Leaven

Is leaven generally used to specify bad doctrine only, or both bad and good? Since good leaven produces fermentation and bad scarcely any, but leaves substances into which it is introduced sad and heavy, it appears to me that good doctrine should have the effect of fermentation. I do not see this subject at all clearly.

ANSWER

The law of Moses commanded that "no leaven nor any honey should be burned in any offering of Jehovah made by fire." Unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil, of fine flour, and fried, were offered with the thanks-giving sacrifices; and besides the cakes, unleavened bread. These were to be offered in Jerusalem; therefore Amos ironically exhorts the ten tribes, saying, "Come to Bethel and transgress, and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven."

On the day of Pentecost the law prescribed the offering of a new meat-offering, consisting of two loaves of fine flour baken with leaven, which were to be brought out of their habitations, and delivered to the priest as the bread of the first-fruits, which, with a kid for a sin-offering, and two lambs for peace-offerings, he was to wave before the Lord.

Leaven in itself is distasteful, though its effect upon fine flour, if the leaven be new and duly apportioned, is to render it light and palatable. The blood of Jehovah’s sacrifice was not to be offered with leaven, because this would be to introduce a principle of levity and impurity into the sin-offerings; for, however good it might be in itself, yet in fine flour, not being flour, it is an impurity; and all sin-offerings were to be pure, or without spot or blemish.

But the absence of leaven was not only representative of purity—the sinlessness of the Anointed Sinner, the great antitypical sacrifice for sins not his own—it was also memorial of the thrusting out of the twelve tribes of Israel from Egypt with such haste, that they had no time to prepare leavened bread as in times of peace and quietness. Hence, the absence of leaven was indicative of tribulation and affection; and its presence in an offering of peace and ground for thanksgiving: so that the Mosaic law inculcated that "Besides the cakes, the worshipper shall offer for his offering leavened bread, with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace-offerings."

In the New Testament, the effect of leaven upon meal is presented, in parable, as an illustration of the relation of the kingdom of the heavens to the three parts into which the Roman empire was constitutionally divided, when it should be in the midst of them. It shall ferment, or produce a fermentation, among them, until the whole empire is fermented and brought into peacefulness with God; or, in the words of Daniel, "the stone," which he interprets to signify the kingdom which the God of heavens shall set up, "shall grind to powder, and bring to an end all these kingdoms" of the Image-world; "and itself become a great mountain, and fill the whole earth." Then will the whole be leavened.

Again, the doctrine and hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Herodian-Sadducees is compared to leaven, in relation to the doctrine and purity taught by Jesus. His was the fine flour; theirs an ingredient which, if blended with it, would so change its nature as to make it unfit for use; "for they made of none effect the Word of God by their traditions." The Pharisees were very "pious" people, both in tone, in phraseology, in the making of long and many prayers, in going to church, in dress, in building monuments to the prophets, in saying many true things about them and the law; all this they did and, like their sectarian antitypes of our day, passed current among the people for great saints, and the very elect of God. But they believed not the preaching of Jesus, and obeyed not the commandments of the Lord. Their piety and doctrine were therefore styled leaven, because being spurious and hypocritical, it would so change the character of the One Faith and Hope as to make them ineffectual to the justification of the believer. Therefore, as the Lord Jesus said to his contemporaries, so we say to ours, "Beware of the leaven of ‘those’ who cant piously, but do not the truth, but their own gospel, nullifying traditions."

Sin, in whatever way it manifests itself, is the leaven of human nature. Hence Paul styles crime festering in the body, "the old leaven;" and reproves the Corinthian association for glorying while this is the case. So long as the incestuous person was recognised as in good standing with them, they were regarded as in a leavened condition, upon the principle of the law, that "a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." He therefore exhorts them to "purge out the old leaven;" or, as he explains it in a subsequent verse, "Put away from among yourselves that wicked person"—"that ye may be a new lump when ye are unleavened." He then continues, "For the Anointed also, our paschal lamb, is slain for us," no leaven being found with him; "therefore let us celebrate the festival, not with old leaven"—the fruit of the flesh evinced through tolerated evil doers—"the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened things of purity and truth." From the evidence, then, before us in these columns, I conclude that leaven is nowhere used in Scripture to represent good doctrine, but rather the contrary.

John Thomas, February 1855