Hebrews 13:9-14
Hebrews: Truth That Transforms (Series)
Hebrews 13:9
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.
Throughout history people have tried to change the gospel and make it more agreeable to them.
Hebrews 13:10
We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.
A New Covenant Christian’s altar is Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 2:4-5
As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 13:11-13
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. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.
The image comes from the Day of Atonement. The sin offering was taken outside the camp and burned completely.
Leviticus 16:27
The bull and the goat for the sin offerings, whose blood was brought into the Most Holy Place to make atonement, must be taken outside the camp; their hides, flesh and intestines are to be burned up.
In the Old Testament system, the offerings for sin were made on an altar, but the animal carcasses were eventually burned outside the camp, away from the people. Similarly, Christ died on Golgotha, outside the city walls.
Hebrews 13:14
For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
The readers’ true home was no camp or city that existed back then, but the city that is to come.