The Bible is filled with types and antitypes: physical representations in the Old Testament, which lay the foundation for understanding the spiritual truths revealed in the New Testament. Although there are many other examples of these parallels, this article focuses on the feast of the unleavened bread, as it relates to the exercise of marking and avoiding.

The institution of the Passover, revealed in Exodus 12, was a seven-day feast in which the children of Israel were to eat “unleavened bread” after having “put away leaven” from their houses (v. 15). Moreover, verse 19 says, “Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel....” During this feast, if the Israelites had tolerated any leaven whatsoever within their homes, they would have been severed from God and His people!

In the New Testament, not many years after the local church had been established at Corinth, the spiritual leaven of fornication entered in among them (1 Cor. 5:1). Paul’s ensuing words of admonition were, “...Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Then in verse 11, Paul specified some (though not all) leavening agents, including, “if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one, no, not to eat.” After identifying various leavens, he concludes the list with the words “such an one.” This would include other, similar leavening influences which were not expressly mentioned in the text (cf. Mark 7:8,13; Gal. 5:21), but which are recognized as sin, or leaven, elsewhere in the apostles’ writings.

The antitype of unleavened bread for our spiritual “feast” today is “the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Our acknowledgement of both of these elements is imperative if we are to please the Lord (Matt. 4:4)! If “sincerity” and “truth” are the “unleavened bread,” then all INsincerityandUNtruth are leavening agents that we must “purge out.” Case in point: false doctrine is also revealed in the gospel as leaven (cf. Matt. 16:6-12 and Mark 8:18). Although heresy may be taught in all sincerity, it is still “untruth” and regarded as the leaven of “wickedness” [see The New Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon, pg. 48, anomia (# 458)]. In Romans 16:17, the apostle Paul commanded all Christians to “...mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.” No exceptions are revealed or implied (cf. Titus 3:10)! 

There are many who advocate that Romans 14 authorizes us to keep fellowship with those who teach and practice error on doctrinal matters of considerable importance, such as marriage, divorce and remarriage.Some have said that the reason they are not required to separate from “such” teachers is that they, themselves, truly believe the doctrine which they advocate. The end result is the same (Matt. 15:13-14), whether the instructor of erroneous doctrine is sincere or not: all doctrinal error (even a little, 1 Cor. 5:6; Gal. 5:9) corrupts the souls of many (1 Cor. 15:33; 2 Tim. 2:16-18). “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

Will we tolerate and accept the fatal leaven of sin and error, or “keep the feast” with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth?