Hebrews 13:11 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For, &c. As if he had said, This was shown figuratively in the law; for the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought On the day of atonement; into the sanctuary The holy of holies; by the high-priest, for sin To make expiation of it; are burned without the camp See Leviticus 4:12; and therefore no part of them could be eaten by the priest or people; so they who, under the gospel, adhere to that way of worship, cannot partake of Christ, who is the truth signified by that type. In other words, according to their own law, the sin-offerings were wholly consumed, and no Jew ever ate thereof. But Christ was a sin-offering; therefore they cannot feed upon him as we do. This is explained more at large by Macknight, thus: “This law, concerning the bodies of the animals whose blood the high-priest carried into the holy places, we have Leviticus 16:27. The same law is given concerning all the proper sin- offerings, Leviticus 6:30; from which it appears that neither the priest, who offered the sin-offerings, nor the people, for whom they offered them, were to eat of them. Wherefore, if the eating of the burnt-offerings and peace-offerings was permitted, to show that the offerers were at peace with God, as their political Ruler, it may fairly be presumed that the prohibition to eat any part of the bodies of animals whose blood was brought into the holy places as an atonement, was intended to make the Israelites sensible that their sins against God, as moral Governor of the world, were not pardoned through these atonements; not even by the sacrifices which were offered by the high-priest on the tenth of the seventh month, which, like the rest, were to be wholly burned. Unless this was the intention of the law, the apostle could not, from that prohibition, have argued with truth that they who worshipped in the tabernacles with the sin- offerings, had no right to eat of the Christian altar. Whereas if, by forbidding the priests and people to eat the sin-offerings, the law declared that their offences against God, as moral Governor of the world, were not pardoned thereby, it was in effect a declaration, as the apostle affirms, that they had no right to eat of the Christian altar; that is, to share in the pardon which Christ hath procured for sinners by his death, who trusted in the Levitical sacrifices for pardon and acceptance with God.”