(1Cor 5:6b-8)

1Corinthians 5:6 Do you not know that a little leaven causes the whole dough to ferment?

1Corinthians 5:7 Take away the old leaven, that ye may be new dough, for ye are unleavened. And indeed Christ, our Passover, was immolated!

1Corinthians 5:8 Let us therefore celebrate the feast not with old leaven, nor with leaven of malice and perverseness, but with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Beware because a little leaven, that is, opening a chink to evil, is like opening a dam and you are swept away: a little leaven makes the whole dough ferment! Sin is like leaven. Once you put it in the holy dough of the community, little by little it manages to ferment it all, that is, to turn it into dough of sin and no longer of holiness and truth. This is the true power of sin. Not only does it succeed in ruining a soul, but a ruined soul succeeds in ruining other souls in a contagious process.

The old leaven must be removed because we are a new dough, a dough that must not be leavened, we are unleavened dough. The reference is to the Passover celebration with the immolation of the lamb in memory of the Exodus, and the unleavened breads that were eaten on that occasion. The lamb could only be eaten with unleavened bread. On that night, everything that belonged to the past, to the old world, had to disappear from the house. A new life had to begin, towards a new future, towards a new country.

Paul says: Take away the old leaven, that is, take away that wrong logic that makes you belong to the world and no longer belong to Christ. Christ, our Passover, has been immolated! You are unleavened. In the sense that you do not have your own leaven, and if you did have it you belong to the world, because in baptism the old leaven was taken out of the way, we were regenerated in Jesus Christ and in him we were made new dough, unleavened, without the leaven of sin. This is now our reality.

We must eat the Paschal Lamb, and our Paschal Lamb is Jesus Christ who has already been immolated, he is down on the table. How do we eat it? With new dough, but the new dough is us, so we must eat it as new dough, we cannot eat it as dough leavened by sin. This is why we must remove sin, that is, the old leaven, from our hearts. Practically Paul points out that Christ, our Passover, has already been sacrificed: the feast has begun, yet the old leaven is still in the house - what a contradiction!

To guard against the danger of being corrupted, the church must do what was done in every Israelite home on the eve of the Passover. One would scrupulously dispose of all bread with leaven. The old leaven of which the church must be cleansed is the corrupting principle of the old man. Let us remember that our paschal lamb, Jesus Christ, has already been immolated once, and his immolation is not repeated, and therefore the Easter we celebrate always lasts, and therefore we must always be without leaven. The Christian life can be compared to a continuous Easter feast (the "we celebrate" in v. 8 is present, indicating a continuous action in time). If the Christian life is compared to a continuous Easter; then believers must continually remove leaven from their lives and community.

If we do not eat Christ, we cannot leave the land of bondage. We remain prisoners of our sin. If we cannot eat Him, Christ does not serve our life. If Christ does not serve us, what use are we as Christians? To nothing.

For Paul there are three ways of eating Christ, of celebrating our Passover supper with Him. The first way is to celebrate it with old leaven, that is, in a state of sin. This way is not according to God. This way does not allow us to eat Easter. If we eat it, it becomes a cause of condemnation for us. It is a grave sin to eat Christ, our Passover, with old leaven, that is, with grave sin in our hearts, without repentance, without the will to abandon this leaven, without having decided to get rid of it.

The second way is to celebrate it with leaven of malice and wickedness. Malice and wickedness are diseases of the heart that does not seek God, that does not desire Him, and yet lives with the gospel. Malice takes the good out of the heart and puts evil in it; the person thinks, wants, and judges everything according to this criterion of evil with which he lives. This way is also not according to God.

The third way of celebrating it, the right way, is with the unleavening of sincerity and truth. With sincerity and truth in our hearts, we begin that journey that must lead us to the attainment of our spiritual goal, which is the attainment of the kingdom of heaven, in anticipation of the glorious resurrection of our body in Christ, with Christ, and for Christ.

For many, sincerity simply means having on one's lips what is in one's heart, and acting according to these feelings. This sincerity often coexists with sin; the sincere person commits sin openly, without even that modesty which is the sign that a little fear of God still lives in us. This sincerity is deplorable, because it is a sincerity that excuses evil and those who commit it. The sincerity that Paul recommends, on the other hand, is purity of motives, the purity of a sincere heart without the addition of extraneous substances, understood here as sin, which adulterate the pure motives and works of the saints. The sincere life is a life that can stand the closest scrutiny, a life whose characteristics are intellectual honesty and moral sincerity.

The ancient Easter was merely the image of a feast far superior in meaning and importance. The sacrifice of the lamb that inaugurated the Passover was a shadow of the only truly effective and eternal sacrifice of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The deliverance from Egypt recalled by the Passover was a figure of the deliverance from the bondage of sin and eternal death, a deliverance procured by Christ for all believers, who through faith in him are now constituted into God's people. The manner of celebrating the Passover (without unleavened bread) was emblematic of the life of thankfulness and holiness that the church must lead.

Let us therefore celebrate the feast, says Paul, the feast of the true passage, of the true exodus, with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

 Argentino Quintavalle, author of the books 

- Revelation - exegetical commentary 

- The Apostle Paul and the Judaizers - Law or Gospel?

Jesus Christ true God and true Man in the Trinitarian mystery

The prophetic discourse of Jesus (Matthew 24-25)

All generations will call me blessed

 Catholics and Protestants compared - In defence of the faith

 The Church and Israel according to St Paul - Romans 9-11

(Buyable on Amazon)