ζύμη (dzoo-may): Leaven in the Gospels: The operations of the Holy Spirit to bring God’s Kingdom; Or the workings of religious hypocrisy and fallen human power to establish a false kingdom Now
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ζύμη (zýmē)
Definition
Leaven
13 occurrences in the NT
8x in the Gospels (Part I)
5x in I Cor 5 & Gal 5 (Part II)
[OT Background (Part III)]
The Gospels: Summary Synthesis
In the Gospels, leaven is spoken of in two ways. The first is what we may call, the Leaven of the Holy Spirit, Who is continually working within the human heart to silently bring God’s Eternal Kingdom into the structure of the fallen here and now. As such, certain of the Church Fathers saw the Holy Spirit as the One Whom we daily call upon in the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, when we pray, “Thy Kingdom Come.”
The second way is termed the “Leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” and the “Leaven of Herod,” which both represent, not the working of the Holy Spirit, but that of fallen, human technique. This comes both in the false, religious form, which in the words of Jesus, is called hypocrisy, and behind which is “greed and wickedness;” then in the outward, visible form of ostentatious human power, wealth and glory. The former, in humility, brings the eternal Kingdom of Christ into This Age; the latter establishes a powerfully impressive, counter-kingdom in the present moment, built not through the Spirit on the foundation of Christ, but upon the phronéma of man operating at the impulse of the demons (cf. Mt 16:23).
Detailed Analysis
The Positive Dimension: The Leaven of the Holy Spirit
The opening occurrence comes in the Parable of the Leaven (Mt 13:33, above; cf. Lk 13:21) where it reveals the Spirit working the Kingdom of God into the heart of man. The first reality of its operation is that it is hidden (ἐνέκρυψεν). Not a show. Not ostentatious. Not a visible, reproducible technique; but hidden and silently working.
The second point is that it is effective and comprehensive; for it works “until the whole is leavened” (ἐζυμώθη ὅλον). Whatever it touches, it transforms completely. “If any man is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation.” Or in the Greek original more simply, “If any man is in Christ Jesus—new creation” (εἴ τις ἐν Χριστῷ, καινὴ κτίσις).
The Negative Dimension: The Leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees
This is the opening use in the NT. All of the remaining instances from this point on (beyond its repetition in Luke’s version of the parable), speak of a different leaven. And the operation of this zýmē is not the Holy Spirit breaking into the structures of This Fallen Age, into the soil of the human heart, to bring the Kingdom of God. It is not the silent and steady and hidden working of the Spirit enabling man to continue down the “narrow and hard path”, with the hardship he encounters ploughing into the soil of his soul in ways that will allow him to “bear fruit that will remain” (Jn 15:16). Rather it is the ostentatious show of religious hypocrisy combined with the projections of human power and glory, which together work to drive out the Holy Spirit, replacing His operations with those that seek the establishment of a false kingdom which will endure in the final analysis, “but for a moment.”
As such, Jesus speaks of this leaven in two distinct ways. The first, He describes as the “leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees“ (Mt 16:6, 11; cf. Mk 8:15; Lk 12:1) which He further pinpoints as their “doctrine” (διδαχή [didachḗ], Mt 16:12). That is to say, the doctrine of the religious elite becomes the “leaven” that “leavens” the entire heart of man, filling it up with its own man-centered teachings (cf. Mt 15:6-9) that crowd out the Word of God, obstructing the inner-working of the Holy Spirit to transform and renovate the heart/soul/mind/nous.
This may be why Jesus so vehemently warns His disciples to “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,” saying that its operations are those of complete “hypocrisy” (Lk 12:1). To provide further context to this statement, it concludes the section in Luke’s Gospel of Christ’s condemnation of the Pharisees, scribes and religious teachers (Lk 11:37-54). Immediately before Jesus’ warning of the leaven of the Pharisees, Christ had declared that the religious leaders were those who “had taken away the key of knowledge (κλεῖδα τῆς γνώσεως, 11:52a) from the people. And having “not entered in” themselves, their teaching—their doctrine—“hindered” those “that were entering in” (11:52b; cf. Mt 23:1-36).
They are, in fact, those who “kill and persecute” the true prophets of God (11:47-51). Having no desire to actually liberate man, they “load men down with burdens hard to bear” (δυσβάστακτα) when they themselves “do not even lightly touch (προσψαύετε) the burdens with one of [their] fingers” (11:46).
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them” (14:44).
Their lifeless and vain actions are only for show (“you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs” and “love the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces,” 14:42a, 43). Yet these outward actions are performed only “to be seen of men,” whose effect is to counter-act the inner working of the Gospel, which is given to man to display “divine judgement and the love of God” (κρίσιν καὶ τὴν ἀγάπην τοῦ θεοῦ, 14:42b). To go even further, however, Christ reveals that behind all the outward show and deep within it, there is the working of “greed and wickedness” (τὸ δὲ ἔσωθεν ὑμῶν γέμει ἁρπαγῆς καὶ πονηρίας, 11:39).
Hypocrisy, which in the ancient world was understood as a mask “under” (Hypo) which an actor who wears it may be “judged” (-crisy) as being someone he is not. So an unrighteous person is judged as being righteous.
Yet beneath this there is the deeper operations of “greed and wickedness” (11:39).
“Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:
“These people draw near to Me with their mouth,
And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.
And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Mt 15:7-9).
The Leaven of Herod
To the “leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy,” Jesus also adds in Mark’s Gospel, the “leaven of Herod” (Mk 8:15). This is not the false religious teaching of a deceitful, hypocritical life that counter-acts the Gospel, but rather the external show of the power of human glory with all its wealth, whose effect is to “choke the Word and make it unfruitful” (Mt 13:22). Yet, as we should add, its end is, perfectly displayed in the grandson of Herod at the height of his ascendency, when “arrayed in royal apparel and seated upon his throne…” was to be “eaten by worms” (σκωληκόβρωτος, Acts 12:23).
So does all human glory “breath its last” (ἐξέψυξεν), while the “Word of God grows and multiplies” (Acts 12:23b-24).
And so in the final usage in the Gospels, leaven is presented as two things which obstruct the inner-working of the Holy Spirit in the life of man: Religious hypocrisy and human glory.
The question for us, then, is: Which leaven is operative in our life?
See the next post for the final NT uses in the Epistles.