The Death Part 3.1

 •  4 min. read  •  grade level: 8
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1. "Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us." (1 Cor. 5:77Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: (1 Corinthians 5:7).)
There is much worthy of observation in this context. Every believer, as we see from chapter 8 of the Epistle to the Romans, has in him the carnal mind which is enmity against God, yet power withal provided for him to walk contrary to it; for he knows that though this be so, yet he has also the spirit of life in Christ Jesus in him, and that God estimates him according to this-one with Jesus, and free from all condemnation through the death of the Lord upon the cross vicariously for the sin of the church. But these Corinthians not only had this evil in them, but had been walking according to it; and we find that fornication (and that of a very offensive kind) had been allowed. It is about the correcting the working of this leaven that Paul is here writing: " Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened." Observe they had leaven in principle in them in nature, and this leaven moreover, had been allowed to work, and therefore the apostle was rebuking them: and yet he says, " as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us." Were they, then, at one and the same time, leavened and unleavened? Yes, in two different ways. In Christ they were, as we all (who are Christians) are, unleavened, for Christ our passover is sacrificed for us. This sacrifice has made atonement for the sin in us; and in His Person we find full unhindered access to God, to whose eye the principle of leaven in us is not counted as sin, so long as it be not allowed to work. In Christ they were unleavened; but this very thing brought with it the claim and responsibility to purge out the working of the old leaven. This they had neglected to do, and so in themselves not only they contained leaven, but had leaven working. The principle they could not purge out; the working they could, and were bound moreover to do. There were many offerings of the old sanctuary which typified this state in the church, such as loaves having leaven but baked; as having leaven, unfit to be offered up to God; yet as being baked leaven, in a state not able to work. Now, as it was the death of the lamb in the passover which was the sign for the leaven to be put out of the house, as it were, so truly, antitypically, it was the death of the Lord which did put the leaven out in principle, and as before God, from the church. "Ye are unleavened, for Christ our passover is sacrificed for us." And this, dear brethren, is universally the way of our God in teaching us obedience. You have a spiritual privilege in Christ, which requires you to act in practice in this way and that way. Oh! this is a loving way, in which He leads us on into the perfect liberty of His service. May we all then keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. A little, and not a grievous commandment is this, if we remember in whose house, and at whose cost, the Lamb has been provided, and we have eaten of it! Too poor., and our family truly too little, to provide a lamb, our lot in this matter has been thrown into the hands and house of another, according to the liberty given even to Israel of old. (Ex. 3:44And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. (Exodus 3:4).) Our God has provided Himself a Lamb-truly one without spot and blemish-and in His house have we fed upon that Lamb. The door into this holiest is by a new and living way consecrated for us, even the rent veil of Jesus' flesh. Surely if in spirit, and by faith within the veil, feeding in blissful security in God's house (as one with Jesus) upon Him, as the Lamb slain and alive again for evermore, it is a little thing, in the ample and rich provision there found, to put away our own poor, stale, defiled, and defiling provender. And if we feel there is a little self-renunciation in so doing, what is it more than the children of this world do daily, in the hope of regaining health of body-giving up the food they love for, or exchanging it with, bitter, nauseous medicines? May we be wise in our generation, as they in theirs.