In 1 Corinthians 5:8 Paul continues, “So then let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” This verse reveals that Christ is the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. As the unleavened bread, Christ is for us to live a pure church life. In the church there should be no leaven, which in the Bible signifies all the negative things such as wrong doctrines and practices, evil deeds, and sinful things.
Although in Christ we are unleavened, according to our natural being we are full of leaven. The crucial question is whether we eat unleavened bread or leavened bread. In other words, do we live Christ or do we live ourselves? If we live Christ, we eat unleavened bread, but if we live ourselves, we eat leavened bread.
In 1 Corinthians 5:7 Paul charges us to purge out the old leaven that we may be a new lump, even as we are unleavened. We need to be a new lump, which refers to the church, composed of the believers in their new nature. We are unleavened in Christ and should live according to Him, not according to ourselves.
The feast mentioned in verse 8 refers to the Feast of Unleavened Bread as the continuation of the Passover (Exo. 12:15-20). The Passover itself lasted only one day. Continuing from the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread lasted seven days, a period of completion, signifying the entire period of our Christian life, from the day of our conversion to the day of rapture. This is a long feast, which we must keep not with the sin of our old nature, the old leaven, but with unleavened bread, which is the Christ of our new nature as our nourishment and enjoyment. Only He is the life supply of sincerity and truth, absolutely pure, without mixture, and full of reality. The feast is a time for the enjoyment of the banquet. The entire Christian life should be such a feast, such an enjoyment of Christ as our banquet, the rich supply of life.
According to Exodus 12, during the seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, no leaven was to be found in the houses (v. 19), and no leaven was to be seen among the people of Israel (13:7). This signifies that, although it is impossible for us to be completely without sin, we must eliminate any sin that is seen; that is, we must forsake the sin of which we are conscious (cf. Heb. 12:1). To deal with manifested sin is to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread (1 Cor. 5:7-8). If we tolerate sin once it is exposed, we will lose the enjoyment of the fellowship of God’s people (Exo. 12:19; 1 Cor. 5:13). The only way to eliminate sin is to daily eat Christ as the crucified, resurrected, and sinless life, signified by the unleavened bread.
In 1 Corinthians 5:7 and 8 we have two feasts: the Feast of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. When we were saved, we enjoyed the Feast of the Passover. Now throughout our entire Christian life we should enjoy the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Christian life is a feast of unleavened bread, a feast of the enjoyment of Christ as our life supply without any leaven. Day by day we need to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We should keep this feast throughout the course of our Christian life until we see the Lord.
Unleavened bread indicates a living which is without sin, without leaven. In ourselves we cannot possibly have this kind of living. However, in Christ it is possible to live a sinless life. We have been put into Christ, and now we must learn to live in Christ and by Christ. Then He will become our unleavened life supply. He will become the source, the fountain, of a sinless life and living. Because we have such a source and supply, it is possible for us to live a sinless life.
As the unleavened bread, Christ is the spiritual and divine food that makes us unleavened. The unleavened bread signifies the sinless Christ who is to be dispensed into us, His believers, as the unleavened (sinless) element. Just as the children of Israel ate the passover lamb with the unleavened bread, we should eat Christ not only as the Lamb but also as the unleavened bread. When we take Christ as our life, this life purifies us. This life is an unleavened life, a purifying life. The more we call on the name of the Lord Jesus and take Him into us, the more we are purified from within.
From the time of our regeneration, we began to have a new constitution. Christ as the unleavened bread became our unleavened food to reconstitute us so that we may become a new lump, the church. Before regeneration we were the old lump, full of leaven. But now we have become a new lump because we are becoming unleavened. As the unleavened bread He causes us to be unleavened constitutionally, making us a new lump, a lump without leaven. This means that we become a new creation without sin (2 Cor. 5:17).
In the book of 1 Corinthians Paul compares the New Testament believers to the children of Israel. He takes the history of the children of Israel as a background for this Epistle. This gives us the ground to say that the history of the children of Israel is a full type of our Christian life in the church life. The children of Israel did not live individualistically; on the contrary, they lived, camped, traveled, and fought battles together. Their corporate life typifies our life in the church. After experiencing the passover, they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This indicates that we also should keep this feast. The church life is a feast of unleavened bread. For this reason, any leaven must be purged out of the church.
In order to live a life without sin, we must daily eat Christ as unleavened bread. Since we are what we eat, if we eat unleavened bread, we will eventually become constituted with unleavened bread. Then we will live an unleavened life. Although in ourselves it is impossible ever to be sinless, in Christ we can become sinless by eating Him as the source and supply of a sinless life. Since Christ, our source, is unleavened, if we feast on Him daily, we can have an unleavened church life.