The New Covenant Feast of Unleavened Bread
The Model For DOULB Begins in Exodus
In Exodus we
learn that the feast is 7 days long and begins on the 15th
day of Abib (the day after Passover). The first day is an annual
Sabbath on which we do no work and gather for a special assembly
before God. The last day is also an annual Sabbath on which we do no
work and gather for a special assembly before God. During the entire
7 days we are to have no leaven in our homes, both the agent that
causes leavening (yeast) and the resulting leavened product (bread).
Instead we are to eat bread without leaven 7 days.
Additional elements to be added when they were settled in the land:
-
set apart the firstborn males of humans or animals as belonging to God Exodus 13:2
-
offer the wave sheaf on the day after the Sabbath that falls during the festival and begin the countdown to Pentecost… seven full weeks – Leviticus 23: 10-12
-
present a special burnt offering to God each of the 7 days - Numbers 28:17-25
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observed in central location God designates (Shiloh then Jerusalem)… Deuteronomy 16:16
What Was The Spiritual Message Of The Festival for Israel?
Exodus
12:15-17 Recall that Passover was a reminder to Israel of when
God passed over them when He struck down all the first born in the
land of Egypt (Exodus 12:26-27)… DOULB was a reminder to
Israel of God bringing them out of their bondage in Egypt the
following day. Eating unleavened bread would remind them each year of
how they left in rush to escape their terrible oppression in Egypt.
The Model For The New Covenant Festival
Similar to what
we saw with the Passover observance some elements of the DOULB are no
longer included because of the coming of the Christ/Messiah. Here’s
what changed and why:
-
The special burnt offerings are no longer necessary. The blood of bulls and goats which only looked forward anticipating the future sacrificial death of Jesus Christ are no longer necessary. His sacrifice only needed to happen once and it was sufficient for all people and for all time.
-
In the same way the symbolic wave sheaf is not longer offered… Christ the true sheaf from the early harvest (the first resurrection) has been presented to God the Father.
-
Observance is no longer limited to in Jerusalem… the nation of Israel has ceased to be the chosen people of God and is replaced by the church which has no actual territory but is like a seasoning sprinkled throughout various nations and territories
What remains is
the dates, the unleavened bread, and the removal of yeast. The
spiritual meaning of the festival is no longer a memorial of God
leading Israel out of Egypt… the meaning of the Festival today is
for the Church… the Church of God.
What is the Spiritual Message Of The Festival For Us Today?
Our New Covenant
application and spiritual understanding of the Feast of Unleavened
Bread begins with Paul’s letter to Corinth. There we hear the
Church of God teaching the linkage between putting leavening or yeast
out of our homes and our need to put evil thoughts and deeds out of
our lives. AND It’s there we get our first understanding of how
eating unleavened bread reminds the Church of our need to have Christ
in us… replacing what is evil with what is good.
1 Corinthians
5:2-8 Paul chews the Corinthians out regarding their puffed up
pride in the matter of a man among them having sex with his
step-mother. Instead of reacting with outrage, or righteous
indignation, and shunning him the Corinthian congregation were proud…
or puffed up and boasting.
The word
translated puffed up is from the Greek word phusioo. It means:
to blow up or inflate with air… it comes from the word for what we
today would call an air pump.
Paul previously
warned them not to think of the teachers of God’s in a competitive
way but as fellow servants working together 1 Corinthians 4:6….
he tells them not to be puffed up with pride over one another.
If the Corinthians didn’t stop this useless boasting Paul warned of
sterner measures against those who were puffed up 1
Corinthians 4:18-19.
Public speaking
was a primary source of entertainment in those days before television
and movies. The average person took great delight in knowing and
appreciating the finer points of giving an eloquent speech… they
had their favorites… their rivalries… and were quite vocal about
their preferences… just like fans of movie stars and athletes
today… I follow Paul… I follow Apollos… I follow Peter (keep
pounding)
What were they boasting about in 1 Cor 5?
Paul does not
explicitly say what proud statements were made here but a very
possible clue is found in 1 Corinthians 6: 12-20…
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The idea that sex is a natural appetite meant to be satisfied
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The idea that the sins of the body do not affect the life of the spirit
Both of these
assumptions are alive today… and they are still as wrong today as
they were then.
I propose they
badly misunderstood what it meant to be freed from the penalty of the
law and living in the grace of God… perhaps seeing themselves as
free from all subsequent moral obligations… such as walking in
God’s commandments. Their reaction to this man’s incestuous
fornication was to not judge him. They were perhaps proud of what
they assumed was God like patience and forgiveness towards another
member… but forgiveness is not effective/useful for the forgiven
unless they [forgiven] are brought to their senses and change their
behavior. Paul says… yeah judge him, and kick him out to boot….
maybe that will bring him to repentance and end up doing him some
good in the end (verse 5).
This Must Have Happened Around DOULB
1 Corinthians
5:6-8 in the same context of him criticizing the evil behavior
and their foolish pride based on a misunderstanding of doctrine Paul
brings up yeast, bread dough, and the process of leavening. Its a
metaphor to drive home a point about how sin spreads. He’s saying
don’t let sin take root in the congregation… don’t let sin take
root in your life. It may start off small but like yeast it will grow
and start to take over your entire life.
BUT Paul is also
clearly demonstrating that a new understanding of the spiritual
understanding of the Festival was being used in the church… the
ritual act of putting out leaven reminds us of the spiritual
necessity to put out sin and evil.
The Process of Leavening
Leavening is the
process of adding gas to a dough before or during baking to produce a
lighter, more easily chewed bread. Many breads use yeast as the
primary leavening agent (others include baking powder & baking
soda). The yeast will grow and divide and spread through the lump of
bread dough. In the process of dividing the yeast ferments some of
the carbohydrates in the flour, along with the sugar, producing
carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide creates the little bubbles you
see in leavened bread causing the original lump of dough to expand…
in other words the dough gets puffed up.
Puffed Up With Pride
What problem is
Paul getting at when he’s talking about something starting off
small and then infiltrating and eventually taking over? As bad as the
gross sexual problem may appear Paul zeroes in on their proud
boasting… their false ideas about what it means to be redeemed from
the penalty of the law and live in the grace of God… and how to
deal with sin in their midst. Giving sin a free pass is not what
Christ our Passover lamb died for.
In verse 8 Paul
teaches this non-jewish group of believers, people who God had called
out of the Greek world with all its idolatry … saying “let us
keep the feast [feast of unleavened bread]…
Paul has taught
Greek converts… New Covenant followers of Christ… to
observe this holy celebration ordained by God. AND he’s using its
symbols and commanded method of observance [eating only unleavened
bread instead of leavened] to teach them spiritual truths about
dealing with sin… let us keep the Festival, not with the old
yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without
yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.
The Church of God
is not just making this stuff up to provide christian sounding
reasons for keeping some old covenant festival that doesn’t belong
in the new covenant. Its there.
Cautionary Note About Avoiding Sin
1 Corinthians
6: 9-13 Paul quickly makes a clarification (an important one for
us to remember while we are so focused on putting out sin and evil
from out lives)… the world is full of immorality, injustice, and
false religious teaching. You cannot avoid interacting with these
unless you physically isolate yourself from the world… a solution
NOT promoted in scripture. Coming out of, or separating
yourself from the world is more a matter of mind and spirit [but
that’s another subject].
The scriptural
model for coming out of the world is to join the body of Christ, to
join the community of fellow believers as an alternative to
fellowship with the world… and as a place to work out your
salvation… not in splendid isolation but in the social setting God
has established.
Where Would Paul Get Such Spiritual Understanding About DOULB?
Where would Paul
get this teaching… the idea of putting out leavening as a physical
rite we perform to remind us of a spiritual truth… putting out evil
and sin. It doesn’t come from the pages of the Old Testament
scripture… and he clearly had taught just that to the gentiles of
Corinth. He mentions it in verses 6-8 as an obvious truth both he and
the members in Corinth share and agree upon. Otherwise they really
wouldn’t understand what he was saying to them.
The ource of this
teaching is within the words of Jesus Christ...
The Bread of Sincerity & Truth
John 6:4…
either during or immediately before the DOULB Jesus delivers a
“sermon” providing understanding about the meaning of His body
and bread
John 6:27
food/bread sustains you only until your next meal… what Jesus
offers will sustain you permanently (eternal life)… 6:32-35…
6:48-51, 55-56. We are to feed on that bread of sincerity and
truth meaning we are to put Christ’s life in us… His mind, His
pattern of living.
Q: Did
Jesus specifically make all these references to bread as being
“unleavened bread”. A: No, but consider the occasion…
right before or during the feast days. AND, at a later point Jesus
did emphatically associated His body with the
unleavened bread during the NT Passover… we covered that
thoroughly in my last sermon.
The Old Yeast of Malice and Wickedness
Matt 16: 6,
11-12 On this same occasion… right after the feeding of the
5,000 and therefore immediately before or during the DOULB… Jesus
warns the disciples about the evil and false teachings of the
Pharisees and Saducees. Jesus specifically calls their false teaching
yeast or leavening…
Luke 12:1
Jesus makes that same statement on a different occasion… this time
in a crowd of 10,000 people or more… right after painfully
itemizing the hypocrisy and evil of the Pharisees teaching.
Luke 11:37-52.
Their teachings are filled with hypocrisy, oppression, violence,
doctrinal confusion and filled with pride… or as Paul might
have said “puffed up” with pride.
Our understanding
of what leaven represents and what putting it out of our homes and
lives during the Feast of Unleavened Bread is built upon the words of
Jesus Christ and the apostles.
The Festival of
Unleavened Bread remains for the followers of Christ… this year we
will put leaven out of our homes from the 15th of Abib and
keep it out for the next 7 days. We do it as a spiritual exercise of
remembrance. A reminder not just of something God our Father has
done… but what He is doing.
Delivering us
from evil.
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