Purge Out the Old Leaven – 1 Corinthians 5
‘Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:’ — 1 Corinthians 5:7
This Sunday, we are planning to observe the Lord’s Supper at our church. This is a wonderful time when we remember Christ, the once-for-all sacrificial Lamb who was slain for us.
As the Passover was a time when the Jews looked back to the lambs that were slain during the night they were delivered from Egypt, so the Lord’s Supper is a time when the church looks back to the time the ultimate Lamb of God was slain to deliver us from sin.
The Passover feast was followed by the Feast of Unleavened Bread when the Jews would rid their houses of all leaven (yeast). This symbolises that they were leaving Egypt and did not have time for the bread to rise.
The Lord’s Supper symbolises the fact that Christ has set us free from sin. We should, therefore, keep the feast free from sin (v.8). We should get rid of the ‘old leaven’ (any sinful thoughts, words, actions). We should put away ‘the leaven of malice and wickedness’ and put on ‘the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth’.
Later in 1 Corinthians 11, we read that we are not to eat and drink of the Lord’s Table unworthily but to examine ourselves and then eat and drink (1 Cor 11:27-28). There is nothing we can do to rid ourselves of sin, but we can look to Christ who was offered for us and accept the work He has already done for us. His grace motivates us to live lives of purity, sincerity, and holiness.
So, let us deal with sin. Let us get rid of it. Let us purge it out of our lives and our churches. Let us not tolerate it. Let us not pridefully cover it up. Instead, let us mourn and then take the necessary action to deal with it.