I Corinthians 5:6-8

This 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.

I Corinthians 5:6-8

These verses indirectly teach us something regarding being deleavened. That is, that God has a responsibility but so do we. On the one hand you see in verse 7, we are unleavened. But on the other hand, in the same verse we are told to purge out the old leaven. Is there a contradiction? No, there is not, because God's operation is to merely (if I can put it that way) put us into a state in which He can consider us clean, acceptable, and it is a legal maneuver. It is a legal operation that He does so that we can then approach His throne.

But on the other hand, He wants us to understand that the real cause of the problem, the root of the problem is still with us and it is our responsibility to purge it out. This is why Israel failed in the wilderness—because they brought with them their Egyptian-trained mind and they never did overcome it, they never got rid of it, and so it always affected their conduct and that is why they could not have faith. But we can, with the help of God, get rid of that leaven.

The Days of Unleavened Bread then define our responsibility in God's plan, and that is to purge out the old leaven so that we may be new, that is converted. So we have to purge out the leaven of the old teachings, habits, attitudes, and ways so as to conform with God's doctrines, His habits, His attitudes, and His ways.

Paul says here, "the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." The word "sincerity" (this is more or less just an aside), is a little bit misleading because it tends to give you and me the impression of having good intentions. But how in the world can bread have good intentions? Not so. It means that it is pure, it is undefiled, it is uncontaminated. The Word of God, you see, the truth of God, is uncontaminated. It is unalloyed with anything. That is the basis for becoming unleavened. It has to do with the Word of God.

I Corinthians 5:7-8

I think we are generally familiar with the word "truth." This is the same word that appears in John 17:17, where it says, "Thy word is truth." This word is used in a number of ways in the New Testament. It can mean genuine. It can mean real or reality, as opposed to mere appearance.

In John 17:17, it is used in the sense of something derived from a pure and holy God and declaring the will of that God as compared to that which is from the world, which is the course sullied by the experiences of men.

Here, in I Corinthians 5, it is used in the sense of truth in conduct. In other words, the truth has been taken in by means of word; it has been believed; and then it has been put into practice. This word "truth" in the Greek is very similar to the word "sincerity", which precedes it, and is contrasted with malice and wickedness, which are works of the flesh.

The word translated "sincerity" means "pure or clear." The English word "sincere" is a very good, accurate translation of that Greek word. The English "sincere" comes from the Latin and means "without wax." In other words, there is nothing at all that is contaminating it. This is behavior that is not contaminated.

The word of God in I Corinthians 5:7 has been imbibed in the person and it has resulted in a pure, a sincere, a realistic and genuine behavior or conduct.

I Corinthians 5:6-8

That is a very interesting illustration that Jesus used here. Overall, the teaching of it is that it is not enough just to be clean. You will probably recall from I Corinthians 5:6-8, that we are given a charge from the apostle Paul to "purge out the old leaven." It also says in exactly the same verse that, "you are unleavened." Now is that a contradiction? How can a person be unleavened and have the responsibility of getting leaven out all at the same time?

The answer to that is that there is no contradiction. The line that has to do with being unleavened, by God, is telling us that we have been put into a state of being unleavened by God, but the reality is, the practical aspect of it is, that leavening actually remains in our lives. We are unleavened as a result of a legal maneuver, manipulation that God performs on His part in considering us without any leaven because we have been cleaned up. We have been forgiven. But the practical reality of it is, sin remains within us and sin has to be battled, sin has to be overcome, sin has to be gotten rid of. So there is no contradiction there. The Days of Unleavened Bread are teaching us that it is not enough to be clean; there is much yet that remains to be done.

I Corinthians 5:7-8

So, what is the apostle Paul’s biggest concern: crumbs? or sinful behavior? Why, both of course! The concrete, visible, physical surroundings provide abundant analogies and vivid, memorable pictures for understanding unseen or invisible spiritual insights.