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As if the apostle had said, "You Corinthians are prone to pride yourselves, in the numbers of wise and wealthy men that are found among you; you glory that Corinth is the eye of Greece, and Greece the eye of the world; but what do you glory in this for? When you have such a scandalous person among you, (the incestuous man,) who is a blot and a blemish to your whole society, know ye not that as a little leaven leaveneth and soureth the whole lump; so such a member continued among you, will defile the whole body or society of Christians with you? Therefore purge out this old leaven, (cast this scandalous person out of your communion,) that ye may be a new lump (your whole church an holy society) as ye are unleavened; that is, forasmuch as ye are by your profession of Christianity obliged to be unleavened, that is, separated from sin and sinners."
Learn hence, 1. That all sin in general, but the sin of uncleanness in particular, is as leaven in regard of its spreading and diffusive nature: old leaven it is here called, because the Corinthians had been long infamous for this sin of uncleanness, even to a proverb.
Observe next, That the apostle having used this similitude of leaven, he pursues it in allusion to the Jewish custom before the celebration of the passover, who were to cast all leaven out of their houses with detestation and cursing, upon penalty of being cut off from the congregation of Israel. Thus the holy profession of Christianity obliges every one of us to cut off every notorious sinner from our society, every lust from our hearts, every member of the old Adam, that we may be a new lump, answering our holy and heavenly calling.
Observe here, The apostle's reason why the old leaven of uncleanness and malicious wickedness should be put away by us; namely, because Christ our passover is sacrificed for us. We should therefore be as careful to put away sinful lusts out of our hearts, as the Jews were to cast the material leaven out of their houses.
Learn hence, 1. That Christ is our passover, or paschal lamb, in allusion to which he is often called a lamb in the New Testament. We do not find him expressed in the New Testament by the name of any other animals which typified him, but only this of a lamb, this being more significant of his innocency and sufficiency than any other. Joh_1:29 He is called God's lamb; here he is called our passover or paschal lamb; God's in regard of the author, ours in regard to the end; God's in regard of designation, ours in regard of acceptation.
Learn, 2. That Christ is our sacrifice. A sacrifice was necessary for a sinful creature, to atone divine displeasure: a sacrifice for sin must be pure and sinless; no such sacrifice could be found but the eternal Son of God; for whatever any creature could do or suffer, had been but a debt or duty, and that could never have made compensation or satisfaction for a debt of rebellion.
Learn, 3. That Christ was a sacrifice for us, not for himself; for being perfectly sinless, he needed no sacrifice. Now the notion of all sacrifices, both among Jews and heathens, was this, that they were substituted in the room and place of the offender, to appease an offended deity, and exempt the guilty person from punishment.
Accordingly our sins were imputed to Christ, and he died under the imputed guilt of them, as a reputed sinner; for we cannot conceive how divine justice should inflict the punishment upon Christ, had it not first considered him under guilt. The weight of all our sin was laid upon his innocent shoulders: our guilt became his, by a voluntary susception of the punishment, and consequently the sufferings of this sacrifice are imputed to us. He took our sins upon himself, as if he had actually sinned; and gave us the benefit of his sufferings, as if we had actually suffered and satisfied.
Observe next, The inference drawn by the apostle from Christ's dying a sacrifice for us: Therefore let us keep the feast; not an anniversary, or yearly, but a daily feast, even all the days of our Christian life; let the whole of our lives be as the Jewish feast of passover was, free from leaven, from the leaven of malice and wickedness, and full of sincerity and uprightness both towards God and man.
Learn hence, The duty of every particular and individual Christian; seeing Christ has died as a sacrifice for his sin, his duty is to live unto Christ, by living up to the rule which Christ has given him, abhorring all malice, abandoning all wickedness, acting all that sincerity towards God, and exercising that truth and uprightness towards man, which will be an ornament to our profession whilst we are upon earth, and will bring us at length to the fruition of God in heaven.