Keeping the Feast: The Grammar of Holiness Text: Exodus 12:14-20
Introduction: The Shape of Our Deliverance
When God saves His people, He does not just pull them out of the fire and then leave them on the sidewalk, covered in soot, to figure things out for themselves. Redemption is not merely a "get out of jail free" card. No, when God saves, He saves His people from something to something. He delivered Israel from the bondage of Egypt so that they might become a particular kind of people, a nation that worshiped Him in a particular way. Deliverance creates a new culture. Grace establishes a new grammar for living.
We see this principle etched into the very fabric of the Exodus. The Passover was not a one-time event, a historical curiosity to be filed away. It was the foundational, defining act that was to shape the entire life of Israel. It was to be remembered. It was to be reenacted. It was to be lived. The salvation God accomplished in that bloody night in Egypt was to be the pattern for their calendar, their diet, their worship, and their community life. The feast that followed the Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, was the practical, week-long application of the deliverance they had just received.
We live in a time when many Christians treat their salvation in a similar, detached way. They are grateful that Jesus saved them from Hell, but they see little connection between that salvation and how they order their homes, their time, or their churches. But the Bible will not allow this. The gospel is not just a fire escape; it is the blueprint for a cathedral. The cross is not just the end of our condemnation; it is the beginning of our consecration.
In this passage, God lays out the rules for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And in these rules, we find enduring principles about memory, purity, worship, and the nature of the covenant community. This is not just an archaic Jewish festival. As the apostle Paul tells us, Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us keep the feast. This passage teaches us how.
The Text
‘Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to Yahweh; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a perpetual statute. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses; for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. Now on the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you; no work at all shall be done on them, except what must be eaten by every person, athat alone may be done by you. You shall also keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt; therefore you shall keep this day throughout your generations as a perpetual statute. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. Seven days there shall be no leaven found in your houses; for whoever eats what is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. You shall not eat anything leavened; in all your places of habitation you shall eat unleavened bread.’
(Exodus 12:14-20 LSB)
Perpetual Memory (v. 14)
We begin with the mandate to remember.
"‘Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to Yahweh; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a perpetual statute." (Exodus 12:14)
God commands that the day of deliverance be a "memorial." A memorial is not a sentimental glance backward; it is a re-enactment, a bringing of the past into the present so that it shapes the future. And it is to be a "feast." Redemption is not a funeral. It is a festival. It is a celebration of the grace of God. This is why our central act of worship in the New Covenant is a celebratory meal, the Lord's Supper.
But what of this phrase, "a perpetual statute"? Does this mean that Christians are obligated to celebrate the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the same way the Old Testament Israelites did? No. We must read this through the lens of Christ's fulfillment. The reality that the feast pointed to is perpetual. The shadow has passed, but the substance remains. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed (1 Cor. 5:7). The deliverance He accomplished is an eternal deliverance. Therefore, the principle of celebrating that deliverance is a perpetual statute.
The Old Covenant feasts find their fulfillment and transformation in the New Covenant realities. The Passover is fulfilled in the Lord's Supper. The Feast of Unleavened Bread is fulfilled in the ongoing life of holiness and purity required of the Christian. We no longer remove physical leaven from our houses once a year; we are called to continually purge the spiritual leaven of malice and wickedness from our hearts and from the church (1 Cor. 5:8). The statute is perpetual, but its application is transformed by the finished work of Christ.
The Purge of Leaven (v. 15)
Next, we have the central symbol of the feast.
"Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses; for whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel." (Exodus 12:15)
Leaven, or yeast, is a potent symbol in Scripture. It represents a pervasive, silent, and powerful influence. Because it causes dough to rot and puff up, it is most often a symbol of sin, corruption, and false doctrine. Jesus warned of the leaven of the Pharisees, which was hypocrisy (Luke 12:1). He warned of the leaven of the Sadducees, which was rationalism and unbelief (Matt. 16:6). And He warned of the leaven of Herod, which was worldliness and political compromise (Mark 8:15).
The command here is twofold: a positive command to eat unleavened bread, and a negative command to remove all leaven. Unleavened bread, the bread of haste and affliction, represented their sudden departure from Egypt. Spiritually, it represents sincerity and truth (1 Cor. 5:8). To eat it for seven days was to live a life wholly defined by their redemption. The purge of leaven was a radical act of house-cleaning. Every corner had to be searched. This was a picture of repentance. True repentance is not a vague feeling of sorrow; it is a ruthless, diligent search-and-destroy mission against all known sin.
The penalty for disobedience is severe: "that person shall be cut off from Israel." This is the language of excommunication. To willfully tolerate leaven was to identify with the corruption of Egypt, not the holiness of God's redeemed people. It was to say, in effect, "I do not belong to this covenant community." In the New Covenant, the church is commanded to practice the same principle. When a member persists in unrepentant sin, they are to be put out of the church, cut off from the fellowship, so that they might be driven to repentance and the church might be kept pure (1 Cor. 5:1-13). This is not an act of cruelty, but of covenant faithfulness.
Sacred Assemblies (v. 16-17)
The feast is bracketed by two days of corporate worship.
"Now on the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you; no work at all shall be done on them, except what must be eaten by every person, that alone may be done by you. You shall also keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt; therefore you shall keep this day throughout your generations as a perpetual statute." (Exodus 12:16-17)
A "holy convocation" is a sacred assembly. God's people are not a collection of disconnected individuals. They are a congregation, a body. Redemption creates a corporate reality. The week of diligent purity is to begin and end with the gathered people of God. This establishes a foundational principle: our personal holiness is nourished and sustained by our corporate worship. You cannot be a healthy Christian in isolation.
These days were to be Sabbaths, days of rest. "No work at all shall be done." This rest was a celebration of God's finished work of deliverance. They were not to work because God had worked for them. This is the heart of the Sabbath principle. We rest one day in seven because we are resting in the finished work of Christ's creation and re-creation. The exception clause, "except what must be eaten," shows that God's law is not irrational or burdensome. It allows for works of necessity. Our Lord Jesus defended this principle when He and His disciples plucked grain on the Sabbath (Matt. 12:1-8).
Verse 17 repeats the basis for the feast: "for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt." Our worship and our obedience are always grounded in God's prior act of redemption. We do not obey in order to be saved; we obey because we have been saved. Grace is the foundation, and gratitude is the fuel for all Christian living.
One Law for All (v. 18-20)
The final verses reiterate the command and extend its scope.
"In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. Seven days there shall be no leaven found in your houses; for whoever eats what is leavened, that person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. You shall not eat anything leavened; in all your places of habitation you shall eat unleavened bread.’" (Exodus 12:18-20)
The specific dates are given, tying the feast directly to the Passover. But notice the crucial expansion in verse 19. The prohibition against leaven applies to everyone in the community, "whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land." A sojourner was a Gentile, a non-Israelite who lived among them. From the very beginning, God made provision for Gentiles to be included in the covenant people.
This is a profound gospel truth. There is not one standard for the "native" and another for the "sojourner." There is one law, one standard of holiness, one way of access to God. If a Gentile wanted to identify with Israel and their God, he had to keep the feast. He had to purge the leaven. He had to submit to the terms of the covenant. This points directly to the mystery revealed in the New Testament: that in Christ, Gentiles are made "fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise" (Eph. 3:6). Through faith in Christ, the sojourner is adopted and becomes a native of the Israel of God. There is no second-class citizenship in the church. We are all one in Christ Jesus.
The final command in verse 20 is absolute and comprehensive: "in all your places of habitation you shall eat unleavened bread." The life of holiness is not just for the holy convocation. It is for every home, every dwelling place. The purity God requires on Sunday is the same purity He requires on Tuesday. Our entire lives are to be a feast of unleavened bread, offered up to the God who brought us out of Egypt.
Conclusion: Keep the Feast
So what does this mean for us? It means our lives must be shaped by our deliverance. The cross of Jesus Christ is our Passover. His blood has turned aside the wrath of God. We have been brought out of the Egypt of sin and death. Therefore, we are now commanded to live out the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
This means we must be ruthless in purging the leaven. We must declare war on the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, the unbelief of the Sadducees, and the worldliness of Herod in our own hearts and in our midst. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. A little tolerated sin, a little compromise with the world, a little bit of false teaching will corrupt the whole church. We must be diligent to sweep it out.
It means we must be nourished by the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. We must feed on Christ and His Word. We must live lives of transparent integrity before God and man. And we must do this together. We must gather for our holy convocations, our Lord's Day worship, to be reminded of our redemption and strengthened for the week of feasting ahead.
And we must remember that there is one law for all. The call to holiness extends to the long-time believer and the new convert, to the sojourner who has just come among us and the native who grew up in the church. Christ our Passover has been sacrificed. He has done the work. Our task now is not to earn our deliverance, but to celebrate it. Therefore, let us keep the feast.