Bird's-eye view
In this potent little section, the Apostle Paul pivots from confronting a specific, scandalous sin in the Corinthian church to laying down the foundational principle that governs all sin within the covenant community. The problem was not just the presence of a man sleeping with his father's wife; the deeper problem was the church's arrogant tolerance of it. Paul uses the familiar metaphor of leaven to explain the corporate, pervasive, and corrupting nature of sin. He is not just calling for a one-time act of discipline, but for a whole new way of life for the church, grounded in the reality of Christ's finished work. The logic is devastatingly simple: Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore, the feast must be kept. The old life, characterized by the "leaven" of sin, is over. The new life, characterized by the "unleavened bread" of sincerity and truth, has begun. This passage is a foundational text for understanding the nature of the church as a holy community, the necessity of church discipline, and the direct line that runs from Christ's atonement to our daily ethical obligations.
Paul is teaching the Corinthians, and us, that theology has consequences for fellowship. What we believe about the cross must dictate how we live together. A church that is soft on sin is a church that has a low view of the cross. They were boasting in their "tolerance" and "open-mindedness," but Paul identifies this as an ugly, cancerous pride. The gospel creates a new, holy lump, a new humanity. The old leaven of our Adamic nature, with its malice and wickedness, must be purged, not coddled. The Christian life is a perpetual Passover festival, celebrating our deliverance through the blood of the Lamb.
Outline
- 1. The Contagion of Sin (1 Cor 5:6-8)
- a. The Evil of Arrogant Tolerance (1 Cor 5:6a)
- b. The Principle of Pervasive Corruption (1 Cor 5:6b)
- c. The Command to Purge (1 Cor 5:7a)
- d. The Ground of Our Purity: The Passover Lamb (1 Cor 5:7b)
- e. The Consequence of Our Purity: The Perpetual Feast (1 Cor 5:8)
Context In 1 Corinthians
This passage comes directly on the heels of Paul's horrified rebuke of the Corinthian church for tolerating a case of flagrant sexual immorality, a man having a relationship with his stepmother (1 Cor 5:1-5). Paul has already passed his apostolic judgment and commanded them to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of his flesh. Now, in verses 6-8, he explains the theological principle behind this drastic command. The issue is not merely about one man's sin, but about the purity and identity of the entire church. This section serves as the theological hinge for the chapter. It moves from the specific case to the general principle, which then leads into his clarification about not associating with professing believers who are caught in unrepentant sin (1 Cor 5:9-13). The whole chapter is a treatise on the importance of maintaining a clear distinction between the church and the world, a distinction that is established and maintained by the faithful practice of church discipline.
Key Issues
- The Corporate Nature of Sin
- The Meaning of Leaven
- Christ as the Passover Lamb
- The Church as a "New Lump"
- The Christian Life as a Continuous Festival
- The Relationship Between Justification and Sanctification
The Gospel and the Lump
The central metaphor here is leaven, or yeast. In Scripture, leaven is almost always a symbol of a corrupting, pervasive, and silent influence. Jesus warned of the leaven of the Pharisees (legalism), the Sadducees (skepticism), and Herod (worldliness). Here, Paul applies it to the moral corruption that the Corinthians were tolerating. Sin is never a private matter in the church. It is like a pinch of yeast in a large batch of dough. It may seem small and insignificant at first, but it will inevitably work its way through the entire lump. The Corinthians' boasting was a sign that the leaven was already at work. They were proud of the very thing that was poisoning them.
Paul's solution is not to try and manage the leaven or find a "healthy balance." His command is radical: "Clean out the old leaven." This is a call to corporate repentance and purification. And the basis for this command is the gospel itself. The Passover required the Jews to remove all leaven from their homes before sacrificing the lamb. Paul's stunning declaration is that our Passover Lamb, Christ, has already been sacrificed. The decisive event has occurred. Therefore, we are to live in accordance with this reality. We are, in fact, an unleavened lump because of our union with Christ. Our practical, day-to-day sanctification is simply the process of becoming what we already are in Him.
Verse by Verse Commentary
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
Paul begins with a sharp, direct rebuke. Their boasting was "not good." It was ugly, inappropriate, and spiritually diseased. What were they boasting about? Probably their supposed spiritual maturity, their tolerance, their "grace-filled" acceptance of this man. They saw their inaction as a virtue. Paul identifies it as a vice. This kind of pride is the very soil in which sin thrives. He then immediately introduces the principle that exposes their foolishness. "Do you not know?" This is a phrase Paul uses to appeal to basic Christian teaching, things they should have already understood. The principle is proverbial: a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough. Sin is never static or contained. Tolerated sin in the church is an active, malignant agent. It affects the whole body. It redefines what is acceptable, it lowers the standard of holiness, it grieves the Holy Spirit, and it rots the church from the inside out. Their tolerance was not love; it was a form of corporate suicide.
7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, also was sacrificed.
The command is a direct consequence of the principle. If leaven corrupts the whole lump, then the only sane response is to get rid of it. "Clean out" is an urgent, decisive command. This refers both to the specific excommunication of the unrepentant man and to a broader purging of the arrogant, tolerant attitude that allowed the situation to fester. The purpose is "so that you may be a new lump." This is the goal: a pure, holy community. But then Paul makes a crucial theological statement that grounds the entire argument. He tells them to become what they already are: "just as you are in fact unleavened."
This is the glorious logic of the gospel. In Christ, through faith, our legal standing before God is one of perfect purity. We have been definitively cleansed and set apart. We are unleavened. The imperative ("Clean out") is based on the indicative ("you are unleavened"). And what is the basis for this indicative reality? "For Christ, our Passover lamb, also was sacrificed." Paul connects the dots directly to the Exodus. Just as the blood of the lamb on the doorposts delivered Israel from the angel of death, the blood of Christ has delivered us from eternal death. The sacrifice has been made, once for all. The old order is finished. The new has come. The great deliverance has happened, and that reality must define everything about our new lives together.
8 Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
The conclusion flows from the accomplished work of Christ. "Therefore." Because Christ our Passover has been slain, what do we do? We feast. The entire Christian life is a festival. It is a continuous celebration of our redemption. The Passover was not a one-day affair but the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which lasted a week. For us, the feast lasts our entire lives and culminates in the marriage supper of the Lamb. But Paul immediately qualifies how this feast must be kept. We are not to celebrate with the "old leaven." This is the leaven of our former life in Adam, the sinful patterns and attitudes we carried before our conversion. He then specifies this leaven as that "of malice and wickedness." Malice is the active ill-will, the desire to harm. Wickedness is the resulting corrupt behavior. This is the stuff of the old life, and it has no place at the Christian feast.
Instead, we are to feast with "the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." Sincerity here means purity of motive, an unmixed, unhypocritical integrity. Truth refers to a life lived in accordance with God's revealed reality. Sincerity is the internal reality; truth is the external correspondence to God's standard. This is the food of the new covenant. We are to be a people characterized by transparent honesty and a rugged commitment to the truth of the gospel in all our dealings with one another. This is what it looks like to be a "new lump."
Application
This passage puts a knife to the throat of all cheap grace and sentimental tolerance in the church. We live in an age where the highest virtue is often seen as non-judgmentalism. But Paul teaches us that a church that refuses to judge sin in its midst is a church that has forgotten the meaning of the cross. If Christ died to save us from our sins, the last thing we should do is create a comfortable, welcoming environment for those same sins inside His church.
First, we must take the purity of the local church with radical seriousness. Tolerating public, unrepentant sin is not loving; it is hateful. It is hateful to the sinner, whom we allow to persist in his rebellion. It is hateful to the church, which we allow to be corrupted. And it is hateful to Christ, whose holy name we profane. Church discipline is not a mean-spirited witch hunt; it is the loving, necessary, and biblically mandated process of cleaning out the leaven.
Second, we must understand the relationship between our identity and our actions. We do not pursue holiness in order to become acceptable to God. We pursue holiness because, in Christ, we are already accepted by God. We are "unleavened." Our job is to live like it. This frees us from the joyless grind of legalism and the lazy presumption of antinomianism. We fight sin not to earn our salvation, but because we are already saved and we want to live in the reality of that salvation.
Finally, we must see our entire lives as a feast. Christianity is not a funeral. It is a festival celebrating the victory of our Passover Lamb. But it is a holy festival. The joy of this feast is found not in indulging the flesh, but in the clean, crisp, satisfying taste of sincerity and truth. We are called to be a people of robust joy and robust holiness, and this passage teaches us that the two are inseparable.