1 Corinthians 5:6-8 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Your glorying Of the flourishing state of your church, or of your gifts, at such a time as this; is not good Is very unseasonable, your church being defiled by tolerating such vices, and thereby exposed to God's judgments, and also in danger of infection from such an example. Know ye not Who boast so much of your knowledge; that a little leaven One sin or one sinner; leaveneth the whole lump Diffuses guilt and infection perhaps through a whole religious society or congregation; that is, this single example, if tolerated, will infect others, and draw them to the like evil practices. Purge out, therefore, the old leaven Both of sinners and of sin; that ye may be a new lump That your whole church may be a holy society; as ye are unleavened As, by profession, you are obliged to be saints, and separated from sin, or that, being unleavened, ye may be a new lump, holy unto the Lord. For even Christ our passover Who was represented by the paschal lamb, John 1:29; is sacrificed for us Has been slain to make satisfaction for our sins, 1 Corinthians 15:3. As if he had said, It concerns you to let nothing of leaven, nothing of sin, be found about you, because as Christians we are now keeping a perpetual passover, of which the Jewish passover (about the time of which this epistle was written) was only a type. What exquisite skill, both here and everywhere, conducts the zeal of the inspired writer! How surprising a transition is here! And yet how perfectly natural! The apostle, speaking of the incestuous criminal, slides into his darling topic, a crucified Saviour! Who would have expected it on such an occasion? Yet when it is thus brought in, who does not see and admire both the propriety of the subject, and the delicacy of its introduction? Therefore let us keep the feast Let us feed on him by faith; or let the whole of our lives be like the Jewish feast of passover and unleavened bread. Here is a plain allusion to the Lord's supper, which was instituted in the room of the passover; not with the old leaven Of heathenism or Judaism; or with such errors and vices as we were formerly addicted to, and influenced by: neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness Nor allowing ourselves in any unkind and corrupt affections, or sinful practices, or tolerating among us any scandalous conduct. Malice is ill-will in the mind; but wickedness is ill-will expressed by actions, especially such as are accompanied with treachery. Hence the devil is styled ο πονηρος, the wicked one. But with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth With the most simple and sincere desire of knowing and practising every branch of our duty; which if we really have, it will keep us from all these evils, and will ensure such a uniformity of behaviour, as will be honourable to our profession, and agreeable to the design of its glorious author. The apostle gives the epithet of unleavened to the graces of sincerity and truth, in allusion to the emblematical meaning of the unleavened bread, which the Israelites were to eat during the feast of the passover; for thereby they were taught to celebrate that feast with pious and holy dispositions.