I Corinthians 5:7-8
“Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
The purpose of keeping the Days of Unleavened Bread is to remind us of our need to remove sin from our lives. The Passover is a memorial of the death of Christ, who died for us so that we may receive forgiveness of sins and have the promise of eternal life. He shed his blood for our sins and saved us from the death penalty.
This Feast also calls to mind the New Covenant that we now have made with Him through His blood. Both of those aspects are brought to mind at the Passover. Leaven may represent sin, and de-leavening our homes symbolizes purging sin from our lives. However, cleansing our lives of sin is a lifetime process that will not be completely fulfilled until we are resurrected and transformed into spirit. As long as we are still flesh and blood, we will never be absolutely perfect—we will never free ourselves completely and totally of sin. God wants us to observe the Days of Unleavened Bread year after year to remind us that we are not perfect and that our lives are a constant struggle against sin. This illustrates how deceitful sin is and teaches us that we must constantly examine ourselves to purge it out of our lives. Removing sin is hard work!
The New Testament makes it abundantly clear that God expects Christians to keep this festival. Paul writes, “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (I Corinthians 5:8). Throughout the New Testament, God uses leaven as a symbol of sin, of corruption. Jesus warns, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (Luke 12:1). In discussing the danger of sin spreading, Paul uses the phrase “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” on two separate occasions (I Corinthians 5:6; Galatians 5:9).
The Days of Unleavened Bread remind us annually of this constant warfare that all Christians must wage throughout their lives. The symbolism of putting sin out of our lives will not be completely fulfilled until we are born into the Kingdom of God and become like Him who cannot sin (I John 3:9).
