Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
old leaven--The remnant of the "old" (Ephesians 4:22-24) heathenish and natural corruption. The image is taken from the extreme care of the Jews in searching every corner of their houses, and "purging out" every particle of leaven from the time of killing the lamb before the Passover (Deuteronomy 16:3-4). So Christians are continually to search and purify their hearts (Psalms 139:23-24).
as ye are unleavened--normally, and as far as your Christian calling is concerned: free from the leaven of sin and death (1 Corinthians 6:11). Paul often grounds exhortations on the assumption of Christian professors' normal state as realized (Romans 6:3-4) [ALFORD]. Regarding the Corinthian Church as the Passover "unleavened lump" or mass, he entreats them to correspond in fact with this their normal state. "For Christ our Passover (Exodus 12:5-11, Exodus 12:21-23; John 1:29) has been (English Version, "is") sacrificed for us"; that is, as the Jews began the days of unleavened bread with the slaying of the Passover lamb, so, Christ our Passover having been already slain, let there be no leaven of evil in you who are the "unleavened lump." Doubtless he alludes to the Passover which had been two or three weeks before kept by the Jewish Christians (1 Corinthians 16:8): the Gentile Christians probably also refraining from leavened bread at the love-feasts. Thus the Jewish Passover naturally gave place to our Christian Easter. The time however, of keeping feast (metaphorical; that is, leading the Christian life of joy in Christ's finished work, compare Proverbs 15:15) among us Christians, corresponding to the Jewish Passover, is not limited, as the latter, to one season, but is ALL our time; for the transcendent benefits of the once-for-all completed sacrifice of our Passover Lamb extends to all the time of our lives and of this Christian dispensation; in no part of our time is the leaven of evil to be admitted.
For even--an additional reason, besides that in 1 Corinthians 5:6, and a more cogent one for purging out every leaven of evil; namely, that Christ has been already sacrificed, whereas the old leaven is yet unremoved, which ought to have been long ago purged out.
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
Exodus 12:15
Ezekiel 45:21
Matthew 22:4
Mark 14:1
Luke 22:15
John 12:12
John 19:36
1 Corinthians 5:1
1 Corinthians 6:9
1 Corinthians 15:20
1 Corinthians 16:8
2 Corinthians 2:3
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