A Little Leaven Leaveneth the Whole Lump (Part 1)

• I. The leaven represents influence
• II. The leaven represents something from the past
• III. The significance of the unleavened bread and the Passover

Dear Bethelites,

Your glorying is not good.  Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? (1 Corinthians 5:6).

The Corinthians did not understand the seriousness of sin.  They had a man in their congregation who committed incest with his own stepmother.  They did not deal with the sin, probably because they thought it was an act of Christian love or Christian liberty not to deal with it.  Whatever be the case, they were puffed up with spiritual pride.  Hence, Paul said, your glorying is not good.

Sin is spiritually contagious.  It is like cancer, and it will not remain dormant.  Unless it is removed, it will spread to the whole body.  Similarly, sin will spread to the whole church, the body of believers.  As the saying goes, “One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel.”

I. The leaven represents influence

Oftentimes, a little leaven was used to make the bread to rise.  In those days, leaven (or yeast) was not as available as today.  Thus, whenever they baked the bread, they would remove a small piece of dough and set it aside.  It would be left to ferment, and after several days, when they were about to bake the next batch of fresh dough, they would mix the little piece of fermented dough, with the new fresh dough, to make the bread rise.  It would act as a leaven or yeast.

Here, leaven was used to illustrate the influence.  Most of the time, it refers to the influence of sin, except on one rare occasion it was used to represent the good influence of the kingdom of heaven (c.f. Matthew 13:33).

In verse 6, the leaven was used to refer to the influence of sin.  A little leaven (or one single sin) can leaven the whole lump (which is the local church).  Just like the leaven, when it is left alone, will ferment, corrupt and spread; likewise, sin, if given the opportunity, will corrupt and spread to the whole church.  It is extremely contagious!

II. The leaven represents something from the past

Another significance of the leaven is that it represented something bad from the past being brought over into the present.

In the book of Exodus, there was an account of the Pharaoh who had refused to let the Israelites go and worship God.  Thereafter, the people of Egypt had experienced some of the worst divine judgments the world has ever seen.  The judgments came in the form of the 10 plagues, of which the last plague was the worst, the death of all the firstborn in Egypt.  Every Israelite family would have suffered the same tragedy if God had not delivered them.

On what basis did God deliver the Israelites?  When God was preparing the Israelites to leave Egypt, He specifically instructed them to sprinkle the blood of the lamb onto their doorposts and lintels so that when the angel of death came, all their firstborn would be spared from death.  Any house that did not have the blood would lose its firstborn son or daughter. Since the presence of the animal’s blood caused the angel of death to pass over that house, therefore the animal was called the “Passover.”

The Israelites were also commanded to bake bread but they were not allowed to add leaven.  Obviously, they did not have time to wait for the dough to rise, since they had to leave in a hurry.  But more importantly, the bread represented life; the new fresh bread represented the new life out of Egypt and later on, into the Promised Land, and the old leaven represented the old life in Egypt or the way of the world, which had to be left behind.  That was why the Israelites were commanded to have the unleavened bread to remind them that their old life had to be left behind and not brought into their new life in the Promised Land.

III. The significance of the unleavened bread and the Passover

What is so significant about the Passover and the unleavened bread?  And what has that got to do with us?  When God instituted the Passover in the Old Testament, He gave very specific requirements to the Israelites.  In Exodus 12:5 God said, Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year.  In the New Testament, our Lord Jesus was called the Lamb of God, and He was sinless, without blemish, and obviously, He was a man.  God gave another very interesting requirement in Exodus 12:46,...neither shall ye break a bone thereof, which means that the Israelites had to be careful to keep every single bone of the Passover lamb intact when they killed it.

The Passover lamb points to Jesus Christ.  When Jesus was crucified, none of His bones were broken.  It was the Roman’s custom to quicken the death of those they crucified by breaking their legs.  This was done to the two thieves who were crucified beside Jesus – the soldiers broke their legs and they died soon after that.  But when the soldiers came to Jesus, they saw that He had already died, and so His legs were not broken.  None of His bones were broken throughout His crucifixion.  Truly Jesus fulfilled all the requirements to be our Passover Lamb who was sacrificed in our place, to pay the price for our sins.  That was why1 Corinthians 5:7b said,…For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: 

Indeed, the picture of the Passover in Egypt points to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God’s perfect Passover Lamb who covers us with His blood, and completely separates us from the power and penalty of sin.  Therefore, we Christians, who were delivered from our sins by the Christ our Passover; we have to be separated from our old life, we must not bring our old life of sin into our new life with Christ.  So, 1 Corinthians 7a said, Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.  As a new creature in Christ, the believer is a new lump, a new dough, and he must purge out (or completely cleanse out) everything from his sinful old life.  He must be totally separated from all his old sinful attitudes, standards and habits.

Dear friend, whenever we focus on the cross of Christ, we are not only reminded that it was because of sin that our Lord Jesus was nailed to that cross, but it is also a call for us to separate ourselves from sin, to stay away from the very thing that causes the death of our Saviour.  That is why it is impossible to focus on the cross and remain in sin at the same time.  It could be the sin of pride, jealousy, envy, self-confidence, a divisive spirit, evil thoughts, and other hidden agendas.  How can we cling unto the very sin that crucified our Lord on the cross of Calvary?

With love in Christ,

Pastor Paul Cheng