05 The Feast Of Unleavened Bread

CHAPTER FIVE
THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD (Leviticus 23:6-8; Exodus 12:14-20)

Immediately following the feast of the Passover Israel was commanded to keep the feast of unleavened bread. The lamb was slain “on the fourteenth day of the first month at even.” Then God said to Moses: “On the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread” (Leviticus 23:6).

Again we turn back to Exodus 12:14-20 to find other details concerning the manner in which this “memorial” was to be observed every year-from the night of the first Passover even unto the coming of the Messiah and His death on the cross. There are some searching lessons for us in this feast. Let us examine the Scripture carefully.

1. A Holy Walk.

The feast of unleavened bread represents the walk of the believer in separation from sin, from the time he accepts Christ as his Paschal Lamb even until heaven is reached.

In this connection we note, first of all, that there was no interval of time between the feast of the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread; the one followed the other immediately; and the two were ever linked together. Herein we see foreshadowed the fundamental truth that only the redeemed child of God can walk with Him; Calvary must precede a holy walk; and a holy walk should follow Calvary. This is what Paul meant when he wrote: “They that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:8). It is not enough to be kind and philanthropic and moral, as the world judges. God says, “Ye must be born again!”

Moreover, the believer’s walk with the crucified and risen Lord, beginning at Calvary, extends throughout this earthly life. The Passover was a one-day feast, and represented a single act of God in offering Himself on the cross; but the feast of unleavened bread continued for seven days, and showed the outcome of the Passover. As seven is the number which represents a complete circle of time, so it speaks of the believer’s whole life of witness on earth to Him who gave His life “a ransom for many.”

And the whole Christian life is the outgrowth of the transaction that takes place when the sinner is saved by the regenerating, quickening power of the Holy Spirit of God.
This close relationship between the feast of the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread is seen in Paul’s words to the Corinthians, where he sets forth the typical significance as outlined above: “Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? 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: therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:6-8).

2. The Unleavened Bread.

These words of Paul, written by inspiration of God, bring us to another important lesson to be learned here. Already in this study we have referred to the fact that leaven, in the Bible, is always a type of sin. In the keeping of the feast of unleavened bread no leaven was to be eaten; no leaven was to be seen; no leaven was to be in the house of an Israelite. And to make sure that none was there, a most diligent search for it was to be made. Leaven is a corrupt thing, produced by fermentation; and as a symbol of sin, it was to be purged from every home in Israel. As God’s redeemed people, feeding upon the lamb “without blemish,” they were to feed upon the unleavened bread.

Again, in the New Testament leaven is always a symbol of sin. The Lord Jesus used it to represent the evil doctrines of the Pharisees and Sadducees and the wicked life of Herod, when He said to His disciples: “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees . . . and of the leaven of Herod” (Matthew 16:6; Matthew 16:12; Mark 8:15).

In our study of Matthew we saw that the parable of the leaven (Matthew 13:33) teaches that professing Christendom will more and more be filled with false doctrine as the Church Age draws to a close. And yet again, Paul speaks of the “leaven of malice and wickedness” in contrast with “the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians 5:8).
Do you not see, my friend, that if we are to “keep the feast,” we must “purge out . . . the old leaven”; we must hold communion with God, walking with Him in separation from sin? This does not mean that in this life we can ever hope to be sinless. Only the Son of God lived without sin. We still have the old nature, and shall have as long as we live in this world. But the same apostle who wrote, saying, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8), wrote also saying, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not” (1 John 2:1).

The child of God who walks with Him will not continue in sin; he will confess it and forsake it by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is a tragedy to see Christians bound by the old things-old habits and associations that degrade. And it is a tragedy to see Christians bound by what we might call the new leaven of conceit in spiritual things, boasting, envy, jealousy, “malice and wickedness.” These things not only break our communion with God; they also mar our usefulness.

“Therefore let us keep the feast . . . with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

3. Fellowship with Christ.

This is the price of fellowship with God-to “purge out . . . the old leaven.” “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:6-7).

We might represent the “communion of saints” by the walk of the two disciples on their way to Emmaus with the risen Lord. Little wonder “they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).

His death on the cross, His bodily resurrection, and His coming glory were the theme of their conversation.

When “they constrained him, saying, Abide with us,” He “went in to tarry with them.” This was fellowship, indeed, with the crucified and risen Son of God, feeding upon His Word, walking and talking with Him by the way. And we may enter into it today as fully as did those two disciples of old; for we have dwelling in us the Holy Spirit of God to “take the things of Christ,” and show them unto us!

Enoch and Noah and Abraham knew what it was to walk with God. Paul made it the burden of his prayer that he might “keep the feast . . . with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

These were his words: “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Php 3:10).
Is that your prayer, my Christian friend?

It is possible for you to know Him as your Passover Lamb, and yet not know Him as the Unleavened Bread-in that intimate, satisfying fellowship that only a close walk with Him can give. But “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”

~ end of chapter 5 ~