UNLEAVENED BREAD - Day 1

Fred Coulter - April 17, 2003

This is the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, 2003. And time marches on and I’m sure you had a good Passover and Night Much To Be Remembered, and all the meaning of it as it relates to Abraham. And we’ve gone through the series and preparation for the Passover, and we know that the Passover renews the New Covenant.

Now here we are with the feast days, and we always begin in Leviticus 23. And we begin there because all the feast days of God are listed in this one particular place. Now we’ve already covered it down to the Passover so let’s pick it up here in Leviticus 23:6. “And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.” And so that is today. And this day has great meaning for us. This day has tremendous understanding for us when we come to realize it.

Now notice verse 8. “But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD…” And then it says in the seventh day you shall have a holy convocation, and so forth. So in making an offering unto the Lord we always take up an offering, and as I had to cover so many things this past year concerning tithes and offerings, I will just leave it to you. Your relationship with God, your giving to God and taking up an offering for the first holy day is a very important thing. And just remember this - whatever you do physically or spiritually, understand that God is offering you eternal life. And of course for that there is no value that you can put on it. And always remember this - God loves a cheerful giver, and God loves those who love Him. And so at this time we’ll just take a pause and we will take up the offering.

(Pause)

Now all the feast days in our relationship with God goes clear back to Abraham, as we have seen for the Passover, as we have seen for the Night To Be Remembered. And in both cases, whether physically or whether spiritually, we are the children of Abraham. Now for the New Testament we have a direct command from the Apostle Paul to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the reason why. So let’s go to 1 Corinthians 5. And of course these are all scriptures that we cover in season. And we are to cover the things that we know, some of the things we don’t know, and we need to learn all of these things over again every year.

So here in 1 Corinthians 5, with the incident that was put forth in the church because they had someone there that was committing fornication with his mother-in-law, or his step-mother, either one. And they didn’t handle the matter properly according to the laws of God. And as a matter of fact they were glorying in it. In other words almost like, “Well, the grace of God is so good that God could overlook this.” Well, Paul had to correct them. He says here in 1 Corinthians 5:6, “Your glorying is not good.” Now there can be many kinds of glorying. There can be carnal glorying, there can be pride, vanity. There can be spiritual pride, spiritual vanity. Glorying and things that please the flesh rather than please God, and this is what they were doing. Now here is a tremendous key. The whole lesson of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. “Know ye not [don’t you know] that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” And this is what we are dealing with.

Leaven during the days of unleavened bread is a type of sin. And it leavens and it puffs up, and it creates and multiplies sin. And it starts out with just a little. You can take unleavened bread and you put in a little leaven in it and you let it sit, then it rises, doesn’t it? So likewise in life when sin is allowed to grow, to expand, to increase it leavens the whole lump. And we are to be unleavened in Christ, and that’s the reason why we keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And that’s the reason why we put leaven out of our homes. And that’s the reason that we eat the unleavened bread all during the seven days of Unleavened Bread - because God said so. And there’s a lesson. There’s something that’s very important in it, which is this - you learn as you obey. You understand as you continue to obey every year. And as you do, you grow in grace and knowledge, you grow in understanding, you grow in the things concerning the ways of God even more.

Now the reverse is true. When people begin not keeping the Passover and the feasts of God, God takes away knowledge. And He takes it from them. And we’ve seen this happen too. So we need to understand one of the most important things, and one of the most important commands concerning the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the New Testament is found right here in chapter 5. And we also need to understand that the church at Corinth was mainly a Gentile church. So Paul is not admonishing Jews to keep their feast. He is admonishing and commanding Gentiles, who never kept it before, to keep it, and he explains the reason why.

Verse 7, “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.” And there are two ways you are unleavened. Number one, the physical leaven out of your homes. Number two, the spiritual leaven out of your lives because of Christ. Now here is the whole basis of everything. And this starts the whole…how shall we say? The whole run of God’s holy days and feast days are based right in the next part of this verse. “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:…” And that’s in the past tense and means “that was sacrificed for us.” But this is a past tense “is”. And he says verse 8, “…Therefore let us keep the feast,…” So you have the Passover which starts it, and everything concerning the Passover, the sacrifice of Christ, and all of that - what that means is, we have covered in “Preparation for Passover”. “…Not with old leaven,…” We’re not to do it with our old ways, our old attitudes, our old sins. “…Neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness;…” So we have an inner fight, and an inner battle that we are going to concentrate on today - how is it that God looks at us, and how is it that we are unleavened? We are to change from having malice, and wickedness (then which is sin, and these are attitudes against God) to having the unleavened attitude of Christ. “…But with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (vs. 7-8).

Now truth is the Word of God. Jesus said of God’s Word, “Your Word is truth.” We find in Psalm 119 that “All Your commandments are true, all Your statutes are true, all Your commandments are righteousness.” But we are also going to see that there has to be an inner sincerity and truth that comes from the power of God’s Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of truth and leads us in how we need to live. So let’s continue and see here.

Let’s come to John 6 because this tells us the whole story about eating Christ. Let’s come to John 6:35, because you see what God wants in our life is this - that we come to a point in our lives that we know God, we know Christ, and we understand the Word of God. And when we continually come to Him we are going to have our hunger and our thirst spiritually always satisfied. Now verse 35, “And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life:…” And remember as we covered during “Passover Preparation”, Christ is the way, and the truth, and the life. So here, “I am the bread of life: he that [is coming] cometh to Me [the one who comes to Me] shall never hunger: and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst.” Because in believing in Christ you are going to continually be receiving the Holy Spirit. And brethren, we need to understand, this is the way that God has operated continuously from the time of the beginning of the New Testament Church. And all of those who belong to Christ, and all of those who are truly converted understand this.

Now let’s see the meaning, because we start out with the Passover, and the reason we keep the days of Unleavened Bread is because Christ was crucified for us - our sacrifice. Now let’s come over here to verse 53 and let’s see how important this is, and why, when we do this, everything then opens up, or unfolds, and God with His Spirit will lead us and we gain knowledge, and understanding, and grace.

Verse 53, “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily [or that is, truly, truly], I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood [which is symbolized by the bread and by the wine], ye have no life in you.” Now this is profound to understand. And it’s telling us very simply this - if you do not keep the Passover in the proper way and time, with the proper emblems, and so forth, you do not have eternal life. You cannot get eternal life from something that is dead. But you get eternal life from God’s Spirit. And the covenant that Christ made with us is a covenant unto eternal life through His blood, through His body.

Now verse 55, “For My flesh is meat indeed [or, the true food], and My blood is drink indeed [or the true drink]. He that [eats] eatheth My flesh, and [drinks] drinketh My blood, [dwells] dwelleth in Me, and I in him.” And that is the whole true key of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The way you are unleavened in Christ is Christ in you. And as Paul said, the hope of glory. Now, with Christ in us, and with the Holy Spirit to lead us, what do we have? Verse 57 is the key. Here is the key to the whole thing. “As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father:…” That is when He was living in the flesh He was living by the Father. He didn’t speak His Own words, He didn’t give His Own commandments. Everything He did He said, “Of My Own will, of My Own self I can do nothing.” So He was living by the Father. Now then notice the word “as”. “As the Living Father hath sent Me, and [as] I live by the Father: so [even so] he that eateth Me [that is, the one who eats My flesh, drinks My blood, symbolized by the Passover], even he shall live by Me” (vs. 55-57). So that’s why we start out with the Passover, showing that we live by Christ.

Now then we are to progress, because that is the start. Now then we have something we need to do. Now then there is something we need to understand as the children…let’s come to Galatians 3 please. As the spiritual children of Abraham, we are under obligation to do something most profound. And we will see then how God deals with us, and how He looks at us, and what He expects us to do.

Now let’s pick it up here in Galatians 3:26. “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” And it means to be clothed - to put on Christ. Endyo is the Greek. And it’s almost like, you wouldn’t want to say “encasing”, but you are enrobed, or clothed. And of course it talks about the white linen, the clean and white linen is the righteousness of the saints, and the righteousness of the saints is what we need to understand that we need to grow and develop in. So we are to put on Christ. We are to grow in Christ.

Now let’s review just a few things here in the book of Romans and let’s see how God deals with us. And let’s see how God helps us. Let’s see God’s part of the bargain, because you see a covenant is not a one-sided thing. It is a two-sided thing. That’s why Jesus said, and we already covered, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” There are things we need to do.

Now in Romans 1 (we’re just going to summarize a couple of these chapters as an overview here), Paul shows the world the way that it is. And we are seeing it develop just exactly in everything that Romans 1 talks about, clear to the degeneration of the society. And then he also talks about the judgmentalness of human beings, especially for those who think that they are good, that they judge and they condemn. And he especially gets after the Jews and tells them that even their circumcision in the flesh, if they don’t keep the commandments of God, is counted as uncircumcision. So just the fleshly things that people do, the good things that sincere good people in the world do, even claiming God, does not mean that they are converted. So then he gives a very profound lesson.

He says here in Romans 2:28 - profound lesson. And this is all a part of why we keep the Passover, and all a part as to why we keep the feasts of God. “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God” (Rom. 2:28-29). So there has to be a change of heart called circumcision of the heart. And it’s also referred to in Colossians 2 as the circumcision made without hands, and putting off the body of sin. And that’s what Christ does for us. So then lest there be any doubt about what Paul meant, we have the first part of chapter 3. And he says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God - Jews and Gentiles.

Now let’s come over here to Romans 3:19 and let’s understand something on how we are unleavened in Christ, and how that takes place, and what happens. And how that we need to go back and understand this every year, lest we get lifted up in spiritual pride and think that we are so far above everybody else. And that we have…like one man… I heard one famous man say, who was a minister, he says, “I have been faithful so long Satan has no more interest in me.” Well you know what happened. Satan did his dirty work. He had a great deal to repent of. See, because it says right here, verse 19, “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law:…” And of course everybody is under the law. They are subject to the law whether they know the law or not. “…That every mouth may be stopped,…” Regardless of who they are - no man’s going to talk back to God, no man is going to judge God, no man is going to command God, no man is going to tell God what to do. “…That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world [that’s everyone in it] may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds [or, works of law - I’ll just read it the way it should be] of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight:…” Because we’re going to talk a little bit about justification today, and that is how you are made right with God. And you cannot have a relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ until you have been made right, until you have been justified, until you have had your sins put away from you. And of course we will see later on that that is also a continuous ongoing project and that’s why we have the feasts of God and the Days of Unleavened Bread that we continually keep. So you’re not going to be justified. There is no work that any man can do anywhere under the sun that has been given that will forgive sin. Just remember that. “…For by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

Now verse 21, after we have the knowledge of sin, “But now the righteousness of God [separate from] without the law…” See, the word “without” here in the King James is a very unfortunate translation because “without” gives you the impression “the absence of” or, “you no longer need it”, and this is where the Protestants and the Catholics have gone off the deep end, in fact fallen over the cliff of self-destruction by saying that you don’t need the laws and commandments of God, you see. “…Without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;…” They witnessed to the coming justification that we have. “…Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ…” And that’s a profound righteousness. And it is a righteousness, that we will see, is given to us by grace and is imputed to us. It is the gift of righteousness, as we will see. Now there is no greater thing that you can possibly have in this lifetime than being put in right standing with God. And that’s what this word “righteousness” means. It doesn’t mean just commandment keeping alone, because this is the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ. And that means it come through Christ’s Own faith that is imparted to you. “…Unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely…” (vs. 21-24). No cost, freely, gratuitously. Because God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him may have everlasting life and not perish. Now God is the only one who can do that, you see.

Now notice, “…being justified freely by His grace…” Now we’re going to see a little later on, you’ve been saved by grace. It cannot be by works. “…By His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation…” Now we’re going to see a little bit later on that even though we’ve been baptized, and even though we have received the Holy Spirit of God, and even though that we have been walking and living in God’s ways for a long, long time, many of us, we still have sin to overcome, don’t we? And so it is still by grace. We live by grace, we’re saved by grace, we understand the Word of God by grace. And in all of that the greatest grace of God is the gift of His Son Jesus Christ. “…Justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation…” That is, a continual atoning mercy seat for us. “…Through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past [covered them],…” (vs. 24-25).

Now let’s understand something here. The Catholics sell indulgences. And these indulgences are to pay in advance for sins that you will do in the future, which then is a form of absurd lawlessness because you see the truth is this - all sin is passed sin. Now what do I mean by that? Even though you know, because you have, as we’ll see a little later on, you have the law of sin and death in you. Even though you know that probably tomorrow you’re going to do something which will be a sin against God. But you don’t know what it is, do you? And you haven’t done it yet, have you? So therefore there’s no such thing as a future sin. All sins are past sin. Sin is the transgression of the law. And when you have transgressed the law, in the instant that you have done it, it is a past sin. Those are the sins that God forgives. You’re not going to say, “God, I’m going to kill my neighbor, and I ask Your forgiveness ahead of time.” That won’t happen. Those kinds of sin are never forgiven. Now then, this declares God’s righteousness that God would do this freely.

Now then Paul has to ask the question. Let’s finish the rest of the chapter here, verse 26, “To declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just [God is always right], and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” So you have to believe that Christ died for your sins. You have to believe to the point that you obey. And as we saw to begin with, you have to live as He lived. That’s what he was telling us, you see. “Where is boasting then?” You can’t say, “We’re the chosen people.” Where is boasting? Is there any boasting that we can say other than boast in Christ? He says, “It is excluded. By what law?” No, it’s not done by law. “…Of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.” Or that is, the operation of faith. “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without [separate from works of law] the deeds of the law” (vs. 26-28). And that’s the way that it should read. You can’t go over to God and say, “I’ve been good, therefore You give me eternal life.” No. Eternal life comes by belief, by repentance, by forgiveness, by grace, by God’s gift. And we’ll expound that a little bit more.

“Is He the God of the Jews only?” And that was a big problem back in Paul’s day. “…Is He not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.” God is going to do it because there’s no difference between Jew and Gentile before God. “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law” (vs. 29-31). How do we establish the law? By faith because we believe it, and through the Holy Spirit having it written in our hearts and our minds. That’s how you establish law.

Now then he gives the whole example of Abraham and how he believed that it was imputed to him for righteousness. Because you see, the greatest thing that a human being can really do is believe and love God. That puts you in right standing with God because if you believe God, you’re going to love God, you’re going to obey God, you’re going to follow His way. So therefore God puts you in right standing with Him, meaning you are justified. And He offers to all of us continuously the propitiation of justification every day through Jesus Christ.

Now let’s come to chapter 5. Now then, Paul begins explaining why God did this and how we stand before God, and how we live before God. And he goes through and he explains to us some of the things that we will endure as human beings as we are growing and changing and overcoming. Verse 1, chapter 5, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God…”, we are no longer hostile toward Him, you see. See, it says of the carnal mind, the carnal mind is enmity against God, is not subject to the law of God, and neither indeed can be. See, and the word enmity also means enemy. So in having peace with God we’re subject to the law of God. We love God, we’re not fighting God, we’re not hostile to God. God is not hostile to us, God loves us, God has called us, God has given us His Spirit, God has justified us, see.

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by Whom also we have access by faith into this grace…” And this grace is like a great umbrella that gives us His love, that gives us His faith, that gives us the belief, that gives us the self-control, that gives us all the fruits of the Holy Spirit by grace. And we stand in it and we “…rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” So that regardless of our circumstances we always have hope in God and we glory in that. “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also:…” (Rom. 5:1-3). And when you come to the mature understanding… Now I’m sure the Apostle Paul could do this more than anyone else because of what he did in persecuting the church. And he looked upon the tribulations coming upon, him as Christ said, as when he was called, payback time for Paul. So Paul rejoiced in the tribulation. But what we need to understand is this - instead of saying, “Uh-oh, another trial.” We need to say, “God, I know this is a trial. Help me to know and understand the purpose of this. And help me to learn in it, and help me to grow in it.” Now I don’t know if we’re ever going to come to the point that we glory in it. But at least when it’s all over and done with and we look back with perfect 20/20 spiritual hindsight and really see the purpose of it, then we can rejoice in what God has done, because all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose, you see.

“…Also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;…” Now, another way to translate this is “endurance”. Remember what Christ said of endurance. The one who endures to the end shall be saved. That’s very interesting, isn’t it? It’s not how you start, but how you finish. So you have to endure to the end. “…And patience [endurance], experience;…” And experience then, this could also be “character”. And experience brings character. And character then, and experience brings hope, to where then you see and understand the end result of all that God is doing, and that you are going to be in the Kingdom of God, that you are going to be a Spirit Being. That is the hope that is held out for us. “…And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy [Spirit] Ghost which is given unto us” (vs. 3-5). So then we enter into. You see the whole process. I want to bring out today on this first Day of Unleavened Bread is the whole process of becoming spiritually unleavened, and how God deals with us with His love, with His grace, with His hope, and all of these things you see. Because God did this without asking us.

Verse 6, “For when we were yet without strength, in due time [that means at the set time that God had determined] Christ died for the ungodly.” He didn’t die for the good people of the world. He died for the ungodly. We all have to understand this - we are by nature ungodly. And so if God can take this and bring about repentance and conversion with His Holy Spirit, and yea, mold and develop the character and the mind of Christ in you, that is a tremendous thing, and that is a tremendous love that God has given us, isn’t it?

Now he says here, verse 7, “For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commedeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then,…” See you can’t just come to the point and say, “Ok, I believe in Christ, I believe He died for us.” There is much more. That is just the start. And if you always stay on the starting line you never get to the finishing line, do you? No. You have to endure to the end. “Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” That is, through His life. “For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,…” That’s a fantastic thing to understand. See, that’s why God says, “Love your enemies. Do good to those that hate you. Pray for those that despitefully use you and persecute you.” And that’s the hardest thing to do, isn’t it? But it is a godly thing to do because that’s what Christ did, see. We need to understand that. “…We shall be saved by His life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by Whom we have now received the atonement” (vs. 7-11).

Now then he begins to explain something very profound. He talks about our human nature. And this is the thing that we need to deal with, with God’s Spirit. And this is what we need to overcome. And we need to understand how we got the human nature, and how it is that it came about, and how great it is that what God is doing for us. Now verse 12 says it all. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by [the means of] sin; and so death passed upon [or that is, into] all men,…” And because every human being has a nature of death, they are imperfect. They are imperfect in as much as that they are in the flesh, number one. And they are imperfect, number two, because they have a nature of death. And with a nature of death you cannot help but sin because that’s a part of your nature. And because of the nature of death, for this reason everyone has sinned. Now God put it there and He alone can take care of it.

Paul goes on to show that this came because of the sin of Adam. A lot of people like to blame Eve, especially men, but Eve wasn’t the one who did it all. She had her part, but it says here by one man, sin entered into the world. So sin by Adam - and even, even that’s why - even those who have not sinned after the way of Adam still died because they sinned. Though they didn’t sin after the same similitude of Adam’s sin.

Now let’s come down here to verse 17 and let’s understand what the Feast of Unleavened Bread is all about. It’s more than just eating unleavened bread. It’s more than putting leaven out of your homes. It’s more than just understanding that you have a sinful nature. You have to understand what God has done, and what He is doing, and how, then, you do stand before Christ, as we saw on the Passover, clean through the words which He has spoken. And you stand before God, now justified, and how does God look at you. He makes a comparison, verse 17. “For if by one man’s offence [that is Adam’s sin] death reigned by one [death came to everyone]; much more they which receive abundance of grace [that’s what you have - you have received the abundance of grace] and of the gift of righteousness…” That is the righteousness of Christ imputed to you. This is the righteousness of the Spirit. This is the righteousness of having God’s Spirit in you, having your sins forgiven, giving you the power to overcome sin. And we’ll see what God has required of you to have this gift of righteousness. And with this gift of righteousness and being put in right standing with God, God views you through Christ. Now think on that. Many times you get very discouraged because you’re fighting and overcoming sin. Now we’ll cover that in just a bit. But you have this gift of righteousness. “…Shall reign in life [that is, unto eternal life] by one, Jesus Christ.)”

Now he concludes the whole matter down here. Verse 21, “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign [grace will be the rule, you see] through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” So the truth of unleavened bread is this, and being unleavened in Christ - is that grace reigns in your life because you are in right standing with God. And this grace is to inspire you to love God, to serve God, to keep His commandments, to be at-one with God in a continuous spiritual union through the Holy Spirit.