Context of Communion
Ex. 12:21–28
The Israelities hurried to make the bread and the lamb for the Lord’s Passover. A transition from Egypt to the promised land, the death of the first born and therefore the heir of the family for Egyptians, and the calling of the nation from a family.
The first Passover made these things, and God in his providence has wisdom planned things for us too in that process.
A nation from a family
The family of Jacob had grown and been a a multitude of people. They were commodity and nobodies. God unites then as a nation
A worshipper and a people ( Ex 12:1-2)
God calls the Israel as not just a nation but as a kingdom with God as the King (Theocracy)
Instituted by Christ
Matt. 26:26
Mark 14:12 (On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb...)
Luke 22:19 Do in remembrance
John 13
Forgiveness of sins of many
Do in remembrance
Thanksgiving as participation
What we ought to remember
Christ Death
my participation in his death
spiritual nourishment (John 6:53,57)
Unity (1 Cor 10.17)
Christ’s love for me
I am a part of his family
My salvation is through Christ.
Things to remember
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way, He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason, many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.
1 Corinthians 5:8
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.
This topic is obviously strange and confusing for the first communion yet it is still in the very core of the communion. You see in the day that the first Passover was made, they had no time and so that meant that there was no time for waiting for the yeast to raise the bread. This meant that they had to eat unleavened bread. God in his foresight had planned it so. It was not that God hated yeast, he made it, but as we go reading in Exodus 12:19, Exodus 13:7, Deuteronomy 16:3 that there was not any leavened bread for the 7 days in among the people of Israel. It was said to remember those days of affliction. But when we see how Paul uses the context, we only think of it was an example that we could separate from the context. We could say a drop of Ujala or colouring agent changes the water, but we should not make that mistake. The word is yeast because Paul wants us to remember the context. But in the olden day's yeast was not readily made, it was a small piece of bread that was put in water and made to be mouldy and used to ferment the rest of the bread.
Paul wants us to know that our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. But our celebration does not end in 7 days, our day of remembrance does not stop there. He wants us and keeps pointing us to the ultimate lamb, and therefore the ultimate celebration and our days end only in eternity.
The context is very serious here, it's about adultery, but the message is louder. Clean yourself from the leaven that you been part of. This means like the Isreal, we have to get rid of everything that we bring in from our past life that is not worth the new bread. FOr the Jews even today during the Passover, they get rid of all the leavened bread and the leaving agents (except chemical ones). We have to do the same in our lives too.
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