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Unleavened Bread: A New Lump

Week 4 of 6 in The Spring Feasts, for Easter · next: Firstfruits: The Sheaf Waved on the Third Day

A pierced flat loaf on a full gold moon: Unleavened Bread, fulfilled at His first coming Israel left Egypt with dough that had no time to rise. "They baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait" (Exodus 12:39, ESV). God made that night's bread a feast, and kept it for seven days every year.

In one sentence: Unleavened Bread followed Passover for seven days, remembering that God brought Israel out of Egypt in haste and made them clear the old leaven from their houses; Paul applies it to the church, which Christ's sacrifice as our Passover has already made unleavened, so you keep the feast by clearing out the old leaven of malice and evil and living in sincerity and truth.

✝️ Leviticus 23:6-8 (ESV)

6 And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. 7 On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work. 8 But you shall present a food offering to the LORD for seven days. On the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall not do any ordinary work."

Key Takeaways

(This section follows the Key Takeaways format — see that page for what each part is for.)

Types & Prophecy

  • Applied by the New Testament. Paul reads the feast as the life of the redeemed: "Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (1 Corinthians 5:7, ESV).
  • Christ the sinless one, inferred. Many read the unleavened bread as a picture of Christ, who "committed no sin" (1 Peter 2:22, ESV). The New Testament never calls Him unleavened bread, so hold it as an illustration.

Lessons about Jesus

  • He warned His disciples about leaven. "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy" (Luke 12:1, ESV).
  • He is without sin. He was "tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15, ESV), and God "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21, ESV).
  • He made His people unleavened. "You really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (1 Corinthians 5:7, ESV).

Memory verses

✝️ 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 (ESV)

7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Be Transformed

  • Think. In Christ you are already "a new lump" (1 Corinthians 5:7, ESV). Holiness is becoming what His sacrifice has made you.
  • Attitude. Take small sin seriously. "A little leaven leavens the whole lump" (Galatians 5:9, ESV).
  • Do. Israel searched the house and put the leaven out (Exodus 12:15). This week, name one old habit of malice, resentment or deceit, confess it to God, and remove what feeds it, so that you keep the feast "with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5:8, ESV).

Prayer

Father, you brought your people out of Egypt in haste and fed them bread without leaven. Thank you that your Son Jesus, our Passover lamb, was sacrificed for us, and that in Him you have made us a new lump. Search our hearts as Israel searched their houses. Clear out the old leaven of malice and evil, and keep us in sincerity and truth, so that the whole lump is yours.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Study outline

The feast

Unleavened Bread began the day after Passover, "on the fifteenth day of the same month", and ran for seven days (Leviticus 23:6, ESV). The first and seventh days were holy convocations with no ordinary work, and offerings were made every day (Leviticus 23:7-8). Numbers adds a daily sin offering, "one male goat for a sin offering, to make atonement for you" (Numbers 28:22, ESV).

The two feasts ran together so closely that the New Testament can use either name for both: "Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover" (Luke 22:1, ESV). Luke dates Peter's arrest and Paul's sailing by them (Acts 12:3; 20:6).

Three commands shaped the week:

  • Eat unleavened bread. It was "the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste" (Deuteronomy 16:3, ESV).
  • Remove the leaven. "On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses ... For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses" (Exodus 12:15, 19, ESV). The penalty for eating it was severe: "that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land" (Exodus 12:19, ESV).
  • Tell your son. "You shall tell your son on that day, 'It is because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt'" (Exodus 13:8, ESV).

The feast remembered a rescue: "for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt" (Exodus 12:17, ESV). This shows that God wanted His redeemed people to remember, every year, that He had taken them out of slavery, and to live as a people set apart.

The words

  • מַצָּה (matstsah, H4682) is unleavened bread, flat bread baked without rising. It occurs fifty-three times.
  • שְׂאֹר (seʾor, H7603) is leaven itself: a lump of fermented dough kept back to raise the next batch. It occurs five times, all in laws (Exodus 12:15, 19; 13:7; Leviticus 2:11; Deuteronomy 16:4). The ESV Study Bible notes on 1 Corinthians 5:6 that ancient leaven was fermented dough of this kind, carried from batch to batch.
  • חָמֵץ (chamets, H2557) is anything leavened.
  • "Remove" in Exodus 12:15 is תַּשְׁבִּיתוּ, from שָׁבַת (shavat, H7673), the verb behind "Sabbath": make the leaven cease.
  • In Greek, ζύμη (zymē, G2219) is leaven, thirteen times in the New Testament, and ἄζυμος (azymos, G106) is unleavened, nine times.

What leaven pictures

Not sin in itself

Leaven is not evil in Scripture by nature. The law banned it from the altar: "No grain offering that you bring to the LORD shall be made with leaven" (Leviticus 2:11, ESV). Yet the law also required it. The thanksgiving offering came "with loaves of leavened bread" (Leviticus 7:13, ESV), and at the Feast of Weeks Israel waved two loaves "baked with leaven, as firstfruits to the LORD" (Leviticus 23:17, ESV). Jesus Himself said, "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened" (Matthew 13:33, ESV). The ESV Study Bible observes that leaven usually carries a negative sense in Scripture, and that here Jesus uses it for the kingdom's hidden, spreading growth.

What spreads

What leaven does is spread through the whole. That is why the New Testament uses it as a warning:

  • The Pharisees' and Sadducees' teaching. "He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees" (Matthew 16:12, ESV).
  • Hypocrisy. "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy" (Luke 12:1, ESV).
  • Herod. "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod" (Mark 8:15, ESV).
  • False teaching in the church. To the Galatians, pressed to add circumcision to the gospel (Galatians 5:2-3): "A little leaven leavens the whole lump" (Galatians 5:9, ESV).
  • Tolerated sin in the church. The same proverb in 1 Corinthians 5:6.

So the picture is a small thing that changes everything it touches. In the feast Israel put it out of the house entirely for seven days, starting fresh with bread that had none of the old batch in it.

Paul's festival: 1 Corinthians 5

The Corinthian church was tolerating a man living with his father's wife (1 Corinthians 5:1). "And you are arrogant!" Paul wrote (1 Corinthians 5:2, ESV). He called for discipline, "Purge the evil person from among you" (1 Corinthians 5:13, ESV), so that the man's "spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord" (1 Corinthians 5:5, ESV). To make the case he reached for the feast:

✝️ 1 Corinthians 5:6-8 (ESV)

6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Paul says what they are before he says what to do: "as you really are unleavened" uses ἐστε, a present indicative, "you are", and the command "cleanse out" rests on it. The reason is the sacrifice: "For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed." The same order runs through the calendar. Passover came first, on the fourteenth, and Unleavened Bread followed on the fifteenth (Leviticus 23:5-6). Israel was redeemed by the lamb's blood and then lived as a people without leaven.

The doctrine is sanctification. Christians are already sanctified in Christ ("you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ", 1 Corinthians 6:11, ESV), and they are called to grow into it. This shows that God does the redeeming, and then calls the redeemed to live as what He has made them. Paul describes the whole Christian life as a feast: "Let us therefore celebrate the festival." Its bread is "sincerity and truth", εἰλικρίνεια (eilikrineia, G1505), which occurs three times in the New Testament, all in Paul's letters to Corinth (1 Corinthians 5:8; 2 Corinthians 1:12; 2:17).

Christ and the unleavened bread

Many Christian teachers read the unleavened bread as a picture of Christ Himself: sinless, and buried during the feast without His body seeing corruption (Acts 2:27, quoting Psalm 16:10). The parts of that picture are true. He "committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth" (1 Peter 2:22, ESV), and He died at Passover and lay in the tomb during Unleavened Bread. But no New Testament writer calls Jesus the unleavened bread or links His burial to the feast. Paul's one use of the feast applies it to the church. Hold the Christ-picture as an illustration, and build on what Paul says.

For where this feast sits among the others, see The Appointed Times. The feast that comes before it is Passover, and the sheaf waved "on the day after the Sabbath" (Leviticus 23:11, ESV) is Firstfruits.

Discussion questions

  1. The language. "Remove leaven" in Exodus 12:15 uses the verb behind "Sabbath", to make something cease. What does it add to think of the week as a Sabbath for leaven?
  2. The text in its context. Leaven was banned from the altar (Leviticus 2:11) yet required in the loaves of Weeks (Leviticus 23:17). What does that tell you about how to read leaven elsewhere?
  3. Christ. Paul grounds "cleanse out the old leaven" in "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (1 Corinthians 5:7). Why does the sacrifice come first?
  4. The hard part. Jesus compared the kingdom to leaven (Matthew 13:33) and warned against the leaven of the Pharisees (Matthew 16:6). How do you hold the two together?
  5. The church. Paul applied the feast to a church tolerating sin (1 Corinthians 5:1-8). What would it look like for a church to keep this feast today?
  6. Be transformed. What is one "little leaven" in your life that you have treated as too small to matter (Galatians 5:9)?
Group study sheet for a 40-minute group: two A4 sheets, or one with the guided path

The point, the passage, the questions and the response, from this study. Print on both sides of two A4 sheets, flipping on the long edge. While this block is open, printing the page prints the sheet; close it to print the study.

Group study · 40 minutes

Unleavened Bread: A New Lump

Leviticus 23:6-8; Exodus 12:15-20; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8

The point Unleavened Bread followed Passover for seven days, remembering that God brought Israel out of Egypt in haste and made them clear the old leaven from their houses; Paul applies it to the church, which Christ's sacrifice as our Passover has already made unleavened, so you keep the feast by clearing out the old leaven of malice and evil and living in sincerity and truth.

0–5min

Ask: what comes to mind when you hear Unleavened Bread? Hear a few answers before anyone reads.

5–12minRead it aloud BSB

Leviticus 23:6-8 6On the fifteenth day of the same month begins the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD. For seven days you must eat unleavened bread. 7On the first day you are to hold a sacred assembly; you are not to do any regular work. 8For seven days you are to present a food offering to the LORD. On the seventh day there shall be a sacred assembly; you must not do any regular work.’”

Exodus 12:15-20 15For seven days you must eat unleavened bread. On the first day you are to remove the leaven from your houses. Whoever eats anything leavened from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. 16On the first day you are to hold a sacred assembly, and another on the seventh day. You must not do any work on those days, except to prepare the meals—that is all you may do. 17So you are to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your divisions out of the land of Egypt. You must keep this day as a permanent statute for the generations to come. 18In the first month you are to eat unleavened bread, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. 19For seven days there must be no leaven found in your houses. If anyone eats something leavened, that person, whether a foreigner or native of the land, must be cut off from the congregation of Israel. 20You are not to eat anything leavened; eat unleavened bread in all your homes.”

1 Corinthians 5:6-8 6Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven works through the whole batch of dough? 7Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old bread, leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and of truth.

12–25minLook closer
What does it say?
What did it mean to them?
What does it mean for us?
Page 1 of 4 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

Unleavened Bread: A New Lump

The study in brief
  1. The feast. Seven days after Passover, what Israel ate, removed and remembered.
  2. The words. The Hebrew and Greek for leaven and unleavened bread.
  3. What leaven pictures. Leaven forbidden and leaven offered, and why the New Testament uses it for what spreads.
  4. Paul's festival: 1 Corinthians 5. Redemption first, holiness following.
  5. Christ and the unleavened bread. What is stated, and what is inferred.
Notes
Page 2 of 4 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

Unleavened Bread: A New Lump

12–17minStep 1 · The feast

1The language. "Remove leaven" in Exodus 12:15 uses the verb behind "Sabbath", to make something cease. What does it add to think of the week as a Sabbath for leaven?

17–21minStep 2 · The words

2The church. Paul applied the feast to a church tolerating sin (1 Corinthians 5:1-8). What would it look like for a church to keep this feast today?

21–30minStep 3 · What leaven pictures

3The text in its context. Leaven was banned from the altar (Leviticus 2:11) yet required in the loaves of Weeks (Leviticus 23:17). What does that tell you about how to read leaven elsewhere?

4The hard part. Jesus compared the kingdom to leaven (Matthew 13:33) and warned against the leaven of the Pharisees (Matthew 16:6). How do you hold the two together?

30–35minStep 4 · Paul's festival: 1 Corinthians 5

5Christ. Paul grounds "cleanse out the old leaven" in "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (1 Corinthians 5:7). Why does the sacrifice come first?

Step 5 · Christ and the unleavened bread
Page 3 of 4 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

Unleavened Bread: A New Lump

35–40minBe transformed

6Be transformed. What is one "little leaven" in your life that you have treated as too small to matter (Galatians 5:9)?

  • Think. In Christ you are already "a new lump" (1 Corinthians 5:7, ESV). Holiness is becoming what His sacrifice has made you.
  • Attitude. Take small sin seriously. "A little leaven leavens the whole lump" (Galatians 5:9, ESV).
  • Do. Israel searched the house and put the leaven out (Exodus 12:15). This week, name one old habit of malice, resentment or deceit, confess it to God, and remove what feeds it, so that you keep the feast "with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5:8, ESV).
Memory verse

Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 Corinthians 5:7-8 (ESV)
Pray together

Father, you brought your people out of Egypt in haste and fed them bread without leaven. Thank you that your Son Jesus, our Passover lamb, was sacrificed for us, and that in Him you have made us a new lump. Search our hearts as Israel searched their houses. Clear out the old leaven of malice and evil, and keep us in sincerity and truth, so that the whole lump is yours.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Notes
The whole study, with every verse a tap awayhttps://the-way.lewy.au/feasts/unleavened-bread/
Page 4 of 4 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission
Group study · step by step

Unleavened Bread: A New Lump

Leviticus 23:6-8; Exodus 12:15-20; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8

Open Ask: what comes to mind when you hear Unleavened Bread? Hear a few answers before anyone reads.

Read it aloud Leviticus 23:6-8; Exodus 12:15-20; 1 Corinthians 5:6-8

Step 1The feast — Seven days after Passover, what Israel ate, removed and remembered.

1The language. "Remove leaven" in Exodus 12:15 uses the verb behind "Sabbath", to make something cease. What does it add to think of the week as a Sabbath for leaven?

Step 2The words — The Hebrew and Greek for leaven and unleavened bread.

2The church. Paul applied the feast to a church tolerating sin (1 Corinthians 5:1-8). What would it look like for a church to keep this feast today?

Step 3What leaven pictures — Leaven forbidden and leaven offered, and why the New Testament uses it for what spreads.

3The text in its context. Leaven was banned from the altar (Leviticus 2:11) yet required in the loaves of Weeks (Leviticus 23:17). What does that tell you about how to read leaven elsewhere?

4The hard part. Jesus compared the kingdom to leaven (Matthew 13:33) and warned against the leaven of the Pharisees (Matthew 16:6). How do you hold the two together?

Step 4Paul's festival: 1 Corinthians 5 — Redemption first, holiness following.Key verses: 1 Corinthians 5:6-8

5Christ. Paul grounds "cleanse out the old leaven" in "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed" (1 Corinthians 5:7). Why does the sacrifice come first?

Step 5Christ and the unleavened bread — What is stated, and what is inferred.
Be transformed

6Be transformed. What is one "little leaven" in your life that you have treated as too small to matter (Galatians 5:9)?

  • Think. In Christ you are already "a new lump" (1 Corinthians 5:7, ESV). Holiness is becoming what His sacrifice has made you.
  • Attitude. Take small sin seriously. "A little leaven leavens the whole lump" (Galatians 5:9, ESV).
  • Do. Israel searched the house and put the leaven out (Exodus 12:15). This week, name one old habit of malice, resentment or deceit, confess it to God, and remove what feeds it, so that you keep the feast "with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Corinthians 5:8, ESV).
Page 1 of 2 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission

Unleavened Bread: A New Lump

The point Unleavened Bread followed Passover for seven days, remembering that God brought Israel out of Egypt in haste and made them clear the old leaven from their houses; Paul applies it to the church, which Christ's sacrifice as our Passover has already made unleavened, so you keep the feast by clearing out the old leaven of malice and evil and living in sincerity and truth.

The whole study, with every verse a tap awayhttps://the-way.lewy.au/feasts/unleavened-bread/
Page 2 of 2 · print double-sided, flip on long edgeScripture: BSB, public domain · ESV® © 2001 Crossway, used by permission
  • ESV Study Bible (Crossway) — verse text throughout; notes on Exodus 12:14-20, 12:15, Matthew 13:33 and 1 Corinthians 5:6-7.
  • NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible (Zondervan) — notes on Exodus 12:15 and 1 Corinthians 5:7.
  • NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Zondervan) — note on 1 Corinthians 5:7.
  • Macula Hebrew (WLC) and Macula Greek (SBLGNT) — occurrence data for מַצָּה, שְׂאֹר, חָמֵץ, ζύμη, ἄζυμος and εἰλικρίνεια; unfoldingWord ULT interlinear for Exodus 12:15 and 1 Corinthians 5:7.

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