Our Master told us “…this do, in remembrance of me.” But nowhere are we commanded to use unleavened bread. This fact alone is sufficient to answer the question, because those who say we should use unleavened bread come close to adding their own ‘commandment of men’.
The law was always explicit about the kind of bread to be used in each offering or feast; so the mere fact that the Bible is not, with regard to the feast we hold (not to be confused with the Passover), is highly significant and indicates that the kind of bread is unimportant. Probably unleavened bread was used on the first occasion. However, the record seems to go out of its way to avoid using the term “azumos” (unleavened), using instead the more general word, “artos” (bread). In all subsequent references to the Breaking of Bread the word for ‘unleavened bread’ is never used. If leavenness or otherwise had been important we could have expected at least a few uses of the word “azumos”, even if not a direct command to use it.
Significance of Unleavened Bread
The significance of leaven in the Passover is given: “Seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt…” (Deut. 16:3).
This meaning is confirmed in Ex.12:11 and 39, where they eat unleavened bread because they were thrust out of Egypt suddenly. Earlier in Gen.19:3 Lot entertained two angels unexpectedly, and in haste had to make unleavened bread. Haste was also the keynote in Jud. 6:19 and 1 Sam.28:24.
As far as I can discover, the ideas of affliction and rush are the primary significance of unleavened bread as taught by the Old Testament writings. In the Passover, Israel celebrated their final redemption, their birth by expulsion from the dark womb of Egypt. The unleavened bread symbolized that last painful ‘push’ which set them on the road through the wilderness.
Later passages (2 Chron. 30:21 and Ezra 6:22) may indicate that the unleavened bread became associated with rejoicing, the joy of release, perhaps.
Significance of Leaven
On the first passover the old leaven was left behind in Egypt, while in subsequent years old leaven was cast out and unleavened bread used for seven days, at the end of which leaven began to be used once more, till the following year. Clearly God did not intend Israel to return to the things of Egypt after seven days, but rather to the food He provided. So even here leaven appears to have two meanings, depending on whether it were old or new.
Significance of Leaven in the New Testament
There are two key passages:
- 1 Cor.5:6-7 speaks of the Church becoming contaminated with evil practices and the doctrine that such practices can be tolerated. This appears to be the only passage of Scripture where leaven is associated with corruption, and it is corruption of doctrine and practice rather than decay in death (1 Cor. 15:33-34). Christ our passover lamb has been (past tense) sacrificed for us, and therefore we should get rid of the wicked leaven and replace it with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
There is an important point to be noticed here. The passover lamb is not the reality; but Christ is. So also the unleavened bread is not the real thing in our long continuous passover feast into the kingdom; but sincerity and truth are. Our passover is one long occasion which began with Christ’s death and continues on into the kingdom. We were joined with his death at our baptism and our whole lives are part of the true passover. It is not something which stops at the end of a ‘memorial service’. Our passover is the anti-type. We do not keep, and have not been commanded to keep, the Jewish passover.
Since we keep the true passover with the true lamb, Christ himself, how respectful and thankful to him we should be for delivering us from the bondage of Egypt!
- 16:6-12 The leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees refers to their doctrine, as Jesus spells out. This leaven works within, and of it we are to beware. Similarly, the kingdom of heaven (the kingdom of God) is like leaven (Matt.13:33, Lk. 13:20-21) because the doctrine of the kingdom works in the mind and heart, preparing them for the kingdom. I do not see that we need take the three measures as indicating a threefold division, as has been suggested. Three measures of meal seems to have been a quantity suitable for cooking purposes and was used by Sarah (Gen.18:6). Of course, the whole is usually leavened as one lump and afterwards is split into many loaves or cakes – not three.
The Breaking of Bread and what it represents
Besides being the true Passover, Christ is also the fulfilment of all the other offerings, sacrifices and feasts. Each of those occasions was required to typify some aspect of the Messiah to come, and God’s work for us through him. As types they described the work of the Messiah. But only when all the offerings are put together do we have a complete picture.
When Christ came, he was the reality, the revelation of God, the fulfilment of these shadowy types, and therefore that which had been described by them. But he was one only, combining all the facets depicted in so many different offerings and feasts. “For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified” (Heb.10:14). Similarly v.10 and other passages in the same book. (In this chapter, note a far more important point than getting an exact representation of a single facet in our Breaking of Bread – it is for us to do the will of God (v.7), provoking one another to love and good works (v.24), “so much the more, as ye see the day approaching”. This is something we cannot do unless we meet each other on a frequent basis.)
In the Breaking of Bread we do not remember the passover or the sin offering, or any other of the shadows, sacrifices and feasts which went before. We remember Christ. “This do, in remembrance of me.” Although it was impossible under the law to look at all aspects in only one type, we can see all in the bread and wine because they represent that which has been revealed, and we concentrate our thoughts not upon bread and wine as such, but on the one they represent, whom we know and love. The kind or quality of bread makes no difference.
The bread and wine are symbols, emblems, not types of the one represented, and therefore need not and can never depict all important aspects in detail.
Offerings under the Law
Under the law, offerings represented the deficiencies of the offerer, his own worthiness of death and need of reconciliation with God, as well as the ultimate perfect sacrifice that God would provide. If the bread looks back to the offerings, or rather to their fulfilment in Christ, then the imperfection of the offerer must be included in its meaning, not merely the righteousness and incorruptibility of the Messiah.
On two occasions leaven is used: (1) Peace offering (Lev. 7:13); (2) Feast of the firstfruits (Lev. 23:17). Presumably there is a reference to the first of these in Amos 4:5.
The peace offerings for thanksgiving and also for consecration were the only ones of which the people partook (Lev.7:15-16). Of other offerings the priest could partake except for the burnt offering, of which none could partake. It is to be noted therefore that the only offerings of which the people partook contained both leaven and unleaven.
The feast of firstfruits demonstrates the use of leaven in relation to the wave loaves which were a type of the resurrected saints (Rev.14:4, James 1: 18). The first-fruits were eaten by the priest. This shows the assimilation of the saints, the product of the seed of the kingdom or the Word of life, into Christ as the one true body. The use of leaven in this feast cannot signify ‘corruption’, though it could signify mortality, because the ‘loaves’ have been raised from the dead, judged and forgiven prior to being finally eaten, i.e. clothed with immortality as part of Christ’s own body.
The Lord’s Table
There is one aspect of the Breaking of Bread which probably should be taken as a type because it refers to the future kingdom, and we do not yet see the reality. In Luke 22 16 Christ refers to the passover being fulfilled in the kingdom of God. This does not contradict what is written above. For, although our passover began with Christ’s perfect life, in which he overcame the desires and lusts of human nature even to his death, it ends with resurrection and deliverance from the power of death.
This culmination of meaning in the kingdom of God is emphasised by Jesus at the end of the passover meal in his gift of bread and wine. As a type this represents the bounty of the Lord, or the Lord’s table, to be fulfilled in the kingdom (v.3C). “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”
As such it links up with the peace offering where the offerer’s willing offering was answered by God’s bounty in returning a share of the sacrifice for the offerer to eat. We noted that the peace offering required both leavened and unleavened to be eaten by the offerer. If anything, this would indicate the use of both leavened and unleavened at the Breaking of Bread.
The feast of firstfruits with its leaven offerings began on entry to the land (Lev.23:10&17) and so refers to this same phase in God’s purpose. The fruits of Christ’s work will become manifest in the kingdom.
It is one bread we break; but we all share and therefore the bread represents also those who partake of the Lord and are united to him, as well as the Lord himself (1 Cor.10:16-17).
The Breaking of Bread is not a literal sacrifice. One sacrifice has been made, once and for all, as far as we are concerned (Heb.7:27; 9:25-28; 10:1-3; 10:10-12). The bread and wine merely point to the work of this one sacrifice and its fruits which culminate in the kingdom. Finally, Melchizedek provides further confirmation of our argument in this section. Melchizedek as a pattern of Christ brings forth bread and wine. This is the pattern of the Lord’s table. But there is no mention of matza (Gen.14:18).
Conclusions
God has not laid down that we should use unleaven, or that we should use leaven. “Where there is no law, there is no transgression” (Rom.4:15). If we add our own commands to the law of God, we detract from those He has truly given.
Leaven does not necessarily refer to sin and corruption. And certainly leavened as well as unleavened was significant in types which presented the process of reconciliation between God and man. The bread and wine are intended to bring all aspects of God’s work in Christ to mind. We should not limit the significance of Christ’s gift lest our own part also be limited.
The Solution