“Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.” Exodus 12:15
Leaven, in the Bible, is symbolic for the proud arrogant sinful nature operating in the Christian’s life. The result is a self-righteous, legalistic, Pharisee type of Christian.
Unleavened bread is the broken body of Christ crucified. We are to partake of His broken body and His blood. This is the result of experiencing the cross. The Christian becomes humble as he partakes of the unleavened Christ. He assimilates Christ crucified into himself and becomes more and more one with Him and His humility. He becomes more and more conformed to Him (like Him) in His death (Philippians 3:10).
To eat symbolic leavened bread is to mix law, arrogance and the sin nature (self) with Christ. It brings about a proud, puffed up, self-righteous Christian who exhibits no agape (selfless) love.
My wife tells me that yeast, today’s leaven, will cause bread to rise being filled with hot air. You can poke holes in it and it will fall but then rise again. This symbolizes the arrogant Christian who is puffed up and full of himself looking down on others which he considers himself better than. Legalism is also called leaven in the Bible. See Galatians 5:9, which states: “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” Our opening passage states that this kind of leaven will cause a soul to be “cut off” from the people of God (Exodus 12:15).
We are to be lowly, meek, gentle, humble Christians. See Matthew 11:28-30). We are not to be puffed up with leaven.
To experience the cross (die daily with Christ) is the old leaven purged out. We need to suffer with Christ from time to time in order to experience this purging. Suffering brings an end to pride, legalism, independence and sinful habits (Romans 6:6-7).
“He that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.” 1 Peter 4:1b-2.
Your glorying (your arrogant, self-righteousness) is not good. “Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven (the old man), that ye may be a new lump (new man), as ye are unleavened (your new position as believers in Christ who are no longer positioned in Adam, the old man). For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast (continually partaking of and assimilating to Christ crucified), not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” 1 Corinthians 5:6-8
We are to be unleavened Christians. That is, we are to be free from all puffiness of spirit, deflated, and broken from our own pride and sinfulness in light of His divine holiness and the living revelation that we are ever in need of His blessed mercy. May God grant us to be truly “poor in spirit.” (Matthew 5:3)
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