1 Corinthians 5:8

8 So let us celebrate the Seder not with leftover hametz, the hametz of wickedness and evil, but with the matzah of purity and truth.

1 Corinthians 5:8 Meaning and Commentary

1 Corinthians 5:8

Therefore let us keep the feast
Not the feast of the passover, which was now ceased, though this is said in allusion to it; when the master of the house used to say ^F12,

``everyone that is hungry, let him come and eat; he that hath need, let him come (xopyw) , "and paschatize", or keep the feast of the passover:''

but rather the feast of the Lord's supper is here meant, that feast of fat things Isaiah prophesied of; in which are the richest entertainments, even the flesh and blood of Christ; though it seems best to understand it of the whole course of a Christian's life, spent in the exercise of spiritual joy and faith in Christ; he that is of a merry heart, as the believer of all men in the world has reason to be of, "hath a continual feast", ( Proverbs 15:15 ) of spiritual mirth and pleasure, rejoicing always in Christ, as he ought to do: which feast, or course of life, is to be kept "not with old leaven"; in the old, vain, sinful manner of conversation, as before:

neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness;
not in malice to any man, or one another, nor in any sort of wickedness, living in no known sin, and allowing of it:

but with the unleavened bread of sincerity;
as opposed to malice, of sincere love to God and Christ, and to his people: and of truth; of Gospel doctrine, discipline, and conversation.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F12 Haggada Shel Pesach, p. 4. Ed. Rittangel.

1 Corinthians 5:8 In-Context

6 Your boasting is not good. Don't you know the saying, "It takes only a little hametz to leaven a whole batch of dough?"

7 Get rid of the old hametz, so that you can be a new batch of dough, because in reality you are unleavened. For our Pesach lamb, the Messiah, has been sacrificed.

8 So let us celebrate the Seder not with leftover hametz, the hametz of wickedness and evil, but with the matzah of purity and truth.

9 In my earlier letter I wrote you not to associate with people who engage in sexual immorality.

10 I didn't mean the sexually immoral people outside your community, or the greedy, or the thieves or the idol-worshippers - for then you would have to leave the world altogether!