1 Corinthians 5:8

Wherefore 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.

Keep the feast ... It seems incredible to this student that anyone would apply this to keeping the Jewish Passover. "We are obliged to keep the feast, the feast of unleavened bread."[15] This whole paragraph is absolutely metaphorical; for, when Paul commanded the Corinthians to "purge out thy old leaven," he referred to purging out sin. Therefore "feast" in this place has the meaning of Christian life and fellowship. Farrar read it "Keep the feast of Christ's resurrection in the spirit of holiness."[16] Barnes interpreted it as "Let us engage in the service of God by putting away evil."[17] "Keeping the feast suggests the continuous life of the Christian, a day-by-day walking in holiness, strength and joy."[18] There is not a reference here to the Lord's Supper specifically; but of course it is included in the larger sphere of the entire Christian pilgrimage.

Not with old leaven ... This is a reference to the old morality of the Corinthians, under the figure of the Jews' actions at Passover. All sexual vice, as well as malice and other forms of wickedness, are specific examples of what Paul meant by "leaven."

Unleavened bread ... refers to the new life in Christ from which the old works of the flesh have been purged and replaced by "sincerity and truth."

[15] F. W. Grosheide, op. cit., p. 126.

[16] F. W. Farrar, op. cit., p. 168.

[17] Albert Barnes, op. cit., p. 88.

[18] Donald S. Metz, op. cit., p. 355.