Jesus In The Feasts (Part 2) - Our Unleavened Bread Foreshadowed

The earliest Christian creed according to New Testament Scholars is 1 Corinthians 15:3-6. “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” This oral creed, recorded by Paul, goes back to the very first years of the Christian movement. The foundational belief from the very beginning was that Christ died and was raised for our sins in accordance with the Old Testament scriptures. In Colossians 3, Paul likewise says that the Feasts (and other OT institutions) were foreshadowings of the work of Jesus. In this series of articles on the Feasts, we are testing that hypothesis to see if there is any apologetic value in the fulfillment claimed by Christians.

In order for an alleged fulfillment to count as evidence for the truthfulness of the Christian faith, it should pass one or more of the following four tests. The more tests it passes, the greater the evidential value.

1. Part of the fulfillment involves historical realities that would be difficult to invent or force to happen.

2. The fulfillment happens in an unexpected way that in hindsight makes sense of the prophecy or the type. Since we are not dealing with other OT evidence at this point, we will not introduce how a superior hypothesis will best explain all the evidence in a simple manner.

3. The fulfillment of one particular prophecy or type sheds lights on or provides explanation to other theological themes in a coherent yet unexpected way.

4. The unexpected nature of a fulfillment fits nicely with other more clear prophecies that don’t have any seeming relationship.

While no one piece of prophecy/fulfillment will carry the weight of full-fledged Christian conviction, they have a cumulative force. Our short series on the four spring feasts is just a sample case of application. So now let’s look at the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread is commonly associated with Passover since the passover meal is accompanied by unleavened bread (matzah). In the eyes of many, they are one and the same feast. The command to eat unleavened bread was given by God as part of the passover meal. They were to clean their homes of leaven before passover and eat unleavened bread for seven days. In Deuteronomy 16:3, the unleavened bread is referred to as the bread of affliction.

Now why was there a restriction on leaven? Well, a surface level explanation was because the Jews needed to be ready to leave in haste from their bondage in Egypt. But the ongoing prohibition of leaven during this feast along with the stringent requirements to clean the house of all leaven led most Jews to understand leaven as having a deeper significance. The common understanding was that leaven represented sin, corruption, or evil impulse. Jesus and the NT authors affirm this understanding. While leavened bread was acceptable as part of other offerings, it was never burned on the alter. The reason leaven was associated with sin is due to its corrupting nature. When yeast is added, the bread will decay in a very short period of time. Unleavened bread, by contrast has an incredibly long shelf life.

While I won’t use this in my argumentation, it is interesting to note that Jewish custom of making unleavened bread involves piercing the bread through with holes before baking, then laying the bread on racks which stripe the bread. Additionally, the Jewish passover meal custom (while not recorded in Scripture) is to take three pieces of matzah and place them in a pouch with three separate compartments. The father then breaks in half the bread in the middle pouch, wraps the the half piece of bread in white cloth, and hides it in the house. When a child finds the bread and returns it, he is given a “redemption reward.” The Gospel parallels are rich, but let’s move on. Consider this a statement by a lawyer to the jury that must be struck from the record. You’ve heard it, but you can’t use it in your verdict.

I’m going to spell out what the New Testament teaching on Jesus and his Gospel are as they pertain to this topic. I will point out, where applicable, if critics question certain portions. But as you will see, critical opinions won't weigh too heavily in the success or failure of this assessment. Here are the basic teachings of the NT.

• The Gospel of John states that Jesus claimed to be the bread of life, or the true bread from heaven. Critics like to pick on this gospel, but the point remains that Christians believe this about Jesus. However, relevant to this assessment is that these words were attributed to Jesus AND are not about passover but rather about the manna in the wilderness. So either way, in this passage of John, the author nor the Christian is making an allusion to the feast of unleavened bread.

• Jesus shared a meal with his disciples before his death, wherein the Lord’s supper was instituted. Once again, liberal scholars like to doubt the sayings of Jesus during this event (i.e. that he claimed the bread was his body, etc), but either way, Christians very quickly began sharing the Lord’s supper and commemorating Jesus death, body, and blood with the bread and wine.

• As mentioned above, the earliest Christian creed is that Christ was our sinless sacrifice who died for our sins and rose again.

• Paul along with the rest of the NT, believed the feasts were a foreshadowing of Christ.

• Jesus is almost without question viewed as the person of greatest moral character in history. The claim of the NT is that he was without sin and his personal influence upon mankind is unrivaled. So for the sake of our argument, we will be content to say that of all the people who could claim moral perfection, Jesus is at or near the top.

• Finally, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. This is a fact well attested in the Gospels and Christian writings of the early church. While there is some denial by liberal scholars (which will always be the case with every passage), there is considerable evidence in favor of the Bethlehem story. The strongest evidence is that Jesus’ family members were very instrumental in the early church and it is hard to imagine a lie going unchallenged while his family members, who are in the best position to know, would willingly suffer for things they knew to be a lie. I bring this fact up because, interestingly, Bethlehem means “house of bread.”

Let’s now move to see how well these facts and alleged foreshadowings fit with the four criteria listed above.

1. Historical Realities Difficult To Invent Or Force

Three events of history seem difficult to force or invent pertaining to our example here. The first is Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, the house of bread. The second is the date of Jesus’ death and burial taking place during the feast of unleavened bread. This is a historical fact that has widespread scholarly agreement. Third, Jesus death would certainly be described as affliction, as is the choice of those who followed him. Finally, and perhaps most contested by critics, is that Jesus had a self-understanding of himself as “the bread.” When you combine these historical realities with the historical realities that fit the Passover sacrifice, you have a very strong historical core that corresponds tightly with the Passover and Unleavened Bread celebrations.

2. Unexpected Fulfillment

The entire Jewish sacrificial system was a way for the people to maintain fellowship with God in spite of their sin. However, their sin was constantly threatening this fellowship, as the sacrifices were imperfect and the hearts of the people were sinful. But a promise kept being reiterated throughout the OT that the people would one day be able to have true fellowship with God. The passover event was their reminder that God had saved them from bondage and brought them into a land of promise, even feeding them with daily bread from heaven. But there was always something lacking. Bondage in Egypt wasn’t their ultimate problem as the rest of the story clearly shows us. Jesus comes along and says he will save from the ultimate problem, sin. He will offer the perfect sacrifice, give a new heart, and provide food that will grant true life. He claims that his body (i.e. His life and work) is the true and lasting food. Now I don’t expect the skeptic to buy this argument on its own; however, it does provide a very satisfying response to a deep problem and expectation of the Old Testament story. In this way, it is an unexpected but satisfying fulfillment that fits the data. But remember, it is tied to a historical core listed above.

3. The fulfillment sheds light on other theological themes in a coherent and incidental way

This is where things get interesting. As discussed earlier, leaven was commonly associated with sin and corruption. The only feast that required unleavened bread was this particular one. Jesus, being a lamb without spot or blemish, must be sinless. It just so happens that the one born in the “house of bread” and died on the day of “sinless” bread was the one who claimed to be sinless. Additionally, when we partake of Jesus, we are to clean out (or repent) of our sin, akin to the cleaning of the house of leaven before partaking in the passover meal. While the feast doesn’t talk about sin, it harmonizes with the Gospel message of repentance and faith in the ultimate sacrifice. This message of repentance and faith is grounded in other parts of Scripture but dovetails neatly with the feast of unleavened bread.

Finally, since leaven is corrupting and leads to decay, we can see a tight parallel to the entrance of sin and the resulting curse of death and decay. On the flip side, the unleavened bread (Jesus) would not see corruption or decay. So if he is the physical instantiation of an Old Testament foreshadowing, then we could argue that his resurrection (and lack of physical corruption and decay) dovetails neatly with this particular Old Testament type. The NT authors justified the resurrection as prophetic based on Psalm 16, Isaiah 53, and Jonah, but not on the unleavened bread. So as you can see, the total New Testament picture has a way of cohering very neatly in a completely incidental way. This incidental coherence not only ties together with an unexpected yet satisfying fulfillment of the OT, it also ties tightly to an historical core.

4. The unexpected nature of fulfillment fits nicely with other more clear prophecies that don’t have any seeming relationship.

I want to point out three prophecies in the Old Testament that have all been seen as messianic by Jews and Christians. I realize that some modern Jews may disagree, but all three of these prophecies have a long pedigree as being messianic and all three fit nicely with our unleavened bread theme. The first is Genesis 3:15, where a promised seed would overturn sin and its effects of death and decay. Only someone unaffected by the death and decay could overturn the death and decay. The picture of being the bread without leaven brings clarity to the prophecy of Genesis. The second prophecy is Psalm 16:10, where the Psalmist says that God will not let his Holy One see death or decay. Since leaven is a picture of decay, it is fitting that Christians would very early partake of a meal where Jesus is symbolized as unleavened bread, bread that doesn’t decay. And it just so happens that this meal is a picture of the day Jesus died, the very day that corresponds to the only festival where Jews must eat unleavened bread. And finally, Micah 5:2 is a prophecy that declares the Messiah, who exists from of old, will come from Bethlehem, the house of bread.

To recap, the feast of unleavened bread, which Paul says is a shadow of Christ, has an historical core with evidential force in both the shadow and the fulfillment. If divorced from this core, the fulfillment would lose its evidential force. Second, the fulfillment is unexpected yet provides a coherent and satisfying answer to the Old Testament’s unanswered questions and expectations. Third, this fulfillment, while directly tied to the feast of unleavened bread, unexpectedly and incidentally, sheds light on other theological themes and coheres with them like missing pieces of a puzzle. And finally, the fulfillment of unleavened bread is both informed by other more clear prophecies and sheds light on those prophecies in an unexpected yet coherent way.

While this is just one example of many, and one could not build their doctrine of divine inspiration on this one argument, there is still evidential force to this one particular case. When combined with other examples, a cumulative case would provide strong evidence not only for divine inspiration, but for person and work of Christ.