1 Corinthians 5 (7)

Pray Psalm 17.15.
As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness;
I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.

Sing Psalm 17.15.
(Park Street: All You That Fear Jehovah’s Name)
But as for me, LORD, save and bless!
Let me behold Your righteousness.
Your face in glory I would see,
and thus forever blessèd be,
and thus forever blessèd be.

Review 1 Corinthians 5.1-13; meditate on verses 7, 8.

Preparation
1. What did Paul instruct the Corinthians to do?

2. What did he call them to keep?

Meditation
Smack in the middle of this difficult passage Paul wrote, “Therefore, let us keep the feast…” (v. 8). What feast did He have in mind? He mentioned Christ as the Passover Lamb Who was sacrificed for our sins (v. 7). We understand the Passover to have been a type of Christ, pointing forward to His coming and work. Once the Passover lamb was sacrificed, the people feasted on it. We also are to feast on Jesus. But what does that mean?

There is perhaps here a reference to the Lord’s Supper. But I do not believe that is the primary focus. The focus is on our feasting on Jesus, feeding on Him so that His perfections saturate our soul and His life becomes our life. We feed on Jesus by feeding on His Word (Jer. 15.16; Jn. 6.63); but reading and studying the Bible will be of no use to us if we harbor sin in our lives, whether individually or corporately.

Thus, to gain the benefit of the feast Jesus offers us, and to savor and delight in it as He intends, we must be cleansed of all old leaven, everything that is contrary to the way of Jesus, and be renewed by His Spirit and Word so that, as we feast on Him, we may gain His strength to be like Him more and more.

Too many of us, I fear, are still snacking on the junk food of our old lives. We have not yet learned how to feed on the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth which Jesus serves us in Himself through His Word.

A day is coming when those who feast on Jesus now will feast on Him forever in a perpetual marriage supper. But we must prepare for that great feast by daily feasting on our Lord. Put out all the old leaven in your life, come to the Word of God seeking Jesus, and feast on Him so that you may become more like Him. Or, as Paul wrote, “Let us keep the feast.”

Treasures Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
Pick up these toys before you start another game.
Clean up the kitchen before you begin cooking.
Straighten up your desk before you start a new project.
Rake up the leaves before you sow new grass seed.
Purge out the old leaven of sin, malice and wickedness before you can become a clean, unleavened lump.

But duly purged, you can keep the feast with gusto!

God told His people: “When I see the blood, I will pass over you;
and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD
throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance” (Ex. 12.13, 14).

Then Jesus stepped into history and became the eternal Passover Lamb.
Sacrificed for us so that we can “keep the feast” (1 Cor. 5.8); and the plague of death will not strike us.

“Now before the Feast of the Passover,
when Jesus knew that His hour had come
that He should soon depart from this world to the Father,
having loved His own who were in the world,
He loved them to the end” (Jn. 13.1).

And that “them” includes us, through His amazing love.

Then He says to us, “If you love Me,
keep My commandments” (Jn. 14.15).
And, “You are My friends if you do whatever
I command you” (Jn. 15.14).
And, “These things I command you,
that you love one another” (Jn. 15.17).
And, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
And, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Because, “On these two commandments hang all the
Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22.37-40).

We love Him because He first loved us (1 Jn. 4.19); and it is imperative that we do all we can to prove it.
He has clearly told us how—repentance and turning away from our old leavened lumpy selves being a definite first step. Then doing the things He has planned for us to do (Eph. 2.10), in tandem with keeping God’s Laws. And of course, Keeping the feast.

Just make sure you wash your face and hands before partaking! (Ps. 24.3-6)

For reflection
1. Would you describe your time in the Word of God as a “feast”? Why or why not?

2. In what specific ways is the Word helping you to grow?

3. Whom will you encourage today to “keep the feast” of Jesus and His Word?

Our Paschal victim, that spotless lamb in whom there was found no guile, the pure unleavened bread without the leaven of malice, has been offered up in sacrifice. And this is Christ, who must be eaten by us, not only by way of the sacrament, but also by way of imitation, so that taught by him and assuming his form we may become like him and may be (as far as is possible and grace permits) so pure and simple, in the sincerity and purity of justice, as to have no admixture of the opposite. John Colet (1467-1519), Exposition of 1 Corinthians 5

Pray Psalm 17.1-5.
Call on the Lord to search and judge you, and to cleanse you of all sin. Pray that He will feed you on His Word so that you walk the paths of righteousness always.

Sing Psalm 17.1-5.
(Park Street: All You That Fear Jehovah’s Name)
Hear a just cause, O God the LORD!
Gladly receive my plaintive word.
I cry with lips of purity:
Look on my case with equity!
Look on my case with equity!

Let judgment from Your throne proceed;
You have discerned my every need.
Let naught of sin in me be found,
and from my tongue let truth resound!
And from my tongue let truth resound!

As for the deeds of sinful men,
I will not walk those paths again.
My feet hold firm from first to last:
Help me to walk Your righteous path,
help me to walk Your righteous path!

T. M. and Susie Moore 

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter, available by clicking here.