Bible Commentaries

1 Corinthians 5:7-8

Our Passover.

I. Our Passover Sacrifice. It is very noteworthy, regard being had to the great prominence which the idea of Christ as our Passover has received in later theology, that there are only two passages in the New Testament which express it—the one in this verse of my text, and the other, the much less obvious one, in the Gospel of St. John, who records that our Lord's speedy death obviated the necessity for the fracture of His limbs, seeing in that a "fulfilment of the command as to the Paschal Lamb." But, however unfrequent the references, there can be no doubt as to the allusion or as to the dogmatic teaching here. Distinctly and clearly in the Apostle's mind here, the one conception of Christ's death which answers to the metaphor is that which sees in Christ's death a death of expiation, though not so distinctly as in other instances a death of substitution. Because He dies the destruction and the punishment does not fall on the man who is housed behind the shelter of His blood.

II. Our Passover Feast. Of course there is no reference here—not even by implication and in any side way—to the Lord's Supper. What St. Paul is thinking about here is the whole Christian life which he compares to that Passover feast. And his exhortation, "Let us keep the feast," is in fact, first of all, this—"Do you Christian men and women see to it that your whole life be a participation in the sacrifice of the slain Lamb." The very life of the Christian is derived from communion with Jesus Christ. We are to feed upon Him if we have life at all. And how, then, are we to feed upon a slain Christ? By faith, by meditation, by continual carrying in grateful hearts, in vivid memories, and in obedient wills, the great Sacrifice on which our hopes build."

III. Our Christian purifying. "Purge out the old leaven." Self-purifying is an absolutely indispensable condition of your keeping the feast. It is quite true that no man can cleanse himself without a Divine helper. It is quite true that we shall not even desire to do it thoroughly, much less be able to do it unless there is, preceding, a faith in Jesus Christ, which is a partaking of the slain Passover Lamb. But it is also true that for any continuous, deep, and growing participation in Him and in His power, there must be this cleansing of our spirits from all filthiness, and a perfecting of holiness in the fear of the Lord. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," is but the same teaching as that of my text—"Purge out the old leaven, that ye may keep the feast."

A. Maclaren, Christian Commonwealth, July 9th, 1885.

I. It is the Person to whom St. Paul, firstly and chiefly, here and always, directs the minds of his disciples. Christ, he tells the Church, is the end of the law for righteousness to them that believe. They obtain the righteousness which the law requires them to obtain, but which it cannot confer, by trusting in a Person, in whom the righteousness dwells livingly and in whom it is livingly manifested.

II. "Christ our Passover." In that one word Paul gathers up whatever were the meanings and associations of that festival—all that the different parts of it expressed to the mind of the Jew—the whole course of the Divine history, from the call of Abraham to the time when the voice said, "This is He in whom I am well pleased."

III. "Christ our Passover," says St. Paul,—ours who are the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, and ours who are grafted into the same stock with them. He signifies all that ever the Passover signified; but the signification is for the whole human family, not for one portion of it. He was the firstborn among many brethren.

IV. "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." The complete oblation has been made. Nothing more remains to be done. There is nothing to separate the children from their Father, seeing that He is the perfect Daysman between them.

V. St. Paul, therefore, can say boldly, "Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." No one can suppose that by the word us he understood the apostles or the Corinthians, or the men of that age exclusively. He did not think that the feast of which they were to eat in full assurance that the redemption had been finished, that they were possessors of all the liberty and grace which it had wrought out, could be charged with any less meaning for those who should be passing through the world's wilderness eighteen hundred years after. The sacrifice of Christ is God's sacrifice, not our own. We may come to the feast confessing the malice and wickedness which has been in us. God will not send us empty away. He who of His tender love to mankind gave up His Son for us all, will He not with Him freely give us the purity and love which we have not and never shall have ourselves?

F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. iii., p. 283.

References: 1 Corinthians 5:7, 1 Corinthians 5:8.—R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, 2nd series, p. 143; G. Huntington, Sermons for Holy Seasons, 2nd series, p. 199; A. Barry, Three Hundred Outlines, p. 142; J. Keble, Sermons from Easter to Ascension Day, p. 1; Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. vii., p. 101. 1 Corinthians 5:8.—J. R. Macduff, Communion Memories, p. 98. 1 Corinthians 5:10.—T. B. Dover, A Lent Manual, p. 19. 1 Corinthians 5:12, 1 Corinthians 5:13.—Clergyman's Magazine, vol. iii., p. 18. 1 Corinthians 6:1-7.—Expositor, 1st series, vol. i., p. 142.