Article from the East Main Messenger, dated 7/20/2025.
Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
1 Corinthians 5:7-8
The sacrifice of the Passover lamb was the start of the Jewish Passover feast which reminded the Hebrews of their time in Egyptian bondage and how Jehovah had set them free (Ex. 12:1-14, 21-28). On the night of the tenth plague which was the death of all firstborns in the land, God through Moses directed the Israelites to kill male lambs who were one year old and then sprinkle their blood upon the doorposts and lintels of their houses. The Lord would then “pass over” all of these houses, and the firstborn children living within them would be spared.
After the Passover feast, Israel celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Ex. 12:14-20). In preparation for it, God directed them to remove all leaven (yeast) from their houses. This was the reason Jews regarded leaven as a symbol for impurity. According to The Church’s Bible commentary on 1 Corinthians, the Israelites went so far as to make sure that even mouse holes within their domiciles were free from leaven. (As a sidenote, this is why we correctly conclude that Jesus used unleavened bread and unfermented fruit of the vine while instituting the Lord’s Supper “on the first day of Unleavened Bread” [Matt. 26:17ff, 26-29], thus directing us to do so as well when we observe communion [1 Cor. 11:23-25].)
Much of what one reads in the Old Testament is a type and shadow of spiritual truths found in the New Testament (Heb. 10:1a). For example, the Jews of the Old Testament who were God’s chosen people foreshadowed Christians who are God’s chosen in the New Testament (Rom. 2:28-29; Gal. 6:16; James 1:1-2a). The physical circumcision which was a sign that one was in the Mosaic covenant with God in the Old Testament (Gen. 17:9-14; Lev. 12:3; cf. Acts 7:8; Rom. 4:11) was a type of the spiritual circumcision done when one is baptized which shows that one is part of Christ’s new covenant with God in the New Testament (Rom. 2:28-29; Col. 2:11-13). Coming closer to Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 5, the Old Testament Jewish holy days and festivals were also said to be “a shadow of the things to come” in the New Testament (Col. 2:16-17).
With this in mind, the Christians in Corinth who were of Jewish background would have immediately seen the correlation Paul was making between the Passover lamb and the Feast of Unleavened Bread and his command to “purge the evil person from among you” (1 Cor. 5:13). He had just directed them to withdraw all fellowship from their unrepentant brother while admonishing, “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” (1 Cor. 5:1-6). Just as a small amount of leaven within a lump of unleavened dough will quickly leaven all of it, the undisciplined sin of just one Christian will quickly influence other Christians to sin too. The point of Christianity is to be like Jesus and thus different from how one was before they obeyed the gospel (Rom. 6:6-7; 8:29). Towards that end, by disfellowshipping their unrepentant brother the Corinthians would be “cleans(ing) out the old leaven” of sin and thus helping themselves to “be a new lump” of “unleavened” bread (1 Cor. 5:7a), i.e., a new creation who reflects Jesus (Col. 3:10). Paul then reminds them that just as the sacrifice of a Passover lamb had delivered Israel from physical death and bondage during Moses’ time, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” on the cross to save them from spiritual death and bondage (1 Cor. 5:7b; cf. Is. 53:7; John 1:29; 1 Pet. 1:19; Rev. 5:6). Therefore, he urges them to “celebrate the festival” (1 Cor. 5:8a), i.e., celebrate that through the blood of the Lamb of God they have been “passed over” from being eternally condemned (Rom. 6:23). They should not celebrate with “the old leaven” of “malice and evil,” but rather with “the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” that would only come and remain if they purged “the old leaven” of a brother who was unrepentantly sinning from their midst (1 Cor. 5:8b).
— Jon
To read Jon’s series on 1 Corinthians from the beginning and many other articles, visit https://predenominationalchristianity.com.