PASSOVER IS A DAY OF UNLEAVENED BREAD
While Passover and the subsequent seven Days of Unleavened Bread are unique from each other, one aspect they have in common is that Passover is also a day in which leaven was to be put out and only unleavened bread was to be eaten. This is clear from Scripture.
Leavened bread is not to be eaten with the Passover:
DEUTERONOMY 16:1-3 “Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to the LORD your God, for in the month of Abib the LORD your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 “Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover to the LORD your God, from the flock and the herd, in the place where the LORD chooses to put His name. 3 “You shall eat no leavened bread with it [the Passover]; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, that is, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.
Unleavened bread is required to be eaten beginning from Abib 14 (Passover) through Abib 21 (Last DUB):
EXODUS 12:18 ‘In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.
The Passover is required to be eaten with unleavened bread:
EXODUS 12:6, 8 ‘Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. … 8 ‘Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.
NUMBERS 9:10-11 “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ‘If anyone of you or your posterity is unclean because of a corpse, or is far away on a journey, he may still keep the LORD’s Passover. 11 ‘On the fourteenth day of the second month, at twilight, they may keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
NOTE: This was the second Passover.
Jesus Christ and the disciples kept Passover as a day of Unleavened Bread:
LUKE 22:7 Then came the Day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover must be killed.
Leaven was required to be purged out on Passover:
1 CORINTHIANS 5:7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
NOTE: The OT Passover sacrificial lamb was required to be eaten with unleavened bread (Exo. 12:6, 8; Num. 9:10-11) signifying that the bread symbolizing the true Lamb—Jesus Christ—was unleavened.
When we “put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27), we are unleavened (1 Cor. 5:7) because Jesus Christ living in us (Gal. 2:20). Jesus Christ IS our Passover and leaven has nothing to do with Him so why would Passover be anything other than a day of unleavened bread? Passover is a day of unleavened bread because that is what we become by His sacrifice. It makes absolutely no sense to claim that leavened bread is allowable or appropriate on Passover given the meaning of it and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins, which is symbolized by leaven (1 Cor. 5:6-8). Furthermore, Scripture never suggests that leaven is allowed or appropriate on Passover. On the other hand, Scripture absolutely shows that the Passover service requires unleavened bread AND bans all leavened bread. Those who partake of the Passover service and then proceed to eat leavened bread afterwards—claiming Passover is not a day of Unleavened Bread—utterly fail to understand the meaning and purpose of the day.
May God’s grace and peace be upon you!
Steven Greene
https://sabbathreflections.org