<Ex 12> 14 “This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is all you may do.

17 “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. 18 In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the twenty-first day. 19 For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. 20 Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.”

What does “leaven” (yeast) symbolise?

• Characteristic of leaven is its ability to spread pervasively.
• Unleavened: “haste” and “no corruption”.
• Leaven:
  • Hypocrisy, self-righteousness, legalism
    • <Lk 12:1b> Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
  • Unbelief
    <Mk 8:15> “Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”

• Wrong teachings
  • <Mt 16:12> Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
• Malice and wickedness 
  • <1 Cor. 5> 6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8 Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
• Unleavened bread symbolizes holiness, being pure from sin.
• Ryken: “God wanted to do something more than get His people out of Egypt; He wanted to get Egypt out of his people.”

Connection between Passover and Unleavened Bread.

• Passover: Salvation; Unleavened bread: Sanctification
• God saves us in order to sanctify us.
• Passover (salvation) comes first, then Festival of Unleavened Bread (sanctification).
• Confusion about justification and sanctification.
• Passover was just one day, but the Festival of Unleavened Bread was 7 continuous days.
• Justification: one-off; sanctification: lifelong process.
• Unleavened bread: Sign of discontinuity from old self.
• Strive to kill sins (don’t even tolerate “a little sin”).
  • Hate sin more.
  • Be suspicious of sin.
  • Put in safeguards.
  • Confess sin, regain strength and move on in holiness.