The Feast of Unleavened Bread
This is the first feast (Nissan) in the year. The festival in itself covers seven days with the first and the last days being high Sabbaths in which no work is done. It started with the Passover memorial. Both feasts were considered as one and the names are often used interchangeably. But in purpose they were slightly different. The Passover commemorated the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and slavery (Ex. 12:13) while the unleavened bread was a memorial of the haste in which the Israelites left Egypt.
“These are the feasts of Yahweh, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is Yahweh’s Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to Yahweh. On the first day you shall have a holy convocation, you shall do no customary work on it. But you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahweh for seven days. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation” (Leviticus 23: 4-8 also Exodus 13: 4-10; Numbers 28:16-25; Deuteronomy 16: 2-4, 8).
The symbol of leaven
God was explicit that the bread in that feast was to be unleavened for leaven represented sin (Ex. 12:15). Unleavened bread symbolized that the people were not partaking of any of the polluting influences of Egypt but only of the pure bread of life. Biblically, bread represented the Word of God. So, eating unleavened bread is a type of eating the pure Word of God.
Paul talked about removing sin from the life in the context of keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread, “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Messiah, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. 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” (1 Corinthians 5: 6-8).
Leaven was to be removed for it represented hatred and evil (1 Cor. 5:8), and false doctrine, as illustrated in the teachings of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians (Matt. 16:6, 12; Mark 8:15). The leaven of the Pharisees is greed and injustice (Matt. 23:14), untrue zeal (v. 15), incorrect estimates of spiritual standards (vs. 16–22), oversight of justice, mercy (v. 23), vain precision (v. 24), pretense (vs. 25–28), prejudice (vs. 29–33), and unkindness (vs. 34–36).
The leaven of the Sadducees is disbelief (Matt. 22:23) and a lack of knowledge of the Scriptures and of the power of God (v. 29). And the leaven of the Herodians is flattery, worldly-mindedness, and insincerity (vs. 16–21), and planning wickedness against God’s servants (Mark 3:6).
All who accept salvation through Jesus Christ are to be pure, “even as he is pure” (1 John 3:2, 3; ch. 2:6). Christ gave the believers the perfect example of Christian living. His life is a a continual illustration of a victorious experience over sin by God’s power (1 Cor. 1:4–8).
In His service,
BibleAsk Team
