Unleavened Bread As Taught in the New Testament

Where do we get our new covenant model for observing the DOULB? How does the Church of God know what to do and what not to do when observing the festival in 2024? What are the spiritual lessons of this festival for new covenant believers?

The Old Covenant Model

Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23 tell us  the feast is 7 days long and begins on the 15th day of Aviv (the day after Passover). The first day is an annual Sabbath on which we do no work and gather for a holy assembly before God. The last day is also an annual Sabbath on which we do no work and gather for a special assembly before God. During the entire 7 days we are to have no leaven in our homes, both the agent that causes leavening (yeast) and the resulting leavened product (bread). Instead we are to eat bread without leaven 7 days.

Additional elements to be added when they were settled in the land:

• offer the wave sheaf on the day after the Sabbath that falls during the festival and begin the countdown to Pentecost… seven full weeks – Leviticus 23: 10-12
• present a special burnt offering to God each of the 7 days - Numbers 28:17-25

The New Covenant Model

Some elements of the DOULB are no longer included because of the coming of the Christ/Messiah. Here’s what changed and why:

• Special burnt offerings are no longer necessary. The blood of bulls and goats which only looked forward anticipating the future sacrificial death of Jesus Christ are no longer necessary. His sacrifice only needed to happen once and it was sufficient for all people and for all time.
• The symbolic wave sheaf is not longer offered… Christ the true sheaf from the early harvest (the first resurrection) has been presented to God the Father.

What remains is the dates, the unleavened bread, and the removal of yeast. There was a spiritual lesson for Israel under the old covenant… but there is a more comprehensive spiritual lesson for the Church of God today.

The Spiritual Message for Israel

DOULB was a reminder to Israel of their departure from bondage in Egypt. Eating unleavened bread would remind them each year of how they left in rush to escape their terrible oppression in Egypt.

The Spiritual Message for The Church

New covenant understanding of the festival begins with Paul’s letter to Corinth.

• We learn how the process of leavening [which puffs up bread] pictures attitudes of mind
• We we hear the Church of God teaching that there is a linkage between putting leavening out of our homes and putting evil thoughts and deeds out of our lives
• We get our first understanding of how eating unleavened bread pictures putting good things in as much as putting bad things out.

1 Corinthians 5:2-8 In direct connection with the festival of unleavened bread Paul touches on each of these three themes. Stop being spiritually proud and “puffed up”… remove the evil from among you…  replace what is evil with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Paul sternly corrects the Corinthians regarding a matter of sexual perversion. A man in the congregation was having sex with his step-mother. To make matters worse, everybody knew about it too. Instead of reacting with outrage, or righteous indignation, and shunning him the Corinthian congregation did nothing… and were proud of it… Paul calls them “puffed up”.

The word translated puffed up is from the Greek word phusioo. It means: to blow up or inflate with air… it comes from the word for what we today would call an air pump. Its an obvious reference to leavening.

The Process of Leavening

Leavening is the process of adding gas to a dough before or during baking to produce a lighter, more easily chewed bread. Many breads use yeast as the primary leavening agent (others include baking powder & baking soda). The yeast will grow and divide and spread through the lump of bread dough. In the process of dividing the yeast  ferments some of the carbohydrates in the flour, along with the  sugar, producing carbon dioxide. This carbon dioxide creates the little bubbles you see in leavened bread causing the original lump of dough to expand… in other words the dough gets puffed up.

Corinthian Boasting

Paul does not explicitly say what proud statements were made here but a very possible clue is found in 1 Corinthians 6: 12-20…

1. The mistaken idea that sex among human beings [created in the image of God] is merely a natural appetite meant to be satisfied
2. The idea that the sins of the body do not affect the life of the spirit[Hellenistic dualism]

Both of these assumptions are alive today… and they are still as wrong today as they were then.

The congregation in Corinth badly misunderstood what it meant to be freed from the penalty of the law and living in the grace of God… perhaps seeing themselves as free from all subsequent moral obligations… such as walking in God’s commandments. Their reaction to this man’s incestuous fornication was to not judge him. They were perhaps proud of what they assumed was their “God-like” patience and forgiveness towards another member.

But forgiveness is not effective/useful for the forgiven unless they [forgiven] are brought to their senses and change their behavior. Paul says… purge him out, shun him…. maybe that will bring him to repentance and end up doing him some good in the end (verse 5).

DOULB as a Teaching-Tool

In the same context of Paul criticizing their misguided spiritual pride  Paul brings up yeast, bread dough, and the process of leavening. Its a metaphor to drive home a point about how sin spreads. He’s saying don’t let sin take root in the congregation… don’t let sin take root in your life. It may start off small but like yeast it will grow and start to take over your entire life.

The sexual perversion was a problem… and the misguided boasting was a problem… both needed to go.

In this way Paul demonstrated the new understanding of the spiritual lesson of the Festival for the church… the ritual act of putting out leaven reminds us of the spiritual necessity to put out sin and evil.

In verse 8 Paul teaches this non-jewish group of believers, people who God had called out of the Greek world with all its idolatry … saying “let us keep the feast [feast of unleavened bread]…

Paul has taught Greek converts… New Covenant followers of Christ…  to observe this holy celebration ordained by God. AND he’s using its symbols and commanded method of observance [eating only unleavened bread instead of leavened] to teach them spiritual truths about dealing with sin… let us keep the Festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast, the bread of sincerity and truth.

Where Would Paul Get Such Spiritual Understanding About DOULB?

Paul referenced the physical rite of putting out leavening as a reminder of a spiritual truth… putting out evil and sin. But that doesn’t come from the pages of the Old Testament scripture… and he clearly had taught just that to the gentiles of Corinth. He mentions it in verses 6-8 as an obvious truth both he and the members in Corinth share and agree upon. Otherwise they really wouldn’t understand what he was saying to them.

The  source of this teaching is within the words of Jesus Christ... we know Paul was taught by the risen Christ in the desert but he would have also had access to the records of Jesus teaching.

The Bread of Sincerity & Truth

John 6:1-6… either during or immediately before the DOULB Jesus teaches about the meaning of His body and bread. [summarize the feeding of the 5,000]

John 6:26-27 food/bread sustains you only until your next meal… what Jesus offers will sustain you permanently (eternal life)… 6:32-35… 6:48-51, 55-56. We are to feed on that bread of sincerity and truth meaning we are to put Christ’s life in us… His mind, His pattern of living.

Jesus did not specifically make all these references to bread as being “unleavened bread”… but consider the occasion… right before or during the feast days.

Then at the final Passover Jesus emphatically associated His body with the unleavened bread they were to eat Luke 22:19.

Knowing this basic thrust of Jesus’ teaching Paul makes the connection explicit calling the unleavened bread… the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. IE. The mind of Christ that we need to put into our lives.

The Old Yeast of Malice and Wickedness

Not long after Jesus’ teaching about the bread of life…  He warns the disciples about the evil and false teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducee’s.

Matt 16: 6, 11-12 Jesus specifically calls their false teaching yeast or leavening…

Luke 12:1 Jesus makes that same statement on a different occasion… this time in a crowd of 10,000 people or more… right after painfully itemizing the hypocrisy and evil of the Pharisees teaching.

Luke 11:37-52. Their teachings are filled with hypocrisy, oppression, violence, doctrinal confusion and filled with pride… or as Paul might have said “puffed up” with pride.

Additional Applications of This Teaching

Paul used this vivid word picture of leaven which puffs up and inflates 5 times in 1 Corinthians. One we have already looked at in 1 Cor 5.

Another is found in 1 Corinthians 4 when Paul warns them not to think of Church teachers in a competitive way 1 Corinthians 3:5; 4:6…. he tells them not to be puffed up with pride over who was the best sermon giver… Paul or Apollos… and filled with pride and party spirit concerning which team they felt were on.

Public speaking was a primary source of entertainment in those days before television and movies. The average person took great delight in knowing and appreciating the finer points of giving an eloquent speech… they had their favorites… their rivalries… and were quite vocal about their preferences… just like fans of movie stars and athletes today… [I follow Paul… I follow Apollos].

1 Corinthians 4:18-20 Paul warned them to stop it. Pride and party spirit over teacher causes division.

1 Corinthians 8:1 and closely related Colossians 2:18 use the phrase “puffed up” in relation to pride over outward appearance of purity, over rigorous acts of self inflicted suffering, unprovable interactions with angels, and mystical visions.

Finally, Paul uses this phrase in his lengthy description of what God-like love is… and is not - 1 Corinthians 13:4.

Conclusion:

The Church of God’s understanding of the spiritual lessons built into the festival of unleavened bread are built upon the words of Jesus Christ and the apostles.

So let us keep the festival… the the spirit of the new covenant. Putting out the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness and eating instead the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.