One of the main concerns about leaving sin unchecked in a local body, as the Corinthians did with the man living in sin with his stepmother, is that it spreads like cancer. This spreading of sin weakens and could even destroy the body. Note how Paul illustrates this truth in our reading today:
“Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us. 8 So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth.”
1 Corinthians 5:6-8
Question 1. Why is leaving sin unaddressed in the body compared with what yeast does in bread?
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When Paul tells the Corinthians to get rid of the “yeast” by removing the wicked person, he alludes to the instructions God had given the Israelites for the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
“Celebrate this Festival of Unleavened Bread, for it will remind you that I brought your forces out of the land of Egypt on this very day. This festival will be a permanent law for you; celebrate this day from generation to generation. 18 The bread you eat must be made without yeast from the evening of the fourteenth day of the first month until the evening of the twenty-first day of that month. 19 During those seven days, there must be no trace of yeast in your homes. Anyone who eats anything made with yeast during this week will be cut off from the community of Israel. These regulations apply both to the foreigners living among you and to the native-born Israelites. 20 During those days you must not eat anything made with yeast. Wherever you live, eat only bread made without yeast.”
Exodus 12:17-20
God set the Israelites free from slavery in Egypt through the death of the Passover Lamb. An angel of death came throughout Egypt, but if he saw the blood on the doorpost, he would "pass over" that house. That night, they ate the roasted lamb with bread made without yeast because they had to be ready to go; there was no time to wait for bread to rise, for the death of the Passover Lamb would bring their freedom! In like manner, speaking of Jesus' cross, Romans 6:10 says, "When he died, he died once to break the power of sin", and “it is for freedom that Christ has set us free!” (Galatians 5:1).
Paul gave this Old Testament account a new covenant application. The Corinthians needed to remove the yeast from the bread, meaning they needed to remove the sin from their body.
Paul then summarizes how to live and grow in the gospel: "So let us celebrate the festival, not with the old bread of wickedness and evil, but with the new bread of sincerity and truth”
Paul isn't teaching us to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He is teaching that the gospel of Christ brings us to a new festival celebration, one of living life reveling in Jesus' love displayed at Calvary and the freedom purchased for us by our Passover Lamb.
Yes, to grow in the gospel is to abandon our former ways, "the old bread of wickedness," for the new loaf of "sincerity and truth," which produces great joy and freedom in our lives.
Question 2. Is there any “old bread” in your life that needs to go so that you might genuinely celebrate the festival of gospel freedom? Please share.
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