PASSOVER IS A DAY OF UNLEAVENED BREAD

By Steven Greene

Website: https://sabbathreflections.org

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.

1)    Leavened bread is not to be eaten with the Passover:

DEUTERONOMY 16:1-3 Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover unto the LORD thy God: for in the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night. 2 Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the Passover unto the LORD thy God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the LORD shall choose to place his name there. 3 Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it [the Passover]; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life.

2)    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 sunset, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at sunset.

3)    The Passover Is required to be eaten with unleavened bread:

EXODUS 12:6, 8 And ye shall keep it [the lamb] up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. … 8 And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.

NUMBERS 9:10-11 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean by reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep the Passover unto the LORD. 11 The fourteenth day of the second month at even they shall keep it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

NOTE: This was the second Passover.

4)    Jesus Christ and the disciples observed Passover as a day of Unleavened Bread:

LUKE 22:7 Then came the day of the unleaveneds in which it was obligatory to kill the Passover lambs.

5)    Leaven was required to be purged out on Passover

1 CORINTHIANS 5:7 Therefore, purge out the old leaven, so that you may become a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us.

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 unleavened 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). Any suggestion that leaven is allowed or appropriate on Passover cannot be supported by Scripture.