# 1 Cor 5:7 and leaven



## ReformedWretch (Feb 3, 2005)

1 Cor 5:7 Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 

What would we say to anyone who would use this passage about us being "unleavened" to stand against Postmill beliefs about us being the leaven in the parables of the Kingdom?

NOTE: I am NOT discussing this with anyone! I just read this verse and this question came to me.

Thanks!


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## Contra_Mundum (Feb 3, 2005)

Leaven is an "agent of influence." Just focusing on the "symbol" of leaven in any passage is to run the risk of missing the point of that passage. That's what's wrong with the leaven=sin/evil concept. In Matthew 13, the Kingdom of God itself, and by extension Kingdom citizenry, is identified as a agent of influence in the world. The Passover associations from Exodus, and picked up by Paul in 1 Corinthians, were meant to symbolize the radical nature of deliverance from the old life. The Israelites were to get rid of all the "influence" of Egypt, not carrying any of it with them as they departed, as they were _saved_ out of their bondage. The new life of freedom was to have its own untainted influence on them. The Israelites were not expected to live off unleavened bread perpetually. New leaven would be procured. Post-passover leaven was reintroduced to the house not as _sin,_ but as new influences. 

The Passover was repeated annually. It represented on an ongoing basis the physical salvation of the nation, which in turn represented the necessity of spiritual salvtion. It also represented the ongoing responsibility of the people to self-examination. Once a year at Passover time (kinda like new-year's resolutions) Israel purged out the old leaven. They conducted (or should have) a spiritual inventory. They were to purge out all the "Egyptian influences" in their lives. Then they would be like a "new lump." The traditional bread-making and leavening process is actually one, long baking event, lasting sometimes for years. A bit of the dough is saved after every baking and this "starter" is kneaded into the next time to the new batch of dough. The new batch really is the old batch.

But a "new lump" has no starter in it. It is unleavened. The maid is hungry. She makes some dough. But she has no yeast for it, no starter. Unless she delays, starving, until she purchases some yeast, or (more likely) until she has grown some in a culture, she must make her first loaves as unleavened. Such is the Paschal symbolism, for Christ our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed.


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## ReformedWretch (Feb 3, 2005)

Thanks Bruce!

Do you have anything to say in regard to the Kingdom parables when some try and argue that the birds who rest in the tree being evil?


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## Contra_Mundum (Feb 3, 2005)

Adam,
That kind of interpretation is sloppy and simplistic, and we should shun it. Such interpreters take the one reference to birds in the parable of the sower and "globalize" it to the rest of the parables, and even to the whole Bible. This doesn't require much thought, its even anti-thoughtful. It is taking pride and rejoicing in simplicity.

Matt. 13:32 is almost certainly an allusion to Ez 17:23. Other verses like it in the OT use the symbolism of a tree as a place of sustenance and refuge.



> 22 Thus says the Lord Jehovah, "I will also take a sprig from the lofty top of the cedar and set it out; I will pluck from the topmost of its young twigs a tender one and I will plant it on a high and lofty mountain.
> 23 "On the high mountain of Israel I will plant it, that it may bring forth boughs and bear fruit and become a stately cedar. And birds of every kind will nest under it; they will nest in the shade of its branches.
> 24 "All the trees of the field will know that I am Jehovah; I bring down the high tree, exalt the low tree, dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I am Jehovah; I have spoken, and I will perform it."



[Edited on 2-3-2005 by Contra_Mundum]


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## ReformedWretch (Feb 3, 2005)

Great Bruce! I appreciate that. I have read several postmill books and I don't recall the Ez 17:23 refrence.

I appreciate it.


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