian" feast days in such a way that they never fall on a biblical feast day. Therefore, the year 2022 was a major exception, when Easter Sunday fell on the Passover High Sabbath (Nisan 15), which to our knowledge only occurs once in 2,000 years. Thus, most Christians today celebrate holidays that can never fall on a biblical feast day of God. This is a fact that anyone can easily verify.

The exact same sequence of days as in 2023 occurs very often in God's calendar and in the Jewish calendar, namely about every third year. This was also the case in 2020 and 2023, when the biblical and Jewish calendars fell on the same days of the week. This means that any free online Jewish calendar can show how the 50 days to Pentecost were counted, namely always from the 16th of Nisan (day of the wave offering), because the day on which the firstfruits were offered has always been the 16th Nisan for thousands of years. It is the day after the first major Sabbath of the year (not the day after a minor Sabbath), because it is symbolically very important that there is a connection between the liberation (Exodus) of the Old Testament church from Egypt and the founding of the New Testament church after 7x7=49 days (Pentecost) (see counting the Omer). This is how the day of Pentecost has been determined for thousands of years.

But now we come to the crucial question, how can we know for sure after which of the three possible Sabbaths the firstfruits must be waved? There are 3 possible views:

1. always from the 16th of Nisan: Jews and Christians who follow the Jewish or biblical calendar of God always count from the day after the great Sabbath of the 15th of Nisan, i.e. always from the 16th of Nisan.

2. always from Sunday: Many Christians who wish for the resurrection of Jesus on a Sunday always count from the day after the weekly Sabbath, i.e. from the first day of the week, Sunday. But what is very important and unknown to many Christians is that they no longer follow the Biblical calendar or the Jewish calendar, where the 15th of Nisan falls on different days of the week every year, but always follow the Pope's calendar. The Gregorian calendar from 1582, named after Pope Gregory XIII, is binding for them. They are not interested in what God says on this subject, but they all follow the Catholic doctrine of Easter Sunday, which they call the Feast of Firstfruits. This group includes not only Catholics, but also many Protestants, free evangelical churches, independent free churches, charismatics, Pentecostal churches, Jehovah's Witnesses and even the Sabbath churches such as the Adventists or the Church of God. Even some Messianic congregations follow this teaching because they think (as they have written to us): If Jesus was resurrected on a Sabbath, then it would valorize the Sabbath even more and so they think that they would be under the law again and would have to keep the Sabbath like the Jews. They therefore want Jesus to have risen on a Sunday and thus turn the working day (on which the first fruits were offered) into a new annual Sabbath and follow the Pope's calendar in calculating the feast days. All these religious groups have one thing in common, which the Pope is very pleased about: they all valorize Sunday by saying that the sheaf of firstfruits was allegedly offered on a Sunday and that the women allegedly came to the tomb on a Sunday morning, although the basic Greek text, the Vulgate and many correct Bible translations worldwide speak of a Sabbath morning.

3. always from the 22nd Nisan: Some Christians who always want to have Pentecost on the 15th day of the 3rd month (the 15th of Siwan) count from the day after the second annual Sabbath (21st of Nisan).They therefore only want to offer the sheaf of firstfruits after the Passover, i.e. on the 22nd of Nisan, and count the 50 days from this date. They then speak of a "true Pentecost".This false doctrine can be easily refuted, because the months have either 29 or 30 days, so there are many years in which Pentecost cannot fall on the 15th day at all. Other Christian groups believe that the 21st of Nisan fell on a Sunday in the year of Jesus' death (double Sabbath) and thus celebrate Sunday every year, but have then lost the reference to the biblical or Jewish calendar because the 21st of Nisan falls on different days of the week every year.

As the first fruits are sacrificed on 3 different days for these 3 groups, this automatically means that there must also be 3 different days of Pentecost. But from a biblical point of view, only the first possibility can be accepted, as the following text proves.

God did not mention the words „on the 16th of Nisan“ in connection with the day of the sheaf of firstfruits. Nor did He speak of the „first day of the week“ and even less of "Sunday". But there is clear historical and biblical evidence that the „day after the Sabbath“ can only mean the „day after the first High Sabbath of the year“ (15th Nisan), i.e. the 16th Nisan. There are indeed years in which the feast Sabbath (15th Nisan) falls on a weekly Sabbath, in which case the 16th Nisan would actually fall on a Sunday; but this cannot possibly have taken place in the year in which the Lord was crucified, as can be easily proven (see the chapter Resurrection on Sabbath).

And even if the Lord had risen on a Sunday on the 16th of Nisan (which is not the case), even then there would only be a few years in which Christians could celebrate the resurrection of Jesus on a Sunday, because in the biblical and Jewish calendar the 15th Nisan (High Sabbath) rarely falls on a Saturday.

However, these theoretical considerations are not necessary, because the Bible itself contains the evidence that the firstfruits were celebrated every year after the High Sabbath (15th Nisan). For this, the WHOLE of Scripture must be considered, because it alone gives certainty (not sermons that contradict each other):

Like all their fathers throughout the generations, the Israelites always start counting the Omer from the day after the first High Sabbath of the year (15th Nisan, day of the Exodus), i.e. always from the 16th of Nisan, which falls on different days of the week from year to year. This is a tradition that they have kept for thousands of years, as can be proven by many historical sources. It is arrogant for Christians of all people to try to persuade the Jews that they supposedly do not understand their own Hebrew language and Leviticus 23 correctly, that they have supposedly been calculating their feast days incorrectly for thousands of years and that they now need Catholic or free evangelical Christians to show them what they should and should not do. No, it is not the Jews who miscalculate the feasts of God, but these Christians, because they absolutely want Resurrection Sunday and thus create completely new calendar structures that did not even exist at the time of Jesus. So we are not spreading a new doctrine, but ancient basic biblical knowledge, which we also have from the Israelites.

Most Christians know neither the biblical calendar nor the Jewish calendar, and therefore of course not the differences between the two, but they want to persuade us that we should adopt the Gregorian calendar invented by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 AD and named in his honor, in which the so-called "Feast of Firstfruits" is always celebrated on the first day of the week (Sunday) and Pentecost also always falls on a Sunday. Every year in the Catholic calendar (which most Christians follow worldwide) only Sunday is emphasized, so weekly Sunday, Palm Sunday, Easter Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, Advent Sundays. Sunday, Sunday above all else. No, no Hebrew will ever accept such nonsense. There are some so-called "Messianic Christians" from the people of Israel, but even they don't like God's calendar, preferring instead to follow the Pope's calendar with its holidays. There are many free Jewish online calendars on the internet; in them, every Christian can see how the Israelites have calculated the feast days for centuries and when the day of the first sheaf (first fruits) is. This is always the 16th of Nisan, always, every year.

The Jewish calendar, which originated in the 4th century AD, had to be introduced because the Jews, who had been expelled worldwide since 70 AD, could no longer see the first crescent of the moon (the new light) over Jerusalem. As a result, they were no longer able to determine the first day of the month with certainty, so they had to resort to statistical averages to assume the new light of the moon so that all Jews worldwide could keep the same feast days together. The Jewish calendar does contain some uncertainties regarding the beginning of the month, but the most important thing is that the day on which the firstfruits were offered and the counting of the Omer have never changed: The counting of the 50 days until Pentecost always begins from the 16th of Nisan, i.e. from the „day after the Sabbath“ of deliverance (Exodus), i.e. from the day after the first High annual Sabbath (15th Nisan), as every Jewish calendar proves.. In 2020 and 2023, God's calendar and the Jewish calendar fell on the same days, so it is even easier for Christians to see how to count.

When some Christians who cannot even read the Hebrew OT arrogantly want to know everything better and try to persuade the Jews that they have been doing everything wrong for thousands of years, then this confusion arises. And if a lie is repeated often enough, it becomes the truth for many Christians and they leave the path of the Bible and automatically adopt the Catholic calendar with its own Sunday feast days. As a result, very few Christians know that there are 3 preparation days and 3 Sabbaths in the Passover week every year, and of course they don't know what the „first Sabbath“ mentioned by Mark (Mk 16:9) actually is. It all sounds too illogical and far too complicated for them, so that they have to reinterpret many things in Scripture so that Sunday always comes out on top. But everything is so easy to understand if you just concentrate on the Bible and „do not go beyond what is written“ (1Cor 4:6):

The illustration above shows the arrangement of the feast days according to God's calendar and the Jewish calendar, which occurs approximately every third year. In 2020 and 2023, the Jewish calendar fell on the same weekdays as the biblical calendar, but in 2024 the feast days are celebrated a whole month late in the Jewish calendar (due to incorrect determination of the 13th leap month). In 2023, the 16th of Nisan (the day on which the sheaf of firstfruits is offered) fell on a Friday and in 2024 on a Wednesday. Approximately every third year, the 14th of Nisan falls on a Wednesday, so in the calendar from 2023 it is easy to see how the „3 days and 3 nights“ (= the sign of the Messiah) and the 50 days until Pentecost are counted. For the Israelites, TorahCalendar and Christians who also read the OT, the day of firstfruits is always the 16th of Nisan. The shocking thing is: since many Christians want to have Firstfruits Sunday, they do not honor the Lord, because Jesus already rose from the dead the day before, namely on the Sabbath. These Christians therefore do not even celebrate the biblical day of resurrection, but instead the Roman holiday of those who killed Jesus.  All because they reject the biblical calendar and want an unbiblical turbo-resurrection of the Lord with all their might. To achieve this goal, they deny the sign of the Messiah (3 days and 3 nights):

The so-called (and not mentioned in the entire Bible) „Firstfruits Resurrection Sunday“ is nothing other than the catholic Easter Sunday because it follows the Pope's calendar. The Christians who do not want to pronounce the Catholic name are not as righteous as they think themselves to be, because it is nevertheless exactly the same Catholic calendar day that is celebrated. So these Christians from various churches (which even include Messianic Jews) gather with the Pope every year, but definitely not with the God of the Bible, because he has completely different assembly days. Those who do not follow the Catholic calendar but keep Firstfruits Sunday according to the Jewish calendar are also making a big mistake, because in 2024, for example, the Jewish Firstfruits Sunday was moved back a whole month because the leap year was calculated incorrectly. Question: How many Firstfruits Resurrection Sundays are there in a year and how many of them are there in God's calendar? Answer: Not a single one. 

And because irresponsible pastors have been trying to persuade us for years: „It doesn't matter what day you celebrate the resurrection of the Lord, as long as you celebrate it“, we answer them:

“No, you don't care, but our Father (God) and our Lord (Jesus Christ) do care, for they have set their meeting days (moedim), and if you don't observe them, then you are meeting with the Pope or with the Jews, but definitely not with the God of the Bible. Instead, you are disobedient and cowardly and lead the church away from the Bible to pagan holidays, which you then piously call "Christian festivals". In the judgment before God you will see that these were NEVER the feast days of the Lord Jesus Christ, but of another Lord whom the world follows.”

The Jewish-Roman historian Josephus Flavius (*37; †after 100), who came from the same Jewish people and from a family of priests, lived at the same time and in the same geographical area as Jesus and the apostles, provides further important and clear evidence that the Israelites always reckoned the firstfruits from the „day after the first High Sabbath“ (15th Nisan), i.e. from the 16th of Nisan. He wrote „The Jewish Antiquities“ around 94 AD, a work in which he describes the history of the Jewish people. It is particularly interesting that he refers to Lev 23:11 and describes exactly on which day firstfruits were offered and from which day the counting of the Omer began:

“But on the second day of Unleavened Bread, which is the 16th day of the month, they took the fruits of the earth, which they had not touched before that day.”

The first day of Unleavened Bread is clearly the 15th of Nisan, the great feast Sabbath, which is followed by the 16th of Nisan (the second day of Unleavened Bread, i.e. a working day). Could Josephus have put it more clearly? No, his statement removes all doubt. He confirms that the Pharisees correctly calculated the day of the first Omer (biblical term for the sheaves at the first harvest in spring) and that this knowledge was generally recognized among the people (more information in the chapter Omer).

There is a flood of literature sources that confirm that the Israelites have always defined the day after the annual Sabbath, i.e. the 16th of Nisan, as the day on which the firstfruits must be offered. This is also explained in the Talmud, in many Jewish and Christian lexicons and writings. Wikipedia also confirms this and deals with this topic in detail. See also the topic about the Omer counting.

Now we come to the most important point, because it is about biblical facts. Most Christians who want to convince us of Firstfruits Sunday claim that there is supposedly no evidence in the Bible that the sheaf of firstfruits must always be offered on the day after the High Sabbath (Nisan 15) on the 16th of Nisan. No, it is the other way around, these Christians cannot provide any biblical evidence that it was supposedly always on a Sunday. There are actually clear biblical facts in favor of the 16th of Nisan falling on different days of the week every year:

1. The "first Sabbath" is named in the NT as the day of resurrection, so it is clear that the ceremony of the firstfruits must have taken place before this day. In the verses Mt 28:1; Mk 16:2, Lk 24:1 , Jn 20:1; Jn 20:19, it is always stated that the women came to the tomb literally „on the one of the Sabbaths“ or, as many translate, „on the first of the Sabbaths“. This refers to the one/first of the 7 weekly Sabbaths that must be counted each year between Passover (Nisan 15) and Pentecost. Mark makes it even clearer, so that all doubts must automatically disappear, because he literally says that Jesus rose from the dead more precisely „early of the first Sabbath“ in the singular genitive (Mk 16:9). So what else can be unclear? This means that Jesus could not have risen on an alleged first fruits Sunday because he had already appeared to the women and the disciples the day before (Sabbath). Jesus was undoubtedly the firstfruits and the first of all who had fallen asleep, but he did not rise on the normal working day on which the firstfruits were awakened, but this ceremony was a reference to the coming resurrection and ascension of the Lord. The Bible does not emphasize the working day (Nisan 16), but the first fruits Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the sign of the Messiah (3 days and 3 nights), that was visible to all.

The „first Sabbath“ cannot possibly mean the first High Sabbath of the year (15th Nisan), but is of course the „first Sabbath“ in the count of the 7 weekly Sabbaths until Pentecost. This can be found in every Biblical calendar and Jewish calendar and can always be given a Gregorian date. The Bible calls the day of resurrection the Sabbath 7 times, not Sunday. This was the first biblical proof that the first fruits were offered on the day after the High Sabbath and that this day did not fall on a Sunday in the year of the resurrection.

2. The „3 days and 3 nights“ prove that the firstfruits were offered after the feast Sabbath: In the history of the universe, no one can express Himself better than the Word of God, Jesus Christ. When He speaks of his sign of the Messiah, it is the most important sign in the history of mankind. It is precisely then that we must pay attention to every word and when the Word of God says that he will be „3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth“ (Mt 12:38-40) and will rise again afterwards (i.e. after 3 days), he does not mean a turbo-resurrection after 1.5 days, just because that fits the image of some Christians who wish for the pagan Easter Sunday on which the first fruits were supposedly offered. What Jesus said is also not meant symbolically, as some pastors repeatedly claim, but Jesus did not want to confuse us and wanted to give the whole world a clear and unambiguous sign of the Messiah. It is not about 72 hours, but this period must contain at least parts of these „3 days and 3 nights“. This was and still is the case with the Jews to this day and this is also how we count, for example, when a child is born or a person dies. So the first sheaf cannot have been offered on a Sunday, because if Jesus was allegedly crucified on Good Friday, even the most generous calculation would still be missing a full night.

Jesus never spoke of a turbo-resurrection and also never of a premature flash-resurrection, but he gave a clear sign for the whole world (also for the Pope and all his Christian followers of the various churches, as well as the Adventists and the Church of God), which every child understands. Once again, this shows that everything speaks against Sunday. Even those who calculate a crucifixion on a Wednesday or Thursday, but want a resurrection Sunday, have a problem with the „3 days and 3 nights“, because the resurrection day is called "Sabbath" exactly 7 times in the NT. God could have used over 24 possible phrases in ancient Greek to mention a Sunday (see examples), but instead He spoke of the Sabbath 7 times (number of completeness) in the plural and singular. It could not be clearer. The sign of the Messiah is proof that there were 3 days and 3 nights before the resurrection of Jesus and that there must have been a weekday in between the High Sabbath (Nisan 15) and the resurrection day. This was the second biblical proof that the first fruits were offered on the day after the High Sabbath and that this day did not fall on a Sunday in the year of the resurrection.

3. The intermediate day: In the year in which Jesus was crucified, there must have been at least one working day between the High Sabbath (15th Nisan) and the small weekly „first Sabbath“, because the women prepared the ointments AFTER the Sabbath and rested on the following Sabbath. This alleged „insoluble contradiction“ is not a contradiction at all, because there are always 3 Sabbaths on the Passover. AFTER the Sabbath is therefore always BEFORE the Sabbath. And now the most important thing: the firstfruits sheaf always had to be offered on the „day after the Sabbath“, so this must mean the „day after the High Sabbath“, i.e. the 16th Nisan (the intermediate day), because the 17th Nisan was the „first Sabbath“ and the 3rd day after Jesus' burial. Since, according to the Bible, Jesus was resurrected „early on the first Sabbath" (Mark 16:9), the firstfruits sheaf must have been offered the day before, i.e. on the 16th of Nisan, because the firstfruits must be offered AFTER the Sabbath, but not ON the Sabbath. 

The following Sunday is also impossible because that would be more than 24 hours after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus and the 4th day after Jesus' burial. In God's calendar, there is very often a day between the 15th of Nisan and the "first Sabbath" on the 17th of Nisan, as in 2020 and 2023. A detailed text on this intermediate day can be found here. This was the third biblical proof that the firstfruits were offered on the day after the High Sabbath and that this day did not fall on a Sunday in the year of the resurrection.

4. The Pharisees always calculated the firstfruits after the High Sabbath: There are numerous sources that prove that the Pharisees always offered the firstfruits on the day after the High Sabbath (Nisan 15) and never after a small weekly Sabbath. The only exception was in the years when the annual Sabbath fell on a weekly Sabbath. We cannot read anywhere in the NT that Jesus or the people complained that they always offered the firstfruits on the 16th of Nisan. Nor can we read that there were supposedly different feast days at the same time, and therefore several days of firstfruits and several days of Pentecost. No, they were all based on the same feast days, which the Pharisees calculated extremely precisely every year. See the counting of the Omer. This was the fourth biblical proof that the first fruits were offered on the day after the High Sabbath and that this day did not fall on a Sunday in the year of the resurrection.

5. Paul always calculated firstfruits after the High Sabbath: See the chapter on counting the Omer and the section entitled: „Paul was a Pharisee and calculated from the day after the High Sabbath.“ 

1Cor 16:8: "But I [Paul] will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost." 

The biblical feast of Pentecost, which falls on different days of the week each year, which some Christians describe as Old Testament or "too Jewish" (because they always want a Pentecost Sunday), also existed after the resurrection of Jesus. The New Testament church was founded on this day, and Paul also mentions this day in his letter to the Corinthians. This raises the question: How did he calculate Pentecost? Certainly not the way the Sadducees did and also not the way many Christians do today by following the Pope's calendar (which did not even exist at the time), as Amir Tsarfati does, for example. Paul also did not count like the Church of God or some Messianic Jews, who follow the Sunday after Passover according to the new Jewish calendar, which was only invented in the 4th century (i.e. long after Paul's death) by rabbis who rejected Jesus as the Messiah. Paul reckoned the 50 days like the Pharisees, i.e. always from the 16th of Nisan. Anyone who disagrees should please prove it to us from biblical and historical sources, which no one has yet succeeded in doing. These people simply quote the biblical passage "day after the Sabbath" and want to persuade the Israelites and us that this supposedly always means the day after Saturday, i.e. Sunday, and not the day after the High Sabbath, which many do not even know. No, today we know exactly how the Pharisees and therefore also Paul calculated the Omer. This was the fifth biblical proof that the firstfruits were offered on the day after the High Sabbath and that this day did not fall on a Sunday in the year of the resurrection.

6. The Israelites always calculated firstfruits after the High Sabbath: Today we know very well that the Pharisees determined the calendar at the time of Jesus. They made sure that the regulations set out in Leviticus 23 were strictly observed. The entire nation of Israel had to adhere to this, because they had no other choice. We cannot find a single passage in the entire Bible that indicates that the people of Israel supposedly had different feast days from the Pharisees. On the contrary, since there is no mention of any dispute in the Bible and they all gathered on the same days, it is proven that they all had the same feast days every year. Without the priests, the people would never have gone it alone. The fact is that the Israelites have had the same basis for calculating the feast days for thousands of years to this day. They have always defined the „day after the Sabbath“ mentioned in Lev 23:11 as the „day after the High Sabbath“ (16th of Nisan). This is not our idea. The Jewish-Roman historian Josephus Flavius, who lived at the same time and in the same geographical area as the apostles, also confirmed that this really was the case at the time of Jesus.

Anyone who disagrees must prove to us from the Bible that the people of Israel and the Pharisees allegedly had other feast days and that at the time of Jesus they somehow made the day on which the first fruits were offered a special holiday and did not count the last High Sabbath (Shemini Azeret) as one of the seven High Sabbaths. No, definitely not, the Israelites have nothing to do with this, but rather these are inventions and calendar changes made up by Christians who want to distance themselves from God's guidelines. To do this, they cherry-pick individual passages from the Bible to turn the existing pagan feast days into new Christian feasts and to avoid problems. These festivals were only developed long after the death of Jesus and the apostles so that Christians could also rest on the same holidays as the pagans. The purpose was for the Gentiles and the Christians to rest on the same weekly day, the Roman Sunday, the holiday of the ancient civilizations from which the people of Israel distanced themselves. This was the sixth biblical proof that the firstfruits were offered on the day after the High Sabbath and that this day did not fall on a Sunday in the year of the resurrection.

7. Jesus always calculated firstfruits after the High Sabbath: This statement may come as a shock to many, but the fact is that Jesus also always calculated the day of firstfruits from the day after the annual Sabbath (Nisan 15) and not after the weekly Sabbath (Sunday). How can we be so sure? Today we know from numerous historical sources exactly how the Jews calculated the feast days at the time of Jesus, namely according to the Pharisees' method. The Israelites still do this today, with the difference that in their calendar from the 4th century AD they do not always pay close attention to the correct beginning of the month (new light over Jerusalem). The order of the days leading up to Pentecost has not changed for thousands of years until today. That is a fact.

If Christians should now say that Jesus spoke harshly against the Pharisees and that we should therefore not believe them, they are mistaken. For although the Pharisees were extremely accurate in keeping the correct calculation and observance of the feast days, their problem was that they had no love. It was never about them supposedly having wrong feast days or a wrong calendar, quite the opposite, it was all about what they made of these feast days. They forced people to an extreme observance of these days with self-invented exaggerated rules that made life a burden for everyone. Only the sect of the Sadducees (who did not believe in the resurrection) always counted firstfruits from the day after the weekly Sabbath, i.e. always from Sunday. But the Pharisees always counted from the day after the annual High Sabbath, i.e. always from the 16th of Nisan. Jesus himself said who we should listen to:

Mt 23:2-3: “The scribes and the Pharisees [not the Sadducees!] sit on Moses' seat, 3 so do and observe whatever they [the Pharisees, not the Sadducees]  tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.”

Thus we have biblical proof that we must count from the 16th of Nisan, because today we know exactly how the Pharisees began counting the Omer. It was always from the 16th of Nisan. All the people of Israel had to keep to this order, only the small group of Sadducees did not, but all Israel celebrated the feast days in the same way as the priests, who were Pharisees themselves. See the chapter „The Omer quarrel between Pharisees and Sadducees and the words of Jesus“ on this website.

And now comes the crucial point: In the entire Bible itself, we cannot find a single statement by Jesus in which he criticized this calculation practice of the Pharisees in any way. On the contrary, Jesus himself said that the disciples should listen to the Pharisees. If they had the wrong feast days, it would be a sin and Jesus would have said something, because then it would no longer just be about the Passover, but then the Israelites would automatically celebrate Pentecost on the wrong day almost every year. The only exception would be the years in which the first annual Sabbath (15th Nisan) fell on a weekly Sabbath. 

If there had been such a dramatic miscalculation of the feast days at the time of Jesus, Jesus would certainly not have remained silent, but precisely because there is nothing about it in the NT, we can prove biblically that the Pharisees' counting method was correct and that Jesus always counted the day of firstfruits on the 16th of Nisan, which falls on different days of the week from year to year.

In addition, there is an important fact that many Christians overlook: For Jesus, the Day of Firstfruits was not a feast day, but a normal working day after the High Sabbath of Exodus (Nisan 15) and on the Day of Firstfruits, Jesus and all Israelites worked, because from that day on, the harvest of the early grain barley began after the wave offering was offered at 9 a.m. in the Jerusalem temple.

And we have further biblical proof, because we know that the Sadducees offered the firstfruits on the day after the weekly Sabbath, i.e. on Sunday. Jesus himself judged the Sadducees' ignorance harshly: 

Mt 22:29: “But Jesus answered them [the Sadducees], You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God... 34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.”

Some Christians are like the Sadducees, they know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. They dare to try to persuade us that Jesus supposedly followed the Sadducees' calendar of time and feast days. No, definitely not. Jesus followed the calendar of his Father and we follow the example of Jesus who, through his way of life described in the NT and His words in relation to Pharisees/Sadducees, indirectly defined the „day after the Sabbath“ as the „day after the High Sabbath“, the important first annual Sabbath on which the Exodus was made possible by the blood of the Lamb. This is the great feast day, because the blood of the lamb (and Jesus' blood) made liberation (Exodus) and salvation from death possible. This first feast day means life and without this day the other feast days would not even exist. Therefore, from this important day onwards there must be a connection to Pentecost with the symbolic 7x7=49 days and not a dull and monotonous Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday celebration every year, just because a non-biblical feast day (Easter Sunday) was made out of a biblical working day (16th of Nisan).

And it gets even worse for these Christians, because since they (like the Sadducees) know so little about the Old Testament (OT), which was the basis of the first Christian church (because the New Testament writings were not written until decades after Jesus' death), they also cannot know that Jesus himself, as the incarnate Word of God, created these feasts. This is not a new doctrine, but is explained in detail in the NT, even on Wikipedia (Wikipedia1, Wikipedia2) under the term „pre-existence of Christ". Quote: 

“For most commentators, the idea of the pre-existence of Christ can be found very early on in Christian thought and pervades the entire New Testament. The idea is an introductory and defining theme in the Gospel of John, but not only there: the idea behind it is that Jesus Christ already "existed" before his earthly life and as such also participated in the creation of the world. In addition to John 1:1-5, this idea can be derived biblically from 1 Cor 8:6; 1 Cor 10:4, Heb 1:2; Col 1:15-20; Mic 5:1+3 (cf. Mt 2:5-6); John 8:58; Prov 8:22-25 and others” (Source, translated).

And now the legitimate question: Why would Jesus change his calendar and his own feasts and his Father's own feasts and even abolish some and adopt new feasts instead, just because some Roman rulers, the Pope and some Christians want it that way? Why would Jesus now celebrate the feast day of those who cruelly tortured and killed Him? Why would Jesus order His Christian followers to rest only on the Roman Sunday feasts according to the Pope's calendar and degrade the Sabbath  to a preparation day for Sunday??? Sunday, Sunday above all: [1.] every week Sunday celebration, [2.] Palm Sunday, [3.] Easter Sunday (Firstfruits Sunday], [4.] Pentecost Sunday, [5.] Advent Sundays and additionally the birthday of the sun god Sol Invictus (Christmas, the day of the winter solstice in the Roman Julian calendar)? Christians, wake up, do you really think this is what Jesus wants? Are you really serious?  None of this makes sense and everyone should be aware of exactly what they are saying when they want to change the times of God, even if it is well intentioned,

„for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned“ (Mt 12:37).

Do you really realize that you want to abolish the calendar and the feast days that Jesus, the Word of God, personally made? And now you prefer to focus only on Sundays and celebrate the day of those who cruelly crucified our Lord and killed many Christians? Where do you find the justification for this dramatic change in the Bible?

Where is the evidence for change? Anyone who disagrees and thinks that we are supposedly spreading false teachings and that our Lord Jesus Christ supposedly wanted us to follow the Sadducees and that the offering of the first fruits should always take place on a Sunday or that in His last year the High Sabbath fell on the minor weekly Sabbath and thus the 16th of Nisan fell on a Sunday, must also prove it to us on the basis of the Bible. Those Christians who invented the "Feast of Firstfruits" or who celebrate this feast have so far been unable to provide a single piece of biblical evidence that Jesus supposedly regarded this day as a "feast day" in any way, because for Jesus it was a working day and the ceremony of offering the wave offering on this working day was only a small part of the entire Passover feast. Jesus also never said that after His death we should completely change the biblical traditions and the calculation of the feast days or create new feasts. So many Christians do not follow Jesus, but are rebellious against His calculation of the feast days. Their Sunday celebrations may be well-intentioned, but in reality they go against the word of God because they celebrate first fruits on the wrong day and the resurrection of Jesus on the wrong day, namely the way the Pope wants it.

Even if the high Sabbath (15th Nisan) had fallen on the little Sabbath (=double Sabbath) in the year of Jesus' death, it would still mean that Christians could only rarely celebrate an Easter Sunday, because in the calendar that Jesus and the Israelites had, the 15th of Nisan only rarely falls on a weekly Sabbath. Jesus never commanded that we should change God's calendar, He followed his Father's calendar, but not the Pope's calendar. It was only decades/centuries after Jesus' death that the idea of the supposed Sunday resurrection came about, so that the calendar of the Romans and the Catholics was adopted in such a way that there is a Palm Sunday, Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday every year. This meant that Christians rested on the same days on which the pagans had previously rested. But have you ever asked what Jesus would say to you if you changed His calendar and introduced other holidays that Jesus never wanted?

The sad truth is: most Christians are not convinced by biblical facts, but are cowards and prefer to think of their safety and a nice church service where the truth is to be suppressed so as not to create division. They compromise their faith and accept traditions that contradict the words of Jesus. They prefer to follow their old church doctrines, which were laid down by men. In doing so, they consciously or unconsciously align themselves with the Pope's time order. They have not realized that they have left the way of God and are instead living in an unbiblical Sunday illusion. Most do not dare to contradict their church leaders; on the contrary, they prefer to twist the words of Jesus just to support their church leaders with their own feast days:

     - Pope (Catholics, Protestants, free churches, Evangelicals, Pentecostal churches, charismatics) 

     - Charles Taze Russell (Jehovah's Witnesses) 

     - Ellen White (Adventists)

     - Herbert W. Armstrong (Church of God)

     - Amir Tsarfati (Israel)

They all have one thing in common because they all say that the women supposedly came to the tomb on a Sunday, the new feast day of firstfruits. They do NOT refer to the ancient calendar specifications of the Israelites, nor to the basic Greek text and many correct translations worldwide, but mostly to the mistranslated King James Bible, which turns the resurrection Sabbath into a resurrection Sunday. No, our evidence is more valid because we have considered the WHOLE Bible. And there is no evidence at all that Jesus in any way gave special honor to Sunday, especially since it was the weekly holiday of those who crucified him. Are you really aware of this? This was the seventh biblical proof that the first fruits were offered on the day after the High Sabbath and that this day did not fall on a Sunday in the year of the resurrection.

8. The first Christian church always calculated firstfruits after the High Sabbath: As has already been proven, Jesus, the Pharisees and the Israelites followed the rule that „the day after the Sabbath“ always refers to the „day after the High Sabbath“, not to the „day after the little weekly Sabbath“. This was the common practice at the time of Jesus, which hardly any historian doubts. It was several decades before the New Testament (NT) was written. Until then, the first Christians only had the Hebrew Old Testament (OT) or the Greek translation Septuagint. When the NT was written decades later, nothing at all changed in God's calendar. The moon and the stars continued to have the same course. Unlike most Christians today, the first Christians knew how to determine the 7 High Sabbaths (feasts) from year to year. 

They also knew that there are always 7 weekly Sabbaths between Passover (15th Nisan) and Pentecost (50th day). And they also knew what a „first Sabbath“ was, because all the evangelists mention the „one/first of the [seven] Sabbaths“ (plural genitive; Mk 16:2; Lk 24:1; Jn 20:1) and Mark also spoke of the „first Sabbath“ in the singular genitive (Mk 16:9). On the basis of the historical sources and the information in the resurrection chapter of the NT, we know 100% that the first Christians adhered to the old guidelines and did not make a new firstfruits calculation or invent a new Sunday holiday. We cannot find a single Bible verse in the entire New Testament that would ask us to change the previous times of God and the calendar that Jesus followed. Paul warned against new teachings:

1Cor 4:6: “I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.”

Paul himself had a high Pharisee education (see the chapter on counting the Omer and the section entitled: „Paul was a Pharisee and counted from the day after the High Sabbath“). He founded many churches, all of which followed the Bible before, during and after the time when the NT was written. Paul did not invent a new „First Fruits Sunday“ and never changed God's calendar. The first Christian church did not allow the firstfruits of spring (barley, Passover) and the firstfruits of summer (wheat, Pentecost) to be offered on wrong days. When the Holy Spirit was poured out on the New Testament church on a day of Pentecost, the 50 days continued to be calculated from the 16th of Nisan. At no point in the NT can we see that Peter, Paul or the others changed anything in God's previous order; on the contrary, everything remained as it was. All the theologians' Sunday theories have nothing to do with the Bible, but individual Bible passages are cherry-picked and reinterpreted until a Sunday is created from a Sabbath.

As has been shown, there is much biblical and historical evidence to show that the Jews have always correctly reckoned the day of firstfruits, that is, from the 16th of Nisan, which falls on different days of the week from year to year. On the other hand, a question: what biblical evidence do the Christians have who want Firstfruits Sunday? The fact is: none at all, they only have theological assumptions. They simply say that the King James Bible and the revised Luther Bible say that the women came to the tomb „on the first day of the week“. So they make it very easy for themselves, because they cowardly run away from the basic Greek text and the many correct Bible translations. They also do not want to test anything, even though God requires them to do so: „Quench not the Spirit... Prove all things; hold fast that which is good“ (1Thess 5:19-21; KJV). It is even worse, because there are also dramatic temporal changes within the same Bible. An example: Luther's original Bible from 1522/1545 (which can still be bought today) states that Jesus was resurrected „on a Sabbath morning“ and appeared to the disciples „on the evening of the same Sabbath" (Jn 20:19), whereas the revised Luther Bible from 1912 only ever speaks of the „first day of the week“. So what? There cannot be several resurrection days where every Christian can choose the one they want, depending on which Bible translation they use. Many Christians (especially pastors) sin with their theory because they have to reinterpret several Bible passages in the OT and especially NT and mistranslate (i.e. falsify) some Bible verses just to arrive at the desired Sunday. Here are some sad arguments that are repeatedly cited:

• Jesus was supposedly not „3 days and 3 nights in the heart of the earth“, but had a turbo resurrection after only 1.5 days. Even those who claim a crucifixion on a Wednesday or Thursday have a problem with this time period in order to arrive at a Sunday morning. Some then also speak of an alleged resurrection on a Sabbath evening so that Jesus can then appear to the women on a Sunday morning. This is also impossible because Jesus was resurrected on a Sabbath morning. Some Christians say: Jesus did not mean this literally and, to the surprise of many, rose from the dead halfway through the time he had predicted. WRONG.
• Jesus supposedly did not fulfill the sign of the Messiah or He only meant it symbolically. WRONG.
• The Sabbath mentioned 7 times in the resurrection chapter of the NT is allegedly not a Sabbath, but a Sunday. And if the Bible literally says „on one/first of the Sabbaths“, it must supposedly be translated as „on a Sunday“, „on the first day of the week“ or „on the day after the Sabbath“. WRONG.
• There is supposedly no „first Sabbath“ (Mk 16:9), which is not logical, but should mean the „first day of the week“, which anyone can understand. There is supposedly only a „first Sunday“ in Advent, but no „first Sabbath“. That is illogical and too complicated. WRONG.
• There was supposedly no day between (see intermediate day) the 15th of Nisan and the „first Sabbath“ because Jesus must have been crucified in a year in which there was supposedly a double Sabbath (when the High Sabbath falls on a weekly Sabbath; Saturday), which was then followed by Sunday as the day of firstfruits. WRONG.
• The Bible allegedly contains some contradictions because it says that the women prepared the ointments after the Sabbath and then rested on the Sabbath. This is an „inexplicable contradiction“, as some theologians believe and include it in the list of biblical contradictions. WRONG.
• The Jews supposedly miscalculate their own biblical feast days and the Day of Firstfruits, so they need Catholic and Protestant Christians to explain to them what God really meant in the Hebrew OT. WRONG.
• The text of the King James Bible (KJV) is supposedly authoritative and it says that Jesus was resurrected „on the first day of the week“. What the basic Greek text says is supposedly not so important because God supposedly inspired the text of the King James Bible. And the many Bible translations, which over 1500 years have almost all only reported the coming of the women to the gave on „on a Sabbath" or „on a Saturday", must supposedly all be wrong because the King James Bible was inspired by God in 1611 and everything before that is invalid. Also, the word "Easter" (instead of the biblical word "Passover") in the King James Version is correct and supposedly inspired by God. WRONG, here you see the evidence: The KJV is not inspired by God.
• Since the resurrection, God supposedly wants to have a new calendar in which there are only Sunday feast days each year: weekly Sunday, Palm Sunday, Easter Sunday, and Pentecost Sunday. WRONG.
• Regarding the Day of Firstfruits, the Sadducees' way of counting is supposedly authoritative, not the Pharisees', even though Jesus said we should listen to the Pharisees. WRONG.
• The Bible is supposedly difficult to understand regarding the resurrection, therefore we need supposedly teachers to interpret it for us and determine what we should do, e.g.: Pope (Catholics, Protestants, Free Churches, Pentecostals) or Charles Taze Russell (Jehovah's Witnesses) or Ellen White (Adventists) or Herbert W. Armstrong (Church of God). WRONG.
• There are 7 High annual Sabbaths, but they supposedly include Firstfruits Sunday (a new feast and assembly day), on which no work is allowed. Therefore, the 7th annual Sabbath must be the Feast of Tabernacles (Tischri 15), but not Shemni Azeret (the last great day), because this day on 22th of Tishri is supposedly no longer one of the 7 High biblical feast days and days of assembly with God, but is only a small part of the Feast of Tabernacles. WRONG.

As can be clearly seen, many theological theories have to be put forward by these Christians just to stabilize a non-biblical firstfruits Sunday. The Bible is easy to understand in the context of the day of first fruits and resurrection, it only gets complicated when Christians want to turn a Sabbath into a Sunday. God is testing Christians to see if they are looking at His WHOLE Word or just cherry-picking individual verses to establish a Catholic doctrine throughout Christianity.

Most Christians who speak of the "firstfruits" only know of one wave offering. But God commanded wave offerings to be offered in the Jerusalem temple. The first was at Passover directly after the first High Sabbath and the second exactly 50 days later. There is therefore a direct symbolic (spiritual) connection between the two sacrifices, both of which signify the imminent resurrection and the Rapture. The first resurrection belongs to the firstfruits of Jesus Christ and the second is for us, the firstfruits:

1. a first wave offering had to be made at Passover. After the High Sabbath (Nisan 15), the feast day of liberation, the first sheaf (the first stalks of barley) was to be waved in the Jerusalem temple. This always took place at the time of the morning sacrifice at 9 a.m. (the evening sacrifice was at 3 p.m.), when the priests went to the fields beforehand and cut the first stalks of the early grain (barley). This wave offering was not a symbol that the resurrection or ascension of Jesus would take place precisely at this time, because Jesus had already risen much earlier, during the night phase on the third day. The women were already at the empty tomb at 6 o'clock in the morning at sunrise. This wave offering was not a symbol that the resurrection must take place right now, but was a symbol of the imminent resurrection and ascension of Jesus, which took place just a few hours after the offering of the wave sacrifice, namely the very next night. This was the exact end point of the "3 days and 3 nights" and the sign of the Messiah. The wave offering symbolizes: „Do not be sad, do not be afraid and get ready, the Lord will soon rise and ascend into heaven.“

2. a second wave offering had to be offered at Pentecost, namely the two leavened loaves of the first summer harvest (wheat), which symbolize the churches of the OT and NT. There is a direct spiritual connection between Jesus and the church in relation to the resurrection, because after the first wave offering, the second wave offering was offered exactly 7x7=49 days (number of completeness) later. The two loaves were also waved in the temple at 9 o'clock at the time of the morning sacrifice. And here, too, it does not mean that the resurrection and rapture of the Bride of Christ (the spiritual Church of God) must take place at 9 a.m. on a Pentecost day, but here, too, it means symbolically: "the resurrection/rapture will take place, be ready, because Jesus was raptured before the symbolic 50 days, so you will also be raptured." But the wave sacrifice is only a symbol, because we do not know when the Rapture will take place, especially as there are passages in the Bible that point to a sudden removal in one night. That is why we have to be awake and ready, otherwise we would all have known the exact day and time (9 a.m. in Jerusalem) when the Rapture must take place. So anyone who says that Jesus supposedly ascended to the Father on a Sunday morning (the day after the weekly Sabbath) at 9 a.m. must also say from the symbolism that the rapture of the church will take place at 9 a.m. on Pentecost, because that is when the second wave sacrifice takes place.

But the big and unsolvable problem and the disappointment is: This Christian will then also have to reinterpret numerous biblical passages, change God's calendar and twist the words of Jesus, because he can neither come up with the „3 days and 3 nights" nor explain why the Bible in the basic Greek text and in many correct translations speaks of a resurrection „on a Sabbath" or „on a Saturday morning" and why Mark clearly says „early on the first Sabbath" (not early on the first Sunday), i.e. on the first Sabbath of the 7 Sabbaths between Passover (Nisan 15) to Pentecost. It could not be clearer. Just to invent an unbiblical new Sabbath and new holiday "first fruits" (Easter Sunday), many biblical passages have to be reinterpreted and the last great annual Sabbath Shemini Atzeret has to be removed.  

What many Christians overlook: There is indeed the biblical "Feast of the First Fruits" within the Passover week. But this was never an annual Sabbath, but it was always the day on which the sheaf was waved, that is, the day AFTER the first annual Sabbath (15th Nisan). On the 16th Nisan, the first sheaf (the first ears of the early grain; barley) was offered, and from that day on the 49 days with the seven Sabbaths until Pentecost were counted (Exodus 23:10-15; see calculation of the Omer). The wave sacrifice was an announcement of the coming resurrection of Jesus, which actually took place the very next night on Nisan 17. It was another perfect fulfillment of the prophetic predictions. Jesus himself was the firstfruits (1Cor 15:20-24), the first of those who had fallen asleep, who rose from the dead and ascended to the Father. And the called Christians are the firstfruits (the bride of Christ) of the spiritual harvest in God's plan. The 7-day period of the Days of Unleavened Bread is an indication that we should follow Jesus in everything and live without sin (leaven). And the 7x7=49+1=50 days between the first and second wave sacrifice show our spiritual connection to Jesus, which no one may cut. The entire symbolism belongs to the Passover (Jesus) and therefore automatically also to Pentecost (Bride of Christ). The Feast of Firstfruits has never been a High Sabbath (holiday) and never will be. It is only a ceremonial addition within the Passover, nothing more. But the important days are the High Sabbaths on the 15th and 21st of Nisan and the small "first Sabbath" (the first of the 7 Sabbaths until Pentecost; Mark 16:9) in between, nothing else. 

It is very important not to destroy these 50 days between the „day after the High Sabbath“ (Passover, 15 Nisan) and Pentecost, because it is only here that there is a symbolic connection between the physical exodus of the people of Israel at Passover and the spiritual exodus of the bride of Christ at Pentecost. 

To be very clear: there is no biblical feast of "firstfruits". The wave offering ceremony is only a small part of the whole Passover. But the most important day is the 15th of Nisan, so the counting of the Omer begins on that day, because that is the day of deliverance from Egypt and the day on which we are to celebrate deliverance from the death penalty. The new feast of "firstfruits", as an alleged new Sabbath/holiday, is a late invention of Christians who do not accept the old calendar order of God and wish for the alleged Resurrection Sunday in the Bible, because the Bible speaks of the Resurrection Sabbath 7 times in the basic Greek text and many correct translations. What these people refer to as the "Feast of Firstfruits" was never a biblical holiday, but on the contrary it was always a working day from which work had to be done, because after the offering of the wave sacrifice after the High Sabbath (Nisan 15), i.e. from the 16th of Nisan (day of the wave sacrifice), the barley harvest began. The only difference was that no leaven was allowed to be eaten during the 7 days of Passover (until the 21st of Nisan). And instead of working, these people rest and celebrate Easter Sunday as a new feast day. They do not work, as God wanted them to, but rest, as the Pope and the secular rulers wanted them to. So Christians turn a working day into a holiday and simply erase the symbolically extremely important 7th annual Sabbath, namely the „Last Great Day“ (Shmini Atzeret), in order to get back to the number 7. And that is not supposed to be a sin (Rev 22:18-19)?

It is therefore not necessary to change the old order of God and introduce new feast days (or new annual Sabbaths) in order to abolish the original feast days of God. Jesus was the firstfruit, but we are the firstfruits, which is why the third annual Sabbath of Pentecost is also called "the feast of the firstfruits" (Num 28:26). The children of God do not change the calendar of God just to avoid problems, but on the contrary, they defend the old order from Leviticus 23.

What you are reading here is not a new teaching, but on the contrary, we are saying the same thing as the Bible (Lev 23), the Israelites, Flavius Josephus, TorahCalendar and many Christians worldwide who know the biblical and astronomical calendar of God, which is the only one that combines the moon, sun, nature and time into a harmonious unity. So we not only have the Bible, but many who are of the same opinion, but these Christians who are inventing a new holiday only have the Pope and his Gregorian calendar with Easter Sunday on their side, nothing else.

The illustration above shows the 3 preparation days and 3 Sabbaths during the 7-day Passover. The exact same sequence of days occurs very often in God's calendar and in the Jewish calendar, namely about every third year. This was also the case in 2020 and 2023, when the biblical and Jewish calendars fell on the same days of the week. This means that any free online Jewish calendar can show how the 50 days to Pentecost were counted from the 16th Nisan (day of the wave offering), because the day on which the firstfruits were offered is always the 16th of Nisan. It is the day after the first High Sabbath of the year (not the day after a minor Sabbath), because it is symbolically very important that there is a connection between the liberation of the Old Testament Church from Egypt and the founding of the New Testament Church after 7x7=49 days (Pentecost) (see Omer counting).  

Turbo resurrection or „3 days and 3 nights“?

The turbo resurrection of Jesus that many theologians and pastors wanted never happened, but rather he fulfilled the sign of the Messiah (3 days and 3 nights).

Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread:

Lev 23:4-8: “These are the appointed feasts of the Lord, the holy convocations, which you shall proclaim at the time appointed for them. 5 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight, is the Lord's Passover. 6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. 7 On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. 8 But you shall present a food offering to the Lord for seven days. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work.”

The celebration of the first sheaf. Some Christians call it: The Feast of Firstfruits:

Lev 23:9-14: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, 11 and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12 And on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord. 13 And the grain offering with it shall be two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, a food offering to the Lord with a pleasing aroma, and the drink offering with it shall be of wine, a fourth of a hin. 14 And you shall eat neither bread nor grain parched or fresh until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.”
Dt 26:1-10: “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, 2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there. 3 And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.’ 4 Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God. 5 “And you shall make response before the Lord your God, ‘A wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. 6 And the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated us and laid on us hard labor. 7 Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8 And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. 9 And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, O Lord, have given me.’ And you shall set it down before the Lord your God and worship before the Lord your God.”

The Feast of Weeks (Pentecost):

Lev 23:15-21: “You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. 16 You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord. 17 You shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread to be waved, made of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour, and they shall be baked with leaven, as firstfruits to the Lord. 18 And you shall present with the bread seven lambs a year old without blemish, and one bull from the herd and two rams. They shall be a burnt offering to the Lord, with their grain offering and their drink offerings, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. 19 And you shall offer one male goat for a sin offering, and two male lambs a year old as a sacrifice of peace offerings. 20 And the priest shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord, with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. 21 And you shall make a proclamation on the same day. You shall hold a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work. It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations.”

 “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil”

(1Thess 5:21-22)

“Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them”

(Epheser 5:11)