The Feast of Weeks or Wave Loaves

Next comes the "feast of weeks," which took place fifty days later than the waving of the sheaf of the firstfruits. "And ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven Sabbaths shall be complete: even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye number fifty days; and ye shall offer a new meat offering unto the Lord. Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven; they are the firstfruits unto the Lord." vv. 15-17.
The harvest from which they offered the wave sheaf had now had time to be made into flour, and they were to present "two wave loaves" unto the Lord. Fruit of the same harvest, but offered fifty days later. Are we left to our inventions as to the meaning of this feast? No, in no wise. In Acts 2 we read, "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come." Pentecost means fifty, or fifty days. Therefore on the very day when the priests in the temple were presenting the wave loaves with their necessary offerings, a new offering was being presented unto the Lord, not now in the temple, but in the upper room.
The disciples were assembled there awaiting the promised coming of the Holy Spirit. On that very day, another first day of the week, He descended from heaven and dwelt in each believer individually, and in all collectively. Thus was something new formed, something never before known—the Church on earth united by the Spirit to Christ the Head in heaven. The fourth of the yearly feasts had its fulfillment in the inauguration of the Church on earth by the Spirit from heaven.
It is worthy of note that in these two feasts (the wave sheaf and the wave loaves), and these two only, the first day of the week is the day on which they were performed. The one speaks of the resurrection of Christ, and the other of the formation of the Church of God. Should not this silence the Seventh-Day Adventists and all who would have Christians keep the seventh day, that in those feasts which foretold of this period of time, the first day of the week should be preeminent? It should forever resolve any doubt in the minds of those who are subject to the Word.
Another important point to notice with regard to these two feasts is that there was no sin offering presented with the wave sheaf, but there was with the wave loaves. How accurate is Scripture! How could a sin offering be offered in connection with that which spoke of Christ in resurrection! But how fitting that it should be offered with that which spoke of the Church. The wave sheaf needed no preparation; it was presented as it was taken from the field. The wave loaves prefigure the Church (two perhaps referring to ample testimony on earth, or to its composition of Jews and Gentiles), and there is sin in it. There is leaven baked in the loaves, therefore the need of the sin offering. Other offerings were also presented at both times, but we shall not go into them. Leaven was never burned on the altar; it is used here as a type of sin in the Church. On another occasion it is used to represent sin in the individual offerer (Lev. 7:13). The leaven in the loaves was baked, indicating that it was not seen as active before God.