OUR FATHER WHOSE SACRIFICE OF HIS SON WAS OUR PASSOVER AND WE SHOULD OBSERVE THE PRACTICE OF UNLEAVENED LIVING

The apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verses 1 - 8, brings up an issue that had been happening in the church at Corinth where sexual immorality had been practiced with impunity.  The church members, rather than mourn the transgression in their midst, were confident that they could take it in stride.

1 It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles—that a man has his father’s wife! 2 And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. 3 For I indeed, as absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged (as though I were present) him who has so done this deed. 4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, 5 deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

6 Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. 8 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.

In this passage, Paul  revealed some spiritual capabilities;

• He was able to absent himself from his body
• He sent his  spirit with the power of the Lord Jesus to the church as they gathered
• He judged the perpetrator from the remote location
• He delivered the perpetrator into the hands of Satan for the destruction of the flesh
• He employed a strategy to save the spirit of the man

Paul reprimands the Corinthian church for letting iniquity florish in their midst not understanding that it would ultimately contaminate them all in the same way that leaven spreads throughout the whole lump of dough.

Paul then counsels the church to maintain unleavened purity in their midst as a perpetual practice of keeping the feast of the passover because as the lamb was sacrificed so that death would pass over the children of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ was sacrificed to save us and as such, we keep the feast of unleaven bread  by sustaining unleavened sinless living.

Amen.

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