This next section as we head to the close of this book of Hebrews is once again an attempt by the author to challenge those being tempted to return to Judaism. Within the Hebraic regulations for sacrifice those items of the sin offering that were not required to be placed on the altar they were taken outside of the camp to be burned. The author links that practice with the fact that we should follow Jesus who was led to be crucified outside the city/camp. We as followers must join Him there. We must leave the regulations of the ritual and we can add into our context that we must leave the rules and regulations as a means to a relationship with God. We must throw our whole lives onto the grace and mercy of Christ who was killed outside the city. There are several verses in this section:-
“Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by eating ceremonial foods, which is of no benefit to those who do so. We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. ”The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.“ Hebrews 13:9-16
We cannot have a foot in both camps. We cannot see duty as the means to relationship in one hand and the grace and mercy of Jesus’ sacrifice as the only way to the Father in the other hand.
We are living in unprecedented times for spiritual belief. We have organisations discussing the themes of the Bible and implementing them as their values even though they do not realise that’s where they originally came from. That is good surely. But also what we have is a plethora of new teaching about God which is aimed at the ultimate desire of human beings to be their own gods. No it isn’t actually new with that regard. But it seems that teaching that draws away from our orthodox position of what Christ has done and what that means for how we live is growing. We hear of teaching and beliefs that are progressive suggesting they are better but actually it is progressing people away from the truth of God’s Word in the knowledge that ‘God just isn’t like that person we have portrayed Him to be for 2,000 years.’
And so this is the same problem that the author faced. Nothing much changes in terms of progression. There are many ‘strange teachings’. But we exist outside the camp. It will increasingly become a place of shame, it always was, you see, people have made their minds up about Jesus and they don’t want an outside-the-camp Jesus.
But it is there where Jesus is.
Missions Paul 