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The Sabbath and First-Day During the First Five CenturiesI Corinthians 5:6-8
Excerpted from: Unleavened Bread BasicsLeavening is an agent that causes change, typically through fermentation. The ingredients break down in a biochemical reaction that produces carbon dioxide, which causes expansion. The original ingredients are changed from what they were through a reaction that will keep going as long as there are ingredients that can fuel it. So, leaven spreads.
In its broadest sense, leaven is a symbol of corruption. It includes sin, but it is not limited to sin because it also includes the ideas, philosophies, and approaches that lead to sin. This connects with what we saw in Galatians. The Galatians (and Colossians) were being influenced by philosophies and doctrines that would lead them into bondage. Leavening was corrupting them, and a new slavery would be the result if they didn’t return to Christ.
Here, Paul says a little leaven leavens the whole lump. He uses the same phrase in Galatians 5:9. In the verse that comes right before that, Paul calls the heresy that was corrupting the Galatians a “persuasion.” Paul says, “This persuasion does not come from Him who calls you.” So, leavening can be an idea that persuades us to deviate from the truth, even as our minds may feel like they are expanding.
This fits with the various warnings Jesus gave about leavening. He warned about the leaven of the Pharisees, the leaven of the Sadducees, and the leaven of Herod. In each case, leavening is a symbol for corrupted ideas that lead to a wrong application.
In Matthew 16:12, we find that part of the leaven of the Pharisees was their doctrines, which elevated tradition above the word of God. Another part of their leaven was hypocrisy. They focused more on appearing righteous than being righteous. Jesus said of the Pharisees, “they say, and do not do” (Matthew 23:3). They exempted themselves from the standard they held others to. While they looked good, their self-centeredness and self-generated standard of righteousness made life very difficult for those caught in their orbit.
The leaven of the Sadducees was their corrupted teachings and attitudes, like skepticism, that undermined the essential doctrines of faith. As two examples, the Sadducees denied the resurrection and they denied the existence of angels. That is a significant corruption.
The leaven of Herod is interesting because of the politics of our day. It is not clearly defined, so we have to read between the lines. But from what we know of Herod, his leaven seems to be a worldly pragmatism, and an overall disregard for spiritual truth in favor of power. His corruption seems to include the use of religion for political ends. Herod wouldn’t stop his adoring crowd from likening him to God, and God struck him dead.
Here in I Corinthians 5, Paul uses malice and wickedness as additional types of leaven. Malice is an internal disposition, while wickedness is an outward manifestation. We can tell from the rest of the epistle that these corruptions were affecting the congregation, which is why Paul brought attention to them.
Paul contrasts those with sincerity and truth. Sincerity indicates purity. It means something is not a mixture. Truth here goes beyond simply being factual. It carries the implication of what is genuine and what is real. In the context, it indicates truth that is lived and not simply acknowledged.
Consider, though, that sincerity and truth epitomize the life lived by God in the flesh. He is the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, the bread of life, the bread that fills us with spiritual life and which contains no malice, wickedness, or other corruption. We cannot generate that sincerity and truth from within—it must come from Him. It is through Jesus living His life in us that we can keep this feast with sincerity and truth.
Verse 7 says the Corinthians are truly unleavened. Paul says it is because Christ is our Passover and was sacrificed for us. Given what the rest of the letter is about, … . . .
I Corinthians 5:6-8
Excerpted from: Jesus in the Feasts (Part One): Unleavened BreadThis is actually a really obvious example of this. Paul lays out in very plain language, the type: the Passover, the one in Exodus, and the anti-type, which is Christ's sacrificial death. So we have very clear from Paul's pen that Passover is all about Christ. Because He is the Passover. It is simply put, it is something everybody knows. Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Very simple. Anybody can understand it, even a caveman.
But there is more here than meets the eye because he does not stop with Passover. He not only tells us the Passover type, but he also hints very strongly at the Unleavened Bread type. He states that we are unleavened. That was something that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Passover accomplished. We were cleaned up, our sins were forgiven, and they were carried away, not to be heard from again. So we have been forgiven and cleansed or purged of the corruption that was in us.
Then he tells us how to keep the feast. After letting us know that the blood of Christ secured our redemption and justification and forgiveness by grace, he tells us to keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Let us think about this for a while by going to other scriptures and figuring this out. Let us start in Exodus 12. Martin already gave you the answer this morning, but we are going to do it again.
And so the apostle Paul in I Corinthians 5:8 refers to this type. We keep the feast focused on eating unleavened, that is, uncorrupted or pure bread, which is a symbol of what we feed our minds. Eating, taking something into the mouth and digesting it, is the same as reading or hearing, seeing something that goes into our mind. And we then ingest it and digest it through the faculties of our mind. They are parallel, one is a physical thing and the other one is a spiritual thing. And so he tells us we should eat unleavened bread. And Paul describes that unleavened bread as sincerity and truth back in I Corinthians 5:8.
So what was Paul saying was the type, the anti-type, of unleavened bread? Jesus Christ. He is the model of sincerity and truth, inward purity and outward goodness all the time.
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