A Few Thoughts on Unleavened Bread in Our Time
George Christopher Willis
Table of Contents
A Few Thoughts on Unleavened Bread in Our Time
If the Christian hopes to understand the Bible, and God's ways revealed in it, one of the first things he must learn, is that God acts in different ways at different times. This does not mean that God's ways are not always perfect. Surely they are. But what is right and perfect at one time, may be quite wrong at another time. We know this even in our own homes. We get up in the morning, and the father of the home goes to his work, the mother sends the children off to school. This is right and good. But in many places, through God's mercy, on the Lord's Day, this is all changed. The father of the home does not go to work. He does not open his shop or go to the office. The mother does not send the children to school. What was right on one day is quite wrong on another day. Just so is it in God's ways. In the days of Law, God put His people under ordinances and rules. Their approach to God was by external things which they could see and hear and smell. They saw the blood shed. They heard the beautiful music of a multitude of instruments. They smelled the sweet incense going up to God. Every minute detail was ordered and arranged by God Himself. Even in the New Testament the Spirit of God reminds us that God said of these external things: "See, saith He, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount." (Heb. 8:5.)This was because these external things were 'shadows' of heavenly things.
But now all is changed. The external things have been replaced by the heavenly things. That is why in the Book of Hebrews, which so clearly points this out, we find the word "better" used over and over again. Now we have a "better hope" (7:19); a "better covenant" and "better promises" (8:6). But you count all the "better things" (6:9) for yourself. These better things are not external things we touch, taste and handle: but they are heavenly things that can only be known by faith. So the Spirit of God says: "If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances, ( touch not; taste not; handle not; which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honor to the satisfying of the flesh." (Col. 2:20-23) Ordinances and rules were right and proper, they were God's own order, in the days of the Law: but now in the day of Grace, God, Himself has changed this: and so He asks: "Why are ye subject to ordinances?" And to be free from ordinances is right and proper now: and it is wrong and displeasing to God to again put ourselves under such rules and ordinances. Another has said truly: "I deny that the idea of obedience to an ordinance belongs to the Christian system. I recognize that Christ has established baptism and the Lord's Supper, but obedience to an ordinance is what has been destroyed as principles by the cross. (J. N. Darby).
But the heart of man loves rules and ordinances and laws. Man thinks that to be under law is the only possible way to live to God: and so we find most people, even most true Christians, are ever seeking to put themselves and others under this bondage from which God has set us free. True Christians will tell us that they know we are justified by faith in Christ alone: but that now we must have the law as the rule of life. It was just this that made the Apostle so indignant with the Galatians, and he exclaims: "Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Gal. 3:3). These rules and regulations and ordinances of which men are so fond in our day, are nothing more than fleshly things, "satisfying to the flesh". (Col. 2:23). The people who put themselves, and seek to put others, under them, think they are a mark of humility and devotedness: on the contrary, they are a mark of ignorance of God's ways, a lack of faith and intelligence in His Word, a giving up of Grace and a return to the old ordinances that have been done away by the cross.
The present question that has arisen as to the use of leavened or unleavened bread: fermented wine or grape juice: in the Lord's Supper, is, I believe, just another example of again seeking to put the saints under the bondage of ordinances. The Spirit of God sternly warns us: "Foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes." (2 Tim. 2:23). And these questions have gendered strifes, and have turned the eyes of the saints away from Christ, and from heavenly things, to external things: with their command, Taste not Leavened Bread, or, Touch only Leavened Bread. I sadly fear "An enemy hath done this." I doubt not for a moment the earnestness and sincerity of the saints who are pressing these things: but I also doubt not they are "foolish and unlearned questions." If the Scriptures clearly support the claims of these dear brethren, we are bound to bow to them; but if they do not, it is very sad that they should break the unity of the body, by insisting on what is merely the commandment and doctrine of men.
Let us, with God's help, seek to see what the Scriptures teach about these matters. I believe anyone reading the Old and New Testaments with care must be impressed with the difference, and must see that the New Testament has few clear rules and regulations about matters which you or I, had we been writing it, would have expressed ourselves clearly and strongly. We have examples we may follow. The Spirit tells us that the disciples in the early days broke bread on the First Day of the week: but there is no command that we should so do. Wine was probably used at the supper when the Lord instituted the remembrance of Himself: but how striking that the Scripture does not say so: and as far as I know never once suggests that wine must be used. We find "the fruit of the vine", or, "the cup", but never "wine". To me that is one of the most beautiful examples of the Grace and Wisdom of God. He would not put us under an ordinance in the matter: He would not make an external ordinance of this lovely remembrance of Himself. I have been in parts of China where it would have been quite impossible to remember the Lord at all, had the Scripture taught we must use wine. But this is man's teaching, not God's, The Lord knew all this, and His Grace and Wisdom provided what all could have. Personally, I like to see wine used when it is obtainable, but if otherwise, I am perfectly free, according to the Word of God, to remember the Lord's death with grape juice, or even the juice of boiled raisins, and I have not a doubt the Lord accepts such as a remembrance of Himself: they both are "the fruit of the vine".
I believe the same thought is true in connection with the loaf. The ordinary Greek word for "bread", or "loaf", is "artos". This is the word always used for the ordinary bread, leavened bread, used in daily life. This is the word always used for the bread used at the Lord's Supper. This word is used in the prayer: "Give us this day our daily bread." We sometimes find this same word "artos" used for unleavened bread, as in Luke 6:4, or Heb. 19:2. Probably the best authority on the meaning of words in the Greek New Testament is Moulton and Milligan's "Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament." This says: "Artos is the common and only word for 'bread' during the period we are concerned with.”
The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, but several hundred years before Christ was born in Bethlehem, it was translated into Greek; and the Spirit of God often uses quotations and words taken from this Greek translation. In it we find a variety of words in use for “Unleavened Bread." In Gen. 19:3, Lot baked "unleavened bread" for the angels. Here the word is only “azumos" meaning "unleavened." In Ex. 12:39, we find "unleavened cakes" at the time of the Passover. Here another word is used with "azumos", together meaning, "Unleavened cakes." In Lev. 2:4, speaking of the Meat Offering, it is "artos azumos": "bread unleavened". In Num. 6:19, (the Law of the Nazarite), still another word is used with "azumos" for "unleavened wafer." So we may see that the Spirit of God had a large variety of words from which He might choose, had He wished to specify that unleavened bread must be used: but He rejects them all, and uses instead the ordinary word for "daily bread.”
It has been said (not by the Holy Spirit) that our Lord used Unleavened Bread for the supper on the night He was betrayed. Let us examine the Scriptures as to this. The Passover lamb was to be killed on the 14th day of the First month “between the evenings" (Ex. 12:6; margin). They tell us that means between 3 and 6 o'clock in the afternoon. I think it is clear that the Feast of Unleavened Bread followed immediately. The 14th Day ended at 6 in the evening, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread began then. See, for example, Lev. 23:5, 6. Mark 14:1 seems to agree with this: "After two days was (the feast) of the Passover, and of unleavened bread." This would intimate that still in New Testament days the Feast of Unleavened Bread, also called the "Feast of the Passover", (John 13:1), followed the killing of the Passover lamb, and then that lamb was eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. We believe our Lord died at 3 o'clock in the afternoon of the 14th day of the first month; just exactly at the time when the Jews began to kill their Passover lambs. When we know how exactly our Lord fulfilled the Old Testaments types and prophecies, this is just what we would expect.
The Scriptures seem to show clearly that our Lord gave His disciples the Lord's Supper on the evening before. That is the evening before the Passover lamb was killed. That means the Feast of Unleavened bread had not begun when our Lord took bread and broke and gave to His disciples, saying: "This is My body." The First day of unleavened bread was observed as a day of rest: "In the first day ye shall have a holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein." (Lev. 23:7). It was kept as a Sabbath. I do not remember it being called a Sabbath in the Old Testament; but I think it is in the New Testament. In Mark 15:42 we read: "It was the preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath." You will remember that the regular sabbath was the seventh day of the week: but the Passover was killed on the 14th day of the first month; so from year to year it might fall on a different day of the week, but the day after the Passover was killed, the First Day of unleavened Bread, was always a sabbath, even though it was not the seventh day of the week. We must remember "sabbath" means "rest." It was a "rest day." And how suitable that the day after the lamb died was a rest day. There could not be any true "rest day" before He died.
The day before this "rest day", or Sabbath, was called the "Preparation day." (Greek "Paraskeuee", spelled in my Greek Testament with a capital "P"). It was the day when preparation was made for the Sabbath to follow, and the seven days of Unleavened Bread.
With these things in mind, please consider the following: The Lord died and was buried on the Preparation Day. See John 19:31.
The Lord washed His disciples' feet, "supper being ended," "before the feast of the passover". (John 13:1, 2).
On the night of the Lord's Supper, when He said to Judas: "That thou doest, do quickly" the others thought He meant him to "buy those things that we have need of against the feast."(John 13:29). If this had been on the Feast of Unleavened Bread, it would have been unlawful and impossible to buy on that day.
If the Lord's Supper had been held at the time when the roast lamb was to be eaten, (the Feast of the Passover), they would not have thought Judas was going to buy what was needed for the feast, for they were then eating it.
In the early hours of the same day our Lord was crucified the Jews would not go into the judgment hall, "lest they should be defiled; but that they might eat the Passover." (John 18:28). Clearly they had not eaten the Feast of the Passover at that time.
The feast of the Passover is, I think, always called a "feast", (Greek, Heorti), whereas the meal the Lord took with His disciples is called "supper", the ordinary word for the ordinary meal taken at home: as the supper in John 12:2, or "his own supper" in 1 Cor. 11:21.
When the Lord told His disciples to go and prepare us the Passover, as in Luke 22:8, He does not use the word for "Prepare", that is always used for the "Preparation" day, but an entirely different word.
The day after our Lord died, when He was lying in the grave, is called in Matt. 27:62, "The next day, that followed the day of Preparation", and then it was; on the very day of the Feast of the Passover and of Unleavened Bread, the chief priests came to Pilate to ask for a guard to watch the tomb.
I think these facts are enough to show us clearly that without question our Lord gave His supper to us on the day before the "First day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread".
But someone will ask, What about such a Scripture as: "Now the first day of the (feast of) unleavened bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying unto Him, where wilt Thou that we prepare for Thee to eat the passover?" (Matt. 26:17). Note, first, that according to the law, they did not prepare to eat the Passover on "the first day of the feast of unleavened bread", for the passover lamb had already been killed by that day, according to the law. But let me ask another question: Why was Paul given 39 stripes (2 Cor. 11:24), instead of 40 according to the law (Deut. 25:3)? The answer is the same in both cases. The Jews were so afraid of breaking the law by making a mistake in the count of the stripes, that they changed the 40 to 39: similarly, in order to be quite sure there was no leaven on the Feast of Unleavened Bread, they changed "The First Day of Unleavened" (as the Greek reads), from the 15th day of the First month, to a day or two before. This is an example of their "tradition" which the Lord so condemned, when He said: "Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." (Matt. 15:7-9). I understand the Jews still carry out this tradition, and the day before the Passover, will not touch leaven: though this is not the teaching of the Scriptures.
When we remember how our Lord utterly condemned the Jewish tradition as "unlording" the commandment of God (Matt. 15:6; Mark 7:13; the Greek Testament); I doubt very much if He would have obeyed that tradition, and used unleavened bread, when He first gave us the Lord's supper. Certainly, according to the Law as given in the Scriptures, it was not Unleavened Bread. As I read the Scriptures, the Spirit of God has purposely left this matter so that nobody can know for certain which the Lord used, but we are certain that He was not under legal ordinance to use unleavened bread. He has done the same with the cup; so as to avoid making a legal ordinance out of this loving remembrance of Himself. As I see in the Scriptures, one may be perfectly free to remember the Lord with bread, leavened or unleavened: but to insist on either one, as a rule, a law, or an ordinance, is, I am convinced, going beyond the Scriptures, and putting oneself in company with the Scribes and Pharisees, who "unlorded" the Word of God by their tradition; and with the Galatians, who undermined the foundations of Christianity, by turning from Grace to Law. The people who insist on these things feel themselves to be spiritual men, but the Scriptures tell us it is "to the satisfying of the flesh": they feel themselves to be acting in "humility" (Col. 2:23), but it is only "a show" of humility, and is in reality pride, that sets up their own opinion instead of the Word of God. They think it is a mark of devotedness to the Lord, whereas it is in reality devotedness to their own will or to the opinion of some other man. I believe we do well to accept the Scriptures as they stand, and thankfully use the "artos", the loaf, in the way it is consistently used in the New Testament, as meaning "bread" of any kind: and "the fruit of the vine", or "the cup", as the Lord enables us to obtain it.
I might add that the principles underlying this vexed question go far beyond this question alone, and it will be well for every one of us to examine ourselves and see that we do in very truth "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." (Gal. 5:1).
Some have thought that 1 Cor. 5:8 shows us that we should use Unleavened Bread at the Lord's Supper. We should notice that in the 5th Chapter of I Cor., no mention whatever is made of the Lord's Supper. Later on in the 10th Chapter the Spirit of God brings before us the Lord's Table, and in the Eleventh Chapter, the Lord's Supper. But in Chapter 5, I see no mention whatever of the Lord's Supper. In verse 8 we read: "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." We have already seen that the Spirit of God never uses the expression "the feast" for the Lord's Supper, but always, the word "supper." The Feast of Unleavened Bread, when Israel ate unleavened bread, lasted for seven days: that is a perfect period of time, and represents our whole life down here from the time we are converted until we leave this world. The meaning is spiritual, as is clearly shown when the Spirit explains the meaning of leaven, and of unleavened, in this very verse. Not only are we each one to examine our own hearts, and put away evil from our own entire lives, but as an assembly, the saints at Corinth must put away evil from their midst. So in the last verse, summing all up, the Spirit says: "Therefore put away from among yourselves (not, from the Lord's Supper) that wicked person." If you read the chapter with care, I am sure you will see that the whole meaning all through is to put evil away from the assembly. "The whole lump" in verse 6 refers to the assembly not to the loaf of the Lord's Supper. "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump" surely has no reference to the Lord's Supper, but to the assembly as a whole. To read into this chapter the bread of the Lord's Supper is, I am sure, going beyond the Scriptures, and makes it a "private interpretation.”
Others have thought that because the Meat Offering in Lev. 2 was unleavened, that this is ground for using unleavened bread at the Lord's Supper. If we will look at Lev. 2:12, we will see special reference to the "oblation of the first-fruits." It you will turn to Lev. 23:17, you will see this offering of the firstfruits fully explained, and you will note there were to be two wave loaves of fine flour; "they shall be baken with leaven." These loaves represent the church, perhaps the two loaves, representing Jew and Gentile together making one offering. Sad to say, the church does have sin and failure in it. There is a coming day when the Lord "will present it to Himself a glorious church, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing", but that day has not come yet. Now the offering that represents the church must have leaven in it: but note the loaves have been baked, and the power of the leaven is gone, but the result of it is still there. In 1 Cor. 10:16.17 we may see that not only does the bread which we break typify the Lord's body broken for us on the cross, but also it speaks of us who now are His body: "The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we being many are one bread (or, loaf), and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread" ("or, loaf"). Note that the Spirit of God says nothing about the material of which the bread is made, nor does the Spirit give us any teaching from this; and to try and bring this in, goes "beyond what is written" (1 Cor. 4:6 R.V.) and spoils the object that the Spirit of God has to teach us. When the bread speaks of the church, we may see from Leviticus that it has leaven in it. When the bread speaks of Christ, we see from Leviticus that there was to be no leaven. But the loaf at the Lord's Supper speaks of both Christ and the church. How very much better, then, to cleave fast to the Scriptures, and not to try to go beyond what is written.
Perhaps we should add in this connection, that this Scripture makes clear how wrong it is to have the loaf cut up into little sections. 1 Cor. 10 emphasizes the fact that it is one loaf. The little sections that are so often seen in the churches made by men, merely tell of the sects that do such things. Note sect and section both come from the same root, meaning "I cut." The body of Christ was broken for us, but it was never cut up into sections. May the Lord teach us something of the depth of meaning in this picture. But of the material composing the loaf, not a word is said.
In Lev. 7:11-13 in the Law of the sacrifice of Peace Offerings, we see that both unleavened and leavened bread were to be offered. The Peace Offering perhaps corresponds more closely with the Lord's supper than any other offering. (Note, it might be "for a thanksgiving".) And we see how the Lord guards against using this for making any such rule or ordinance, as some have tried to bring in, for in it both unleavened and leavened bread were used.
Let us remember "the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." (Rom. 14:17)