Context No. 68 of 4322 · Hebrews
Context · Reflection
Hebrews 13:7-16: in context
7Remember your leaders, men who spoke to you the word of God, and considering the results of their conduct, imitate their faith. 8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 9Don’t be carried away by various and strange teachings, for it is good that the heart be established by grace, not by foods, through which those who were so occupied were not benefited. 10We have an altar from which those who serve the holy tabernacle have no right to eat. 11For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside of the camp. 12Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside of the gate. 13Let’s therefore go out to him outside of the camp, bearing his reproach. 14For we don’t have here an enduring city, but we seek that which is to come. 15Through him, then, let’s offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which proclaim allegiance to his name. 16But don’t forget to be doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians under pressure to go back to the temple worship they had come from. The letter argues at length that Christ's sacrifice fulfills and replaces that system, and this passage is near the end, where the argument turns practical.
Remember your leaders, it says, look at how their lives turned out, and imitate their faith. Then the line the book is known for: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Then a warning against strange teachings and rules about food, which strengthen no one.
The heart of it is an image drawn from the Day of Atonement. On that day the blood of the sin offering went into the sanctuary, but the body of the animal was carried outside the camp and burned there, as refuse. So Jesus, the writer says, suffered outside the city gate, in the place where the carcasses went. And then the invitation: let us go out to him, outside the camp, bearing his disgrace. For readers tempted to return to the safety of the inside, that is the exact wrong direction. Here we have no lasting city. Where am I standing just inside the gate of something, hoping to keep both the respectability and the faith?
Sources
- Leviticus 16:27: the body of the sin offering burned outside the camp on the Day of Atonement
- Hebrews 13:12-13: Jesus suffering outside the gate, and the call to go out to him bearing his disgrace
- Hebrews 13:8: Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever