Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 5:8
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened [bread] of sincerity and truth.
8. keep the feast ] Rather, keep festival, referring to the perpetual feast the Christian Church keeps on the Flesh and Blood of her Lord. Not ‘ the feast’ as in our version, which would imply some particular festival.
malice and wickedness ] Rather, perhaps, vice and wickedness, cf. ch. 1Co 14:20.
sincerity and truth ] The word here translated sincerity is derived either (1) from a word signifying to revolve, as though rejecting by its rapid revolution all extraneous matter, or (2) by most etymologists as from the rays of the sun, which by their searching character would immediately reveal the presence of any impurity. It would, therefore, seem to mean transparent honesty of purpose and character.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Let us keep the feast – Margin, Holy day heortazomen. This is language drawn from the paschal feast, and is used by Paul frequently to carry out and apply his illustration. It does not mean literally the paschal supper here – for that had ceased to be observed by Christians – nor the Lords Supper particularly; but the sense is As the Jews when they celebrated the paschal supper, on the slaying and sacrifice of the paschal lamb, put away all leaven – as emblematic of sin – so let us, in the slaying of our sacrifice, and in all the duties, institutions and events consequent thereon, put away all wickedness from our hearts as individuals, and from our societies and churches. Let us engage in the service of God putting away by all evil.
Not with the old leaven – Not under the influence, or in the indulgence of the feelings of corrupt and unrenewed human nature – The word leaven is very expressive of that former or old condition, and denotes the corrupt and corrupting passions of our nature before it is renewed.
The leaven of malice – Of unkindness and evil – which would diffuse itself, and pervade the mass of Christians. The word malice ( kakias) denotes evil in general.
And wickedness – Sin; evil. There is a particular reference here to the case of the incestuous person. Paul means that all wickedness should be put away from those who had been saved by the sacrifice of their Passover, Christ; and, therefore, this sin in a special manner.
But with the unleavened bread … – That is, with sincerity and truth. Let us be sincere, and true, and faithful; as the Jews partook of bread unleavened, which was emblematic of purity, so let us be sincere and true. It is implied here that this could not be done unless they would put away the incestuous person – No Christians can have, or give evidence of sincerity, who are not willing to put away all sin.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 8. Therefore let us keep the feast] It is very likely that the time of the passover was now approaching, when the Church of Christ would be called to extraordinary acts of devotion, in commemorating the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ; and of this circumstance the apostle takes advantage in his exhortation to the Corinthians. See the Introduction, sect. xii.
Not with old leaven] Under the Christian dispensation we must be saved equally from Judaism, heathenism, and from sin of every kind; malice and wickedness must be destroyed; and sincerity and truth, inward purity and outward holiness, take their place.
The apostle refers here not more to wicked principles than to wicked men; let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven-the impure principles which actuated you while in your heathen state; neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, , wickedness, radical depravity, producing unrighteousness in the life; nor with the persons who are thus influenced, and thus act; but with the unleavened bread, ‘ , but with upright and godly men, who have sincerity, , such purity of affections and conduct, that even the light of God shining upon them discovers no flaw, and truth-who have received the testimony of God, and who are inwardly as well as outwardly what they profess to be.
The word , which we translate wickedness, is so very like to , fornication, that some very ancient MSS. have the latter reading instead of the former; which, indeed, seems most natural in this place; as , which we translate malice, includes every thing that is implied in , wickedness whereas , as being the subject in question, see 1Co 5:1, would come more pointedly in here: Not with wickedness and fornication, or rather, not with wicked men and fornicators: but I do not contend for this reading.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Therefore let us keep the feast: here is a manifest allusion to the feast of the Jewish passover, which was immediately followed with the feast of unleavened bread for seven days. As the passover prefigured Christ, who is our paschal Lamb, whose flesh we eat and whose blood we drink by believing, and sacramentally in the Lords supper; so the Jewish subsequent feast of unleavened bread prefigured all the days of a Christians life, which are to be spent,
not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth: which may be either understood of those evil and good habits which they signify, and so let us know the duty of every particular Christian to take heed of any malice or wickedness; or else (which seemeth most proper to this place) the abstract is put for the concrete, malice and wickedness for wicked and malicious men, and sincerity and truth for persons that are true and sincere. So that we are from hence taught, both the duty of every particular Christian, considering that Christ hath died as a sacrifice for his sin, to live up to the rule which he hath given us, abhorring malice and all wickedness, and acting truth and sincerity; and also the duty of every true church of Christ, to keep their communion pure from the society of wicked and malicious men, and made up of men of truth and sincerity. The latter seemeth to be principally intended.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. not . . . old leavenof ourunconverted state as Jews or heathen.
malicethe opposite of”sincerity,” which allows no leaven of evil to be mixed upwith good (Mt 16:6).
wickednessthe oppositeof “truth,” which allows not evil to be mistaken for good.The Greek for “malice” means the evil habitof mind; “wickedness,” the outcoming of the same inword and deed. The Greek for “sincerity” expressesliterally, a thing which, when examined by the sun’s light, isfound pure and unadulterated.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Therefore let us keep the feast,…. Not the feast of the passover, which was now ceased, though this is said in allusion to it; when the master of the house used to say l,
“everyone that is hungry, let him come and eat; he that hath need, let him come , “and paschatize”, or keep the feast of the passover:”
but rather the feast of the Lord’s supper is here meant, that feast of fat things Isaiah prophesied of; in which are the richest entertainments, even the flesh and blood of Christ; though it seems best to understand it of the whole course of a Christian’s life, spent in the exercise of spiritual joy and faith in Christ; he that is of a merry heart, as the believer of all men in the world has reason to be of, “hath a continual feast”, Pr 15:15 of spiritual mirth and pleasure, rejoicing always in Christ, as he ought to do: which feast, or course of life, is to be kept “not with old leaven”; in the old, vain, sinful manner of conversation, as before:
neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; not in malice to any man, or one another, nor in any sort of wickedness, living in no known sin, and allowing of it:
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity; as opposed to malice, of sincere love to God and Christ, and to his people: and of truth; of Gospel doctrine, discipline, and conversation.
l Haggada Shel Pesach, p. 4. Ed. Rittangel.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Wherefore let us keep the feast ( ). Present active subjunctive (volitive). Let us keep on keeping the feast, a perpetual feast (Lightfoot), and keep the leaven out. It is quite possible that Paul was writing about the time of the Jewish passover, since it was before pentecost (1Co 16:8). But, if so, that is merely incidental, and his language here is not a plea for the observance of Easter by Christians.
With the leaven of malice and wickedness ( ). Vicious disposition and evil deed.
With the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth ( ). No word for “bread.” The plural of may suggest “elements” or “loaves.” (sincerity) does not occur in the ancient Greek and is rare in the later Greek. In the papyri it means probity in one example. The etymology is uncertain. Boisacq inclines to the notion of or , sunlight, and , to judge by the light of the sun, holding up to the light. (truth) is a common word from (true) and this from privative and (, , to conceal or hide) and so unconcealed, not hidden. The Greek idea of truth is out in the open. Note Ro 1:18 where Paul pictures those who are holding down the truth in unrighteousness.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Let us keep the feast [] . Only here in the New Testament. The epistle was probably written a short time before the Passover. See ch. 1Co 16:8.
Sincerity [] . See on pure minds, 2Pe 3:1.
Truth. Bengel observes : “Sincerity takes care not to admit evil with the good; truth, not to admit evil instead of good.”
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
Comments
1) Therefore let us keep the feast. This is an exhortation for the Corinth Church to guard observance of the Lords table and worship.
2) Not with the old leaven neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness.. Negatively their worship, in public assembly and Lords Supper observance, was to be apart from their old immoral conduct. It was also to be with old grudges, malice and wicked desires of the heart put away, like laying aside an old soiled garment, Gal 5:9.
3) But with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (Greek all en azumois) but( in contrast) with unleavened, un-putrefied, or uncontaminated loaves of sincerity and truth. Public assembly worship, including observance of the Lords Supper, should be held by people of God in a covenanted local assembly who have upright moral conduct, and are in fellowship and doctrinal harmony; Act 2:42; 1Co 11:26-29.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
8. Now, in the solemnity of this sacred feast we must abstain from leaven, as God commanded the fathers to abstain. But from what leaven? As the outward passover was to them a figure of the true passover, so its appendages were figures of the reality which we at this day possess. If, therefore, we would wish to feed on Christ’s flesh and blood, let us bring to this feast sincerity and truth Let these be our loaves of unleavened bread Away with all malice and wickedness, for it is unlawful to mix up leaven with the passover In fine, he declares that we shall be members of Christ only when we shall have renounced malice and deceit. In the meantime we must carefully observe this passage, as showing that the ancient passover was not merely μνημοσυνον, (293) a memorial of a past benefit, but also a sacrament, representing Christ who was to come, from whom we have this privilege, that we pass from death to life. Otherwise, it would not hold good, that in Christ is the body of the legal shadows. (Col 2:17.) This passage will also be of service for setting aside the sacrilege of the Papal mass. For Paul does not teach that Christ is offered daily, but that the sacrifice having been offered up once for all, it remains that the spiritual feast be celebrated during our whole life.
(293) Our author most probably alludes to Exo 12:14, “And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, ” etc. The term used in the Septuagint is μνημοσυνον, answering to the Hebrew term זכרון. — Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(8) Old leaveni.e., in their old state generally; and then the Apostle proceeds to particularise. Sincerity and truth are to take the place of malice and wickedness in the continuous life of the Christian. St. Chrysostom well remarks: He said Let us keep the feast as pointing out that the whole of time is a festival unto Christians, because of the excellence of the good things which have been given.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. Keep the feast As Christ is our sacrifice once offered, with perpetual efficacy, for us, so our redeemed life is a perpetual paschal feast.
Old leaven The unregeneracy of our old man. Leaven, consisting of malice Greek, , internal evil disposition.
Wickedness In permanent, external practice.
Sincerity The Greek word implies such a pure transparency of substance that the sun shines through it without detecting a speck. Hence purity.
Truth The opposite of error or deceit.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘For this reason let us go on keeping the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.’
This leads on to the consideration of wider sins. Life is now to be for us a continual Passover. ‘Let us go on keeping the feast.’ The sacrifice has been completed once for all but the feast continues. So they are to search out sin and any false teaching continually. Then coming to God’s Passover Lamb for forgiveness through His one time sacrifice of Himself, and partaking of the crucified One, the Passover Lamb, by faith (‘he who eats of Me (by faith – Joh 6:35) will live because of me’ – Joh 6:57), they are to keep away from all leaven, the leaven of false teaching and malice and wickedness, of divisiveness and discord, while partaking of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. The Christian must thus live purely day by day in the light of the cross and its significance. Thus he must daily be totally honest, seeking daily cleansing, without malice, positive in goodness, concerned for the truth and must keep away from all that is wrong whether in word or deed.
‘Malice.’ The word means badness and wickedness generally, but with a special emphasis on malice, ill will, malignity. ‘Wickedness.’ Again a general word for baseness, evil thinking and evil doing. ‘Sincerity.’ Refers to purity of motive, genuineness of life, openness.
‘Truth.’ The whole Christian life is to be based on truth, and to reveal truth. This includes a knowledge of the Scriptures, an understanding of Jesus’ teaching and Christian teaching in the New Testament (this is for us, these readers had no New Testament), and a oneness with Him Who is the truth (Joh 14:6). This will then result in total honesty in word and life.
Having Faced Them with The Need For Renewal Paul Now Warns Against The Fleshly Sins To Which They Have Been Subject, But Assures Them That This Does Not Involve Having To Avoid Pagan Sinners (Although They Have To Avoid Their Sins). It Means Rather The Exclusion of Christians Whose Sins Are of a Severe Kind (1Co 5:9-13)
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
1Co 5:8 . The paschal lamb having been slain, there follows the keeping of the feast , and that not with leaven, but with what is unleavened. Since, then, Christ has been slain as the Christian’s paschal lamb, they too must keep their feast in an ethical sense, that is to say, by leading a holy life, without sinful admixture, with pure and true Christian virtue. Hence the admonition: let us therefore keep feast , etc. The implied in is, it is true, the feast of the Passover , but in such a sense that the keeping of the Passover is meant to be a figurative representation of the character of the whole of a Christian’s walk and conversation , because this is to be without moral leaven, etc. Comp Philo, de congr. er. qu. gr. p. 447 D. It may be added, that Theodore of Mopsuestia says aptly: , .
]. Precisely as in 1Co 5:7 ; not as a designation of the incestuous person (Michaelis, Rosenmller, Heydenreich), which would, besides, have required the article. is used in the sense of provided with . Comp on 1Co 4:21 .
. . .] singles out something special from the general . .: and in particular not with the leaven of maliciousness and wickedness (see on Rom 1:29 ). The genitives are genitives appositionis . The apostle must have had ground enough in the condition of the church, even apart from the case of the incestuous man, for laying such peculiar stress in the way of warning upon nequitia and malitia .
] from , what is unleavened, i.e. (Exo 12:15 ; Exo 12:18 ). There is nothing (such as ) that needs to be supplied.
. and . differ from each other only in degree; the former is moral purity ( , Theophylact on 2Co 1:12 ); the latter, moral truth , the essence of actual moral goodness. See on Joh 3:21 ; Eph 5:9 ; Phi 4:8 .
REMARK.
This whole allegory, 1Co 5:6-8 , would have been unnatural on Paul’s part, had he been writing this Epistle, which was written before Pentecost (1Co 16:8 ), after Easter, and so between that feast and Pentecost, extremely natural, on the other hand, if the Jewish Passover was then in immediate prospect. Were that the case, this very allegory, which is taken up by him in no other place , would offer itself to him unsought, so that the peculiar stamp of his discourse would be accounted for as bearing the impress of the festal thoughts awakened within him by the approach of the Passo1Co 5:The passage before us, therefore, compared with 1Co 16:8 , is rightly regarded by Bengel and most of the succeeding commentators (comp especially Wieseler, Chronologie d. Apost. Zeitalt. p. 327 ff.) as giving evidence of the fact that Paul was now writing shortly before Easter. The few expositors who oppose this view (Henke on Paley’s Hor. Paul. p. 413 ff.; Eichhorn, Einl. III. p. 138; de Wette, Curtius, de temp. quo prior P. ad Tim. , etc. p. 43; Schrader, II. p. 132; Hofmann) have only this in their favour, that a demonstrative proof is of course impossible. But it is a misunderstanding of the passage to find in it an admonition to celebrate properly the approaching feast of Easter (see especially Heydenreich). Considering the figurative nature of the expression (see on 1Co 5:8 ), we must not try to draw any inferences from this passage as to the question whether or how Christians kept the feast of Easter in those days (against Weitzel, Passahf. p. 183 ff.; Lechler, p. 350). Theophylact says well: , . Comp Hilgenfeld, Paschastreit , p. 173 f.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Ver. 8. Let us keep the feast ] The benefits we receive by Christ should crown the calendar of our lives with continual festivals; yea, make us everlastingly merry at our convivium iuge everflowing feast of a good conscience. Diogenes could say, that a good man keeps every day a holy day. (Plut.) And the Jews were bound to rejoice at all their feasts. “Eat therefore thy meat with joy, and drink thy wine with gladness, since God now accepteth thy works,” Ecc 9:7 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
[837] aorist tense.
[838] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.
[839] J. A. Beet’s St. Paul’s Epp. to the Corinthians (1882).
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
1Co 5:8 explains the symbolical . Participation in the sacrifice of Christ presumes unleavenedness in the participants; the unleavened bread and the passover are related (objectively) as repentance and faith (subjectively): “For indeed our passover has been slain , even Christ”. (aor [840] , of historical fact) the Passover Lamb killed, and leaven not yet cast out: what a contradiction! The Law prescribed no exact time, but usage required every scrap of leaven to be got rid of from the house at the beginning (eve) of the day, Nisan 14, on which the Lamb was slain. stands for the Paschal Lamb , the sacrifice of which legally constituted the Passover (Mar 14:12 , cf. Joh 1:29 ).
[840] aorist tense.
“Our (Christian) passover,” cf. Heb 13:10 ; and for Paul’s appropriation to the Church of the things of the Old Covenant, Rom 11:17 , Gal 4:26 ; Gal 6:16 , Phi 3:3 . This identification of Christ crucified with the Paschal Lamb lends some support to the view that Jesus died, as the Fourth Gospel appears to represent, on the 14 th Nisan; but the precise coincidence is not essential to his interpretation. The Pascha (Aram. pascha = Heb. pesach ) in O.T. “Jehovah’s Passover” was the sacrificial covenant-feast of the kingdom of God in Israel. It contained three essential elements: (1) the blood of the victim, sprinkled at the exodus on each house-door, afterwards on the national altar, as an expiation to God ( cf. Rom 3:25 ), who “passes over” when He “sees the blood”; (2) the flesh of the lamb, supplying the food of redeemed Israel as it sets out to the Holy Mount and the Promised Land (see 1Co 10:16 f., Joh 6:32 ; Joh 6:51 ); (3) the continued feast , an act of fellowship, grounded on redemption, between Jehovah and Israel and amongst the Israelites; cf. 1Co 10:16-22 , 1Co 11:20 , and notes.
With the leaven removed and the Passover Lamb slain, “let us keep the feast” ( , pr [841] sbj [842] of continued action ) this term again allegorical not literal (see , 7), “a figurative characterisation of the whole Christian conduct of life” (Mr [843] ). (Clem. Al [844] , Strom. , viii., quoted by Ed [845] ); to the same effect Cm [846] , . . . . . , ; cf. , earlier than P., Philo’s interpretation of the Feast, De migr. Abrah. , 16; De congr. qurend. erudit. gratia , 28. For with impv [847] , see note on 1Co 4:5 . The (unleavened cakes), to be partaken of by the (1Co 5:7 ), are described by the attributes , “of sincerity and truth” a sound inward disposition, and a right position in accord with the reality of things. To the forbidden (see note, 7) is added, by way of closer specification, . ( maliti et nequiti ) “ the vicious disposition, the active exercise of it” (Lt [848] ); see Trench, Syn [849] , 11. The associations of approaching Easter, probably, suggested this train of thought ( cf. 1Co 15:23 , ); nowhere else does P. call Christ “the Pascha”.
[841] present tense.
[842] subjunctive mood.
[843] Meyer’s Critical and Exegetical Commentary (Eng. Trans.).
[844] Alford’s Greek Testament .
[845] T. C. Edwards’ Commentary on the First Ep. to the Corinthians . 2
[846] John Chrysostom’s Homili ( 407).
[847] imperative mood.
[848] J. B. Lightfoot’s (posthumous) Notes on Epp. of St. Paul (1895).
[849] synonym, synonymous.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
1 Corinthians
THE FESTAL LIFE
1Co 5:8
There had been hideous immorality in the Corinthian Church. Paul had struck at it with heat and force, sternly commanding the exclusion of the sinner. He did so on the ground of the diabolical power of infection possessed by evil, and illustrated that by the very obvious metaphor of leaven, a morsel of which, as he says, ‘will leaven the whole lump,’ or, as we say, ‘batch.’ But the word ‘leaven’ drew up from the depths of his memory a host of sacred associations connected with the Jewish Passover. He remembered the sedulous hunting in every Jewish house for every scrap of leavened matter; the slaying of the Paschal Lamb, and the following feast. Carried away by these associations, he forgets the sin in the Corinthian Church for a moment, and turns to set forth, in the words of the text, a very deep and penetrating view of what the Christian life is, how it is sustained, and what it demands. ‘Wherefore,’ says he, ‘let us keep the feast . . . with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.’ That ‘wherefore’ takes us back to the words before it, And what are these? ‘Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us’; therefore-because of that sacrifice, to us is granted the power, and on us is laid imperatively the obligation, to make life a festival and to purge ourselves. Now, in the notion of a feast, there are two things included-joy and plentiful sustenance. So there are three points here, which I have already indicated-what the Christian life is, a festival; on what it is sustained, the Paschal Sacrifice; what it demands, scrupulous purging out of the old leaven.
I. The Christian life ought to be a continual festival.
But you say, ‘Ah! it is all very well to call it so; but in the first place, continual joy is impossible in the presence of the difficulties, and often sadnesses, that meet us on our life’s path; and, in the second place, it is folly to tell us to pump up emotions, or to ignore the occasions for much heaviness and sorrow of heart.’ True; but, still, it is possible to cultivate such a temper as makes life habitually joyful. We can choose the aspect under which we by preference and habitually regard our lives. All emotion follows upon a preceding thought, or sensible experience, and we can pick the objects of our thoughts, and determine what aspect of our lives to look at most.
The sky is often piled with stormy, heaped-up masses of blackness, but between them are lakes of calm blue. We can choose whether we look at the clouds or at the blue. These are in the lower ranges; that fills infinite spaces, upwards and out to the horizon. These are transient, eating themselves away even whilst we look, and black and thunderous as they may be, they are there but for a moment-that is perennial. If we are wise, we shall fix our gaze much rather on the blue than on the ugly cloud-rack that hides it, and thus shall minister to ourselves occasions for the noble kind of joy which is not noisy and boisterous, ‘like the crackling of thorns under a pot,’ and does not foam itself away by its very ebullience, but is calm like the grounds of it; still, like the heaven to which it looks; eternal, like the God on whom it is fastened. If we would only steadfastly remember that the one source of worthy and enduring joy is God Himself, and listen to the command, ‘Rejoice in the Lord,’ we should find it possible to ‘rejoice always.’ For that thought of Him, His sufficiency, His nearness, His encompassing presence, His prospering eye, His aiding hand, His gentle consolation, His enabling help will take the sting out of even the bitterest of our sorrows, and will brace us to sustain the heaviest, otherwise crushing burdens, and greatly to ‘rejoice, though now for a season we are in heaviness through manifold temptations.’ The Gulf Stream rushes into the northern hemisphere, melts the icebergs and warms the Polar seas, and so the joy of the Lord, if we set it before us as we can and should do, will minister to us a gladness which will make our lives a perpetual feast.
But there is another thing that we can do; that is, we can clearly recognise the occasions for sorrow in our experience, and yet interpret them by the truths of the Christian faith. That is to say, we can think of them, not so much as they tend to make us sad or glad, but as they tend to make us more assured of our possession of, more ardent in our love towards, and more submissive in our attitude to, the all-ordering Love which is God. Brethren, if we thought of life, and all its incidents, even when these are darkest and most threatening, as being what it and they indeed are, His training of us into capacity for fuller blessedness, because fuller possession of Himself, we should be less startled at the commandment, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always,’ and should feel that it was possible, though the figtree did not blossom, and there was no fruit in the vine, though the flocks were cut off from the pastures, and the herds from the stall, yet to rejoice in the God of our salvation. Rightly understood and pondered on, all the darkest passages of life are but like the cloud whose blackness determines the brightness of the rainbow on its front. Rightly understood and reflected on, these will teach us that the paradoxical commandment, ‘Count it all joy that ye fall into divers temptations,’ is, after all, the voice of true wisdom speaking at the dictation of a clear-eyed faith.
This text, since it is a commandment, implies that obedience to it, and therefore the realisation of this continual festal aspect of life, is very largely in our own power. Dispositions differ, some of us are constitutionally inclined to look at the blacker, and some at the brighter, side of our experiences. But our Christianity is worth little unless it can modify, and to some extent change, our natural tendencies. The joy of the Lord being our strength, the cultivation of joy in the Lord is largely our duty. Christian people do not sufficiently recognise that it is as incumbent on them to seek after this continual fountain of calm and heavenly joy flowing through their lives, as it is to cultivate some of the more recognised virtues and graces of Christian conduct and character.
Secondly, we have here-
II. The Christian life is a continual feeding on a sacrifice.
But whilst the definite statement which precedes my text that Christ is ‘our Passover,’ and ‘sacrificed for us’ as such, is unique in Paul’s writings, the thought to which it gives clear and crystallised expression runs through the whole of the New Testament. It underlies the Lord’s Supper. Did you ever think of how great was the self-assertion of Jesus Christ when He laid His hand on that sacredest of Jewish rites, which had been established, as the words of the institution of it say, to be ‘a perpetual memorial through all generations,’ brushed it on one side, and in effect, said: ‘You do not need to remember the Passover any more. I am the true Paschal Lamb, whose blood sprinkled on the doorposts averts the sword of the destroying Angel, whose flesh, partaken of, gives immortal life. Remember Me, and this do in remembrance of Me.’ The Lord’s Supper witnesses that Jesus thought Himself to be what Paul tells the Corinthians that He is, even our Passover, sacrificed for us. But the point to be observed is this, that just as in that ancient ritual, the lamb slain became the food of the Israelites, so with us the Christ who has died is to be the sustenance of our souls, and of our Christian life. ‘Therefore let us keep the feast.’
Feed upon Him; that is the essential central requirement for all Christian life, and what does feeding on Him mean? ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’ said the Jews, and the answer is plain now, though so obscure then. The flesh which He gave for the life of the world in His death, must by us be taken for the very nourishment of our souls, by the simple act of faith in Him. That is the feeding which brings not only sustenance but life. Christ’s death for us is the basis, but it is only the basis, of Christ’s living in us, and His death for me is of no use at all to me unless He that died for me lives in me. We feed on Him by faith, which not only trusts to the Sacrifice as atoning for sin, but feeds on it as communicating and sustaining eternal life-’Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us, wherefore let us keep the Feast.’
Again, we keep the feast when our minds feed upon Christ by contemplation of what He is, what He has done, what He is doing, what He will do; when we take Him as ‘the Master-light of all our seeing,’ and in Him, His words and works, His Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, Session as Sovereign at the right hand of God, find the perfect revelation of what God is, the perfect discovery of what man is, the perfect disclosure of what sin is, the perfect prophecy of what man may become, the Light of light, the answer to every question that our spirits can put about the loftiest verities of God and man, the universe and the future. We feed on Christ when, with lowly submission, we habitually subject thoughts, purposes, desires, to His authority, and when we let His will flow into, and make plastic and supple, our wills. We nourish our wills by submitting them to Jesus, and we feed on Him when we not only say ‘Lord! Lord!’ but when we do the things that He says. We feed on Christ, when we let His great, sacred, all-wise, all-giving, all satisfying love flow into our restless hearts and make them still, enter into our vagrant affections and fix them on Himself. Thus when mind and conscience and will and heart all turn to Jesus, and in Him find their sustenance, we shall be filled with the feast of fat things which He has prepared for all people. With that bread we shall be satisfied, and with it only, for the husks of the swine are no food for the Father’s son, and we ‘spend our money for that which is not bread, and our labour for that which satisfieth not,’ if we look anywhere else than to the Paschal Lamb slain for us for the food of our souls.
III. The Christian life is a continual purging out of the old leaven.
But let us remember that absolute cleansing from all sin is not essential, in order to have real participation in Jesus Christ. The Jew had to take every scrap of leaven out of his house before he began the Passover. If that were the condition for us, alas! for us all; but the effort after purity, though it has not entirely attained its aim, is enough. Sin abhorred does not prevent a man from participating in the Bread that came down from heaven.
Then observe, too, that for this power to cleanse ourselves, we must have had some participation in Christ, by which there is given to us that new life that conquers evil. In the words immediately preceding my text, the Apostle bases his injunction to purge out the old leaven on the fact that ‘ye are unleavened.’ Ideally, in so far as the power possessed by them was concerned, these Corinthians were unleavened, even whilst they were bid to purge out the leaven. That is to say, be what you are; realise your ideal, utilise the power you possess, and since by your faith there has been given to you a new life that can conquer all corruption and sin, see that you use the life that is given. Purge out the old leaven because ye are unleavened.
One last word-this stringent exhortation, which makes Christian effort after absolute purity a Christian duty, and the condition of participation in the Paschal Lamb, is based upon that thought to which I have already referred, of the diabolical power of infection which Evil possesses. Either you must cast it out, or it will choke the better thing in you. It spreads and grows, and propagates itself, and works underground through and through the whole mass. A water-weed got into some of our canals years ago, and it has all but choked some of them. The slime on a pond spreads its green mantle over the whole surface with rapidity. If we do not eject Evil it will eject the good from us. Use the implanted power to cast out this creeping, advancing evil. Sometimes a wine-grower has gone into his cellars, and found in a cask no wine, but a monstrous fungus into which all the wine had, in the darkness, passed unnoticed. I fear some Christian people, though they do not know it, have something like that going on in them.
It is possible for us all to keep this perpetual festival. To live in, on, for, Jesus Christ will give us victory over enemies, burdens, sorrows, sins. We may, if we will, dwell in a calm zone where no tempests rage, hear a perpetual strain of sweet music persisting through thunder peals of sorrow and suffering, and find a table spread for us in the presence of our enemies, at which we shall renew our strength for conflict, and whence we shall rise to fight the good fight a little longer, till we sit with Him at His table in His Kingdom, and ‘eat, and live for ever.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Therefore = So then.
keep the feast. Greek. heortazo. Only here. He means, the Passover being past, we are living in the days of unleavened bread. Figure of speech Allegory. App-6. Psa 89:15
not. App-105.
with. Greek. en, as in 1Co 4:21.
neither. Greek. mede.
malice . . . wickedness. Greek. kakia . . . poneria. App-128.
sincerity. Greek. eilikrineia. Elsewhere, 2Co 1:12; 2Co 2:17.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
1Co 5:8. , let us keep the feast) The Vulgate has epulemur, let us feast: an apposite expression.-, with the old) of Judaism and heathenism. These constitute the genus.- ) These constitute the species: is vice, the reverse of virtue, and that too, virtue unmixed, or in sincerity, . is in those, who strenuously retain and defend , and is opposed, , to the truth. Ammonius writes thus: , , he who is disposed TO DO evil;[40] comp. 1Co 5:13. Sincerity takes care not to allow evil to be mixed up with good; truth, not to allow evil to be mistaken for good.
[40] is the evil habit of the mind: , the outcoming of the same. Calvin defines , animi pravitas, on Eph 4:32. is . See Trench, Syr. Gr. Text.-ED.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Co 5:8
1Co 5:8
wherefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven,-Since Christ is our passover, sanctified for us, let us keep the feast perpetually. That is, live holily. The whole life of the Christian should be a joyous and pure feast of services to God in sincerity and truth, none of the old leaven of heathenism being retained in the body, the church. [To the Christian, Christ is a perpetual sacrifice, an ever-present paschal Lamb, demanding and enforcing constant vigilance and unceasing cleanliness. The individual must put away every sinful habit of the old life. The church must purge itself of all whose lives are sources of corruption.] neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness,-[Malice is ill will in the mind; wickedness is ill will expressed in action.]
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity-[The word sincere sets forth before the mind the material image from which the spiritual quality takes its name. The honey free from the smallest particle of wax, pure and transparent. The word used here conveys a similar idea. It is derived from the custom of judging the purity of liquids or the texture of cloths by holding them between the eye and the sun. What is here set forth as necessary to the Christian character is a quality which can stand this extreme test, and does not need to be seen only in an artificial light. It brings before us a pure transparent sincerity which is genuine; and acceptance of Christ which is real, and which is rich in real results.] and truth.-[This means far more than veracity. In its subjective sense, it means the inward state which answers to truth; fullness, straightforwardness, integrity of purpose; that moral and spiritual condition which conforms to the law and character of God. All corresponds to an unsullied, uncontaminated, and genuine Christian character.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
let: Exo 12:15, Exo 13:6, Lev 23:6, Num 28:16, Num 28:17, Deu 16:16, Isa 25:6
feast: or, holy day, Psa 42:4, Isa 30:29
not: 1Co 5:1, 1Co 5:6, 1Co 6:9-11, Deu 16:3, 2Co 12:21, Eph 4:17-22, 1Pe 4:2
neither: 1Co 3:3, Mat 16:6, Mat 16:12, Mat 26:4, Mat 26:5, Mar 8:15, Luk 12:1, Joh 18:28-30, 2Co 12:20, 1Pe 2:1, 1Pe 2:2
but: Jos 24:14, Psa 32:2, Joh 1:47, 2Co 1:12, 2Co 8:8, Eph 6:24, 1Jo 3:18-21
Reciprocal: Gen 19:3 – unleavened Gen 22:13 – in the Exo 5:1 – a feast Exo 10:9 – a feast Exo 12:14 – by an ordinance Exo 12:19 – Seven Exo 13:3 – there Exo 23:15 – the feast Exo 32:5 – a feast Exo 34:25 – leaven Lev 2:4 – the oven Lev 6:16 – unleavened Lev 23:5 – General Num 9:2 – his appointed Num 9:7 – we may not offer 1Sa 9:12 – sacrifice 2Ch 30:1 – to keep 2Ch 30:21 – the feast 2Ch 35:17 – the feast Ezr 6:22 – the feast Psa 35:16 – hypocritical Pro 9:2 – killed Eze 45:17 – he shall prepare Eze 45:21 – ye shall Mat 22:4 – Behold Mar 14:12 – killed Luk 22:1 – General Luk 22:16 – until Act 12:3 – Then Act 20:6 – the days Rom 12:1 – a living 1Co 11:24 – eat Eph 4:31 – with Heb 13:10 – an altar 1Pe 1:19 – as
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE FEAST OF JOY
Therefore let us keep the feast.
1Co 5:8
Why ought we to be happy in the resurrection of Christ? What are some of the true fountains of His resurrection?
I. We rejoice simply in the thought that our Lord is happy.Forty days after this day He had yet to serve on this earth before He ascended to His glory; but from the moment of His rising on this the Easter morning, neither His body, nor His mind, appear to have been subject to, or even capable of pain, so true were the words He said before He diedeven of His sufferingIt is finished! Now in proportion as our sympathy is with Him, our heart will always make the tone of our mind.
II. Truth has been vindicated; and, to a well-ordered mind, it is a great satisfaction to see any truth thoroughly established. The resurrection of Christ must stand or fall, in point of accuracy, on revelation. In the Old Testament it is involved in the types, and declared in the writings of the prophets. Our Lords own teaching sometimes clearly, sometimes dimly, showed it; but always it was the real mainspring of our Lords whole life. Besides, there is a most carefully compiled testimony and a perfect demonstration that now is Christ risen from the dead. The Bible is verified, and the whole truth of Christianity is placed beyond the reach of a doubt or a contradiction.
III. The Resurrection was the acknowledgment on the part of the Father that He accepted the material sacrifice of His dear Son.Jesus could not have risen without the Father, and equally the Father could not have raised Him unless He had been satisfied with the accomplishment of the great undertaking He came to this earth to perform.
IV. By this stupendous miracle God showed how great honour He puts upon the body.Some Christians, wishing to avoid the opposite extreme into which they once ran, now disparage the body too much. But what is this body? The mirror, the broken mirror indeed, but still the mirror of God, to be recast presently into a perfect being, the counterpart of the form of Jesus, not only as He walked this earth, but as He is now, this moment, in glory.
V. Once more, the resurrection of Christ is an allegory.It is an allegory of that spiritual change which now takes place in the soul to prepare and make it capable of the better resurrection presently.
Illustration
Therefore let us keep the feast; let us keep the feast in the deep humility of a pardoned sinners happy love. A feast of high thoughts and fond affections; a feast of joys richer than wine; a feast of all Gods good things; a feast of forgiveness of all enemies and fellowship with all Gods children; a feast of alms-giving to the poor; a feast of holy sacramental elements.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
1Co 5:8. The old leaven refers to the case of fornication that had been working in the lump or congregation. All other leaven likewise was to be kept out of the body. In naming the various kinds of leaven, Paul includes malice which was not present in the case of the fornicator as far as there is any indication. This denotes that the apostle is extending the illustration so as to apply to the entire service of Christ. The feast may be said to include all of the activities of the life that Christians are to live under Christ; it is all a rich feast. The passover of Christ’s body and blood was consummated but once, it is true, as far as the physical ceremony was concerned, but the spiritual partaking thereof is to be continuous. It will be well at this place to corroborate the idea just set forth by quoting from 1Jn 1:7 : “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.” This walking in the light is equivalent to maintaining a condition described in our present verse as unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Co 5:8. therefore let us keep the feastkeep festival as the word signifies. As the Passover meal was designed to strengthen the Israelites for their wilderness journey, so is this for ours heavenward. Theirs was an annual festival; ours is the continuous, uninterrupted, glad festival-keeping of a redeemed and consecrated life. But just as theirs had to be celebrated with unleavened bread, so must ours be free from corrupt admixtures.
not with old leavenforgetting that we have been purged from our old sins (2Pe 1:9).
neither with the leaven of malice and wickednessnot their old sins, but such corrupt elements as are apt to spring up in Christian communities, creeping in under new and subtle forms. (This seems better than taking both clauses as saying the same thing in different forms.)
but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truthwith entire consistency of character and conduct.
Note.What a sublime idea does this give of the Christian life, as a lifelong Paschal celebration of our eternal redemption by the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus! Is it necessary to add that, save on the strict vicarious principle of that death, all such allusions would either be unintelligible or would certainly be misleading? As to the Lords Supper, though it certainly embodies, in their highest and simplest form, all the highest Paschal ideas, there is no reason to think that there is here any express reference to that ordinance.[1]
[1] Bengels hint, as to the bearing of this statement on the Romish doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass, has something in itnamely, that if the apostle had taught that doctrine, he would naturally have used the present tense, and not the aorist, as he does here (was sacrificed); and all the more as the whole strain of his argument would have suggested and been strengthened by the use of the present tense.
So much for this peculiar case of impurity. But since the injunction to keep aloof from this offender might be misunderstood, as applying equally to all the unholy, the apostle now draws a sharp distinction between those within and those without the Church; instructing them, that while keeping no company at all with the former, they were not with the latter to decline the ordinary intercourses and courtesies of life.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Vv. 8. The Christian’s Paschal feast does not last a week, but all his life. In an admirable discourse Chrysostom has developed this idea: For the true Christian, it is always Easter, always Pentecost, always Christmas. Such is the sense in which the apostle exhorts the Corinthians to keep the feast.
The words, not with old leaven, signify, in accordance with what precedes: not by persisting in the corrupt dispositions of the old man.
The particle , nor any more, according to Edwards, does not introduce an additional thought, but only the explanation of the preceding allegorical phrase. I do not think this meaning possible. The seems to me intended to bring out a special feature in the general idea in direct connection with present circumstances; so, or nearly so, de Wette, Rckert, Meyer, etc. The word denotes rather corruption of the nature or state, and the word , deliberate malice of the will. In the context, the first of these terms relates to a corrupt state of the soul, which does not allow it to be indignant against evil, but leaves it to act toward it with lax toleration; the second goes further: it denotes active connivance and protection. These two vices, both proceeding from the leaven of the old nature, had been prominently manifested in the Church’s conduct towards the incestuous person. With these dispositions Paul contrasts those which should characterize the renewing of the purified mass. The two complements and are, like the two preceding, genitives of apposition: unleavened bread consisting of… The word , according to the most probable etymology, , to judge by the light of the sun, denotes proved transparency, and so the purity of a heart perfectly sincere before God, to which all sympathy with evil is completely foreign. This pure crystal is the opposite of , the corrupted nature.
The second term, truth, , denotes righteousness in its active form, inflexible firmness, constancy in maintaining all that is revealed to the conscience as good, and consequently in struggling against evil without making the smallest compromise; it is the opposite of . Hofmann has taken up the unfortunate ideaand he has been followed by Heinriciof explaining the charge of malice contained in this verse by the misunderstanding, to some extent voluntary, on the part of the Corinthians, which Paul now proceeds to rectify. The apostle does not condescend to such petty recriminations.
Must it be concluded from these verses that the apostle wrote this letter at the time of the Passover? The figures used do not, as we have seen, contain anything which does not admit of explanation independently of all connection with the actual celebration of the Passover. Yet it is certain, that if we hold this feast and the composition of our letter to have been simultaneous, the choice of the figures, which come on us somewhat abruptly, is more naturally explained. This induction is confirmed by 1Co 16:8 : I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost. And as Act 20:6 shows that St. Paul, as well as the Churches founded by him, observed the Passover and celebrated it at the same time as the Jews, we shall not assuredly be going beyond his thought if we find in the words, Let us keep the feast, an allusion to that which was being celebrated at the time in the Churches.
A second question often discussed is the following: May the words, Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed, be regarded as a testimony in favour of John’s narrative, according to which Jesus died on the day (14th Nisan) when the Paschal lamb was sacrificed, and not, as it has been thought necessary to conclude from the synoptics, on the afternoon of the 15th Nisan? It seems to me that the name Paschal lamb, given to Jesus by St. Paul, does not depend in the least on the day or hour when He died. His relation to the Paschal lamb lies in the essence of things, and does not depend on a chronological coincidence. But there is one aspect in which Paul’s words cannot be well understood, as it appears to me, except from that point of view which the narrative of John brings into light. The feast of unleavened bread began on the 14th in the evening, after the slaying of the lamb. Now this relation, which forms the basis of our passage, would be disturbed if Jesus, in Paul’s view, did not die till the afternoon of the 15th, after the feast of unleavened bread had already lasted for a whole day.
After pointing out to the Church what it should have done, the apostle gives it to understand the reason why it has not done so: it is because the old leaven has regained the upper hand in its moral life, and that it requires to undergo a complete renovation. This said, the subject of discipline is finished; if Pauls adds a few more observations, it is to dissipate a misunderstanding arising from a passage of his on the subject in a letter which he had previously addressed to them.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
wherefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. [Verses 6-8 form an enlargement of verse 2. The reference to the passover was probably suggested by the season of the year (1Co 16:8), and was very apropos. Leaven is a type of evil, illustrating the hidden constant way in which it spreads. To the Jew it was a symbol of the corruption of Egypt, and he was directed just before the passover to search for it diligently in every part of his house, and remove it (Exo 12:15). But to the Christian Christ is a perpetual sacrifice, an ever-present paschal Lamb, demanding and enforcing constant vigilance and unceasing cleanliness. The individual must put away every sinful habit of the old life. The church must purge itself of all whose lives are sources of corruption.]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
8. Therefore let us not feast on the old leaven, nor the leaven of sin and iniquity, but on the unleavened bread of purity and truth. The word here which I translate purity the E.V. having sincerity, which is from the Latin sine, without, and cera, wax, meaning strained honey, which is a current Old Testament definition of sanctification, as you find a bee-hive in conversion, but in sanctification get all the wax, comb, trash and dead bees strained out, so that you feast on the pure, strained honey in the sanctified experience is eilikrinia, from eile, a sunbeam, and krino, to judge. Hence it derived its signification from the custom of the ancients to expose a thing to the bright sunbeams shining through it, and see whether there was any impurity in it; e. g., when a little boy I have often been interested in looking at the bright beams of the morning sun shining in through the chinks of our log cottage, and revealing vast clouds of dust in the room, which were only visible where the solar rays interpenetrated. The application in the gracious economy of the symbol is transcendently forcible; i. e., that God proposes to make my heart so clean that when illuminated by the great Sun of Righteousness, the Omniscient Eye will see no impurity in it. You can spread yourself preaching Christian purity, and have no fear of putting it too strong, since Paul, inspired by the Holy Ghost, has already gone ahead of anything you can think or say.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
5:8 Therefore let us keep the {g} feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened [bread] of sincerity and truth.
(g) Let us lead our whole life as it were a continual feast, honestly and uprightly.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The feast of Unleavened Bread began the day after Passover. The Jews regarded both Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread as one festival (cf. Exo 23:15; Exo 34:18; Deu 16:6). As believers whose Pascal Lamb had died, it was necessary that the Corinthians keep celebrating the feast and worshipping God free of leaven that symbolically represented sin. The old leaven probably refers to the sins that marked the Corinthians before their conversion. Malice and wickedness probably stand for all sins of motive and action. Sincerity and truth are the proper motive and action with which we should worship God. This verse constitutes a summary exhortation.