1st Corinthians Chapter 5 verse 7 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 7. - Purge out therefore. The word "therefore" is absent from the best manuscripts, and the abruptness is more emphatic without it. No doubt the metaphor was suggested by the fact that St. Paul was writing about the time of the Passover (Acts 16:8). The most essential requisite of the Jewish regulations, with which his whole training had made him so familiar, was the absolute putting away, and even destruction, of every trace of leaven, which was diligently sought for the day before the Passover began. The putting away of leaven was a type of sanctification. The old leaven. "Old" as belonging to their unregenerate and unconverted condition; a remnant of the day when they had been Gentiles and Jews who had not known Christ. The least willing tolerance of the taint would cause it to work throughout the whole society. As ye are unleavened. Leaven is the type of evil in its secret and corrupting workings. Ideally, Christians can only be addressed as "unleavened," i.e. as "purged from their own old sins" (2 Peter 1:9); and it is the method of Scripture (indeed, it is the only possible method) to address Christians as being Christians indeed, and therefore in their ideal rather than their actual character. Some have taken these words to mean, "You are actually keeping the Passover, and therefore have no leaven among you;" but (1) the words cannot bear this meaning; nor (2) was St. Paul likely to appeal so prominently to a Jewish ordinance; and (3) he is thinking of the Christian Easter, and only borrowing a casual illustration from the Jewish Passover. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; rather, in the true reading, for our passover also was sacrificed - even Christ. As Christians, the Gentile Corinthians certainly did not keep the Jewish Passover; but St. Paul reminds them that they too had a Passover - that for them, too a Paschal Victim had been offered, whose sacrificial blood had been shed for their redemption (John 1:29; John 19:36; 1 Peter 1:19). (Comp. Hebrews 13:10, "We have an altar.")

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(7) Purge out therefore the old leaven.--It is not the offending man who is here spoken of, but it is the spirit in the Church which tolerated the evil, and which is to be purged out of their midst that they may become actually (a new lump) as they are by profession (unleavened).Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.--Better, Christ our passover is slain; "for us" is not in the best MSS. The word translated "sacrifice" is generally used in the New Testament in the sense simply of "slaying" or "killing" (Matthew 22:4; John 10:10; Acts 10:1; Acts 10:13; Acts 11:7); and in the similar expressions regarding our Lord (Revelation 5:6; Revelation 5:12) the word is "wounded." . . .