The Old Testament people of God were given directions for living the way God wanted them to live. Their lives were regulated by seven annual feasts which celebrated their identity as God’s redeemed people.
Passover, the first of the feasts, was followed by the week-long Feast of Unleavened Bread. These rituals were for worship, rest, remembrance, and national solidarity (Leviticus 23:4-8, Numbers 28:16-25). They symbolized our Lord Jesus Christ and the blessings of salvation.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread began the day after the Passover supper. It required the ceremonial removal of all leaven from their dwellings before the Passover. Why was leaven to be removed? Because in the Bible it represents sin. The New Testament has a lot to say about it. Jesus spoke figuratively of the leaven of the Pharisees (hypocrisy), the Sadducees (unbelief), and of Herod (worldliness). The apostle Paul wrote about the leaven of malice and wickedness (1 Corinthians 5:8) and of false doctrine (Galatians 5:9).
We know leaven as yeast, which is used in baking. It makes bread dough rise. Why would God use a beneficial ingredient like leaven to picture sin? Because it spreads invisibly. Although it is small, it infects every part of the lump of dough.
So, for seven days the Hebrew people were to eat their meals with unleavened bread. This was a reminder of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt and their covenant relationship to God. They were to be a separated people, consecrated to the Lord. During this week, there was to be a sacred assembly, a suspension of normal work, special offerings, and possibly periods of instruction about their unique place in God’s plan of redemption.
In Christian teaching this applies to God’s New Covenant people, and illustrates how we may have a relationship to him. In the Passover, the Hebrews slaughtered, roasted, and ate the Passover lamb, which represents Jesus, the Lamb of God. He had to die for our sins and go through the fire of God’s judgment for our salvation. We are not saved by self-improvement. We are saved by faith in the blood of the Lamb.
In the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the bread pictures Jesus, the bread of life (John 6:25-35). When he instituted the Lord’s Supper, he spoke of the unleavened bread as representing his sinless body as he died on the cross. He was born in Bethlehem (“house of bread”). He said as God fed the Israelites with manna in the wilderness, so he is now the “bread of God” which gives life (John 6:33).
The Old Testament feast also reminds us of the New Testament believer’s spiritual sanctification, or separation to God. “Don’t you know that a little yeast (leaven) works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast — as you really are. For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8).
Sanctification, as taught in the New Testament, means that our Lord wants to remake us like himself: “Be holy, because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). As we grow spiritually, we “are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). This is a process of growth through the word of God and by the work of the Holy Spirit in us.
The New Testament guides us away from sinful practices to which we are susceptible. The Holy Spirit convicts us of wrongdoing and leads us to repentance and confession of sins. But there is coming a day in which our sanctification will be complete, when we are with Christ in heaven. “We know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:2-3).
Until then we are to “get rid of the old yeast” of sin and feed on Christ and his word. This is the way to “keep the feast,” that is, to live as life was meant to be lived.
Pastor Randy Faulkner