Chapter

34

Purging Out

The Old Leaven

Brings More Power

     Yahweh promised the same kind of power to us that He gave to His early disciples. Why can’t we have that kind of power?  Why isn’t someone doing what the early apostles and the prophets did?  Since God is the “same yesterday, today, and forever,” why isn’t someone showing forth His power in a reality in the earth today? 

     Paul addressed this issue in his first letter to the Corinthians. In the first  chapter, He exhorts them  to “all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you.”  They were to have the same mind and the same judgement.  He goes on to say that there were contentions there.  Proverbs declare, “Only by pride comes contentions.” Since a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, the Corinthians did not have any power of God or with God.  They had fallen into different camps.  They were choosing up sides, as if there were two or three opposing sides in God (“I am of Paul; I am of Apollos; I am of Cephas; I am of Christ; I am a Baptist; I am a Methodist;  I  am Pentecostal, ad nauseam).  Paul in v. 10 was admonishing them that they make their minds be conformed to God’s mind, the mind of the Messiah, Yahshua. 

    He goes on in chapter 1 to say that the body of the Messiah, the church, the assembly, is not divided.  Then in v.17 he says that the preaching of the gospel is not done in the wisdom of man’s words.  This is what will make the stauros, the stake, of none effect.  The stauros in Greek is important in that it is a symbol of death—the death of one’s ego, one’s old self, one’s Adamic carnal nature (Romans 6).  Many zero in on the fact that the instrument of death was the stake and not the cross.  This is true.  But, if we have not experienced the death of our old selves by identifying our old man Adam, our old nature with the Messiah, who was made to be sin for us, then it really doesn’t matter.  The major point is that our old life has been put to death along with the Lamb of God, and by faith in the operation of the Father, we are raised to walk in a newness of life.

     “For the preaching of the” instrument of the death of self  “is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.  Yah’s power is found in our deliberate acknow- ledgement that our old life is dead and that our new spiritual life is hid with the Spirit of the Father.   “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”

      What exactly is the “wisdom of the wise” of this world?  Wisdom is being in awe of Yahweh.  Wisdom of this world is being in awe of our own power or in the power of other men.  “Has not God made foolish the  wisdom of this world.”  Men of this world rely on

their own strength; this is called the “pride of life.”  He who carries the bigger stick is the most powerful; the country that has the biggest bombs is the most powerful.  But it is not so in Yahweh.  The power of Yah is unleashed when we are weak in our own strength.  “I can of my own self do nothing,” said Yah-in-human-form, our example.  “For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called (1:26).”  Why?  Why aren’t many rich men, mighty men and the nobility called into His kingdom?  Because they will have a terrible time not relying on their own strength and power and money.  They will have a difficult time letting their old self and pride and ego die out to depend on the Spirit of the risen Savior.

We are the weak things that

will confound the mighty

     “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty…(1:27).”  God has chosen us humans who know that we are weak and have voluntarily laid down our lives; we allow Him in the form of His Spirit to come into us to lead us and guide us.  Weak are the mortal ones who know that their life is but a vapor that will soon be swallowed up by the various gases encompassing the earth.  We weak know that without Him we can do nothing.  We weak know that without His resurrection power coming soon for us in this state, we are nothing and have  no  hope in this life.  Yes, we are the weak and have no power in this world system.  But God has chosen us, the weak, to confound the mighty of this world.

     “And the base things of the world, and things which are despised, has God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence (28-29).”  He said that He is near to them of a broken spirit and a contrite heart.  Breaking our spirit of pride—that will unleash the power!  Knowing we are weak and have no real power other than Him, will unleash His power. Knowing that we are but mortals and not glorying in the pride of our little mortal lives in His presence—that will unleash His power! 

     Oh, how Paul knew!  He was struck down on the road to Damascus where he was soon to exercise man’s wisdom and man’s power in hailing followers of Yah-is-Savior into prison and unto death.  He was a member of a high Jewish council with man’s system’s power.  But Yah struck him down and redeemed him and helped him and revealed unto him the truths that he later shared with the Corinthians.   And so he could say, “That, according as it is written, He that glories, let him glory in Yahweh (1 Cor. 1:31, quoted from Jer. 9:24).”

     So, part of the old leaven, or things that we need to get rid of in our lives, is taking pride in the strength of our fleshly existence and not in the Spirit of Yahweh.  Being in awe of the strength of fleshly man and not being in awe of the Spirit of Yahweh is some of the old leaven, or untruths—the things that the apostle tells us later in the book has to go.  We need to realize (v. 30) that we will get all of our goodness, wisdom and righteousness through His Spirit within us.  “Not by might [our might], not by power [our power], but by my Spirit, saith Yahweh.” 

     The spirit of pride is thinking that it is us doing anything and not Him.  It was so bad in the congregation at Corinth that Paul was “determined not to know any thing among” them except Yah-is-Savior and His example of the death of our old selfish nature (I Cor. 2:1).  And so he came unto them in weakness and in awe of Yahweh.  He did not try to reach them using “enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”  For we now realize that man’s wisdom is the opposite of His power.   

The hidden wisdom

     He was speaking of a “hidden wisdom,” a wisdom for the mature, the perfect (2:6).  It was wisdom that the world could not see nor perceive nor conceive of.  It is a secret, a mystery unto all who rely on their own strength.  It is the special domain of those who have put to death their ego and vanity on the stake and have renounced the dishonesty of their old lives.   Paul was speaking “God’s hidden wisdom, his secret purpose framed from the very beginning to bring us to our full glory.  The powers that rule the world have never known it; if they had, they would not have” put to death the Master of glory (2:7-8, NEB). 

     The rulers of this world system did not know this hidden heavenly wisdom, for they thought that by killing the Messiah, the flesh body, that they would snuff out the Creator.  But He has chosen the weak things  (the  human  body) to raise it up, to glorify it.  And this is so that the world will realize that the Father in his weakness is stronger and has more power than man at his strongest.

     It all boils down to the resurrection power.  That is the Father’s ace in the hole and has now become our ace in the hole.  Man’s wisdom, with its false doctrines and teachings and concepts and traditions cannot enter this realm, for it is a special realm that is set apart for Yahweh’s purposes.  And that is the bringing down of the pride of man and bringing him into one with Him. 

     The apostle goes on in the letter in the third chapter exhorting them to see the Spirit and not the flesh.  “Can you not see that while there is jealousy and strife among you, you are living on the purely human level of your lower nature?  When one says, I am Paul’s man, and another, I am for Apollos, are you not all too human?  After all, what is Apollos? What is Paul?  We are simply God’s agents in bringing you to the faith.  Each of us performed the task which the Master allotted to him: I planted the seed, and Apollos watered it; but God made it grow.  Thus it is not the gardeners with their planting and watering who count, but God, who makes it grow.  Whether they plant or water, they work as a team, though each will get his own pay for his own labor.  We are God’s fellow-workers; and you are God’s garden. I Cor. 3:3-9, NEB. 

      Here again, the apostle is trying to get them to see that it is the Spirit that counts.  We are His temple, and if we put ourselves as some great one after the flesh, then we are defiling His temple. We  will  have  put  another  god, ourselves, in His temple.   “If  any  man  defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy (3:17).”

     Finally, Paul admonishes them to “purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened (5:7-8).”  The old leaven is malice and wickedness.  Unleavened bread is sincerity and truth.  Therefore, the old leaven is the insincere false teachings and doctrines that leave the old man in tact and not bring forth the new man with the new Spirit within.