First Fruits of the New Creation

Once a fecund garden, the earth has become a barren wilderness; but this is beginning to change.

It was prefigured long ago, when Israel was chosen as God's first fruit (Jeremiah 2:3).

It was prophesied in days of old, by those who foresaw the coming glory (Zechariah 14:8; Ezekiel 47:1-12; Isaiah 35).

It started with Jesus, who, with his own body, sowed the seed of peace and righteousness (Hosea 10:12; James 3:18; Proverbs 11:18; Psalm 85:10) and re-emerged as the first fruit of the new creation (1 Corinthians 15:20-23; Romans 8:23).

It continues with us, who have the “first fruit of the Spirit” (Romans 8:23; cf. 2 Corinthians 1:22). Though we were created last, we too have become a “kind of first fruits of His creation” (James 1:18; cf. 2 Thess. 2:3; Romans 11:16; Revelation 14:4), our bodies of dust merely kernels of their future glory (1 Corinthians 15:35-58).

The Tree of Life is beginning to sprout; it is breaking through the parched desert just as Christ rolled away the stone of His tomb. What we see of the New Creation is merely a glimpse of what is to come (1 Corinthians 13:12). Noah had a similar experience when the dove retrieved a single olive branch (Genesis 8:11); but in our case we trust not that the waters of destruction are subsiding, but that the waters of restoration are rising.

The implication of all this is that we should not be surprised that the world around us does not tally with our "anxious longing[s]" for a different world; these are merely birth pangs (Romans 8:18-25). We have become new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17), but a completely New Creation is, quite literally, upon us (Revelation 21-22).