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by Phillip Ross  
7/28/2009 / Bible Studies

Doesn't it seem odd that the subject of the Passover comes up in the middle of Paul's rant against sexual immorality in 1 Corinthians 5? He speaks of keeping the Passover festival or feast in honor of Christ, who he describes as "our Passover lamb" (1 Corinthians 5:7). Yes, Paul is alluding to the Christian sacrament of Communion, but there is more. Yes, Paul is suggesting that Communion replace Passover as a Christian holiday or festival, but there is more.

Paul is alluding to the very essence or substance of Christian culture -- Communion. But I don't just mean the ten minutes it takes on Sunday morning to eat bread and drink wine together. Communion is more than that. Part and parcel of the service of Communion is Christian fellowship and all of the relationships, traditions, authorities and associations implied therein. We see this fact in the previous section where Paul spoke of removing the offending person from the fellowship of believers.

Paul was alluding to excommunication, which accomplishes two things: 1) it forbids the excommunicant from receiving Communion, and 2) it forbids the body of Christ from fellowshipping with those who are under this discipline. Communion and Christian fellowship are linked together through the structure, authority and discipline of church practice. Communion is an expression of Christian culture, Christian social organization.

Why are they linked? Because Communion is a reflection of the whole organizational structure -- the biblical understanding of Christ as Lord, the authority of the church and its officers, and the common bond of love that is the basis of Christian relationships. Communion is both the root and the flower of Christian culture. Don't think of Communion as an isolated, fragmented part of a worship service. Rather, think of it as an integral part of Christian life, both of the life of the individual Christian and the life of the Christian community. Think of it as the glue that holds Christianity together.

Communion is not an isolated, fragmented element of Christian worship. Rather, Communion is an expression of the wholeness, interrelatedness and integrity of Christian society. No one can celebrate Communion alone. It requires the whole structure or apparatus of worship, authority and fellowship of the Christian church, which in turn is composed of individuals, families, traditions, practices, formalities, habits, laws, customs, relationships, etc. If we eliminate any of these constitutive elements or reduce the church to a subset of any of these elements, we diminish the church and the Lord of the church.

Paul was saying that Communion is like the Old Testament Passover. The Passover was a week-long festival set in the context of the Hebrew calendar and Hebrew society. It was a major cultural event in the life of Israel. Paul was using it to refer to the holistic or all-encompassing nature of biblical culture. Paul was saying that just as Passover had been a central event in the life of Israel, so Communion is the central event in the life of the Church.

Paul was telling us what we need to do to encourage and protect Christian culture. He said that two things are required: 1) cure and 2) containment. The cure is salvation by grace alone, the foundation of Christian life. No one can be a Christian apart from God's gift of salvation by grace, or regeneration. Once people are Christian, once they have been saved and baptized into the church, then the need for containment comes into play. Here we come back to the analogy of pride or, more generally, sin as a contagious disease.

There are two aspects of this containment. First, Christians need to fellowship with other Christians. There are a lot of reasons for this. Because our values and interests change once we have been converted, we find that we have less and less in common with people who are not Christian. Our circle of friends changes because we like being with Christians more than with non-Christians. The old adage is that birds of a feather flock together. Christian fellowship becomes a source of joy.

But there is another aspect of this containment. Just as it is good for us to spend time with other Christians, Paul tells us that it is not good for us to spend time with certain sinners. Paul does not mean that we should avoid all sinners, because if we do that we can be with no one -- not even ourselves. Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 5:9, "I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people -- not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world." The effort to avoid all sinners is futile. It can't be done. It's impossible.

Phillip A. Ross founded http://www.Pilgrim-Platform.org in 1998, which documents the church's fall from historic Christianity. Demonstrating the Apostle Paul's opposition to worldly Christianity, he published an exposition First Corinthians in 2008. Ross's book, Arsy Varsy -- Reclaiming the Gospel i

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