CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Hebrews 13:10.—This and the following verses form a little episode of argument in the midst of moral exhortations. Reference is made to the feasts which followed sacrifices, in which parts of the animal sacrificed were eaten. “When the writer says, that ‘Christians have a sacrifice of which those who pay their service at the altar have no right to partake,’ he means, that the benefits procured by the atoning sacrifice of Christ do not belong, or will not be granted, to such as rest their hopes of salvation on the ritual sacrifices of the Jewish law, i.e. to such as continue to be disciples of Judaism, or turn back from Christianity to Judaism, and thus renounce the blessings procured for believers by the death of Christ” (Stuart).
Hebrews 13:11. Burned without the camp.— Leviticus 16:11; Leviticus 16:14-16; Leviticus 16:27. Notice that the writer’s figures are mostly taken from the times of the tabernacle, and of the wilderness life.
Hebrews 13:13. Without the camp.—A figure of speech, meaning, “Let us leave the camp, i.e. the dwellings of the Jews, or the profession of Judaism, and go over to the place where Christians dwell, although it be without the city.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Hebrews 13:9-17
The Reproach of the Spiritual.—Though anxious about many things appertaining to life and godliness, the mind of the writer readily returns upon his one great anxiety. He cannot close his letter without one more earnest appeal on behalf of that spiritual dispensation which was entered on accepting Jesus as Messiah and Saviour. Recalling other old figures with which the Jewish Christians were familiar, he pleads again with them, not to be “carried away by strange doctrines”; not to be distressed because they were excommunicated and reproached; but to enter so fully into their spiritual privileges and duties, that, having their interest wholly engaged, they might cease to trouble over the loss of old relationships. This is the general idea of the passage, but it needs a more careful and detailed attention. It is a difficult passage if its language be treated apart from its connections, and from the purpose of the writer. The difficulties readily pass when we understand the anxiety of the writer, and the conditions of those who were directly addressed. It appears that the epistle was not sent to the Jewish Church in Jerusalem—that was under apostolic guidance—but to the Churches of Jewish Christians in other parts; away from Jerusalem, perhaps through persecutions, perhaps through business exigencies. Then, and through all the ages since then, the Jews had an intense, passionate love for their holy city, a love which we can but very imperfectly estimate. It was a great strain on patriotic and religious feeling to live away, so that access to Jerusalem for the feast-times was practically impossible. This feeling for the city was matched by the Jewish feeling for the Mosaic ceremonial, which was still, at least partly, represented by the Temple worship. They lived indeed in the past rather than the present; and this writer meets the cherished feeling of the more pious Jews by referring so entirely to the times of the tabernacle, when the ceremonials were observed strictly according to the Mosaic pattern. Jews, in becoming Christians, in no sense lost their patriotic love for Jerusalem, or for that old system of rites and sacrifices which had been the religion of their fathers, and their own religion until they had been called into the spiritual religion of the Son of God. We must understand their feelings in order to realise how they were affected by the persecutions under which they were brought, and how severely they felt the threatenings and enticements of their old Judaic friends. In naming the name of Christ they had been virtually, perhaps actually, put out of the synagogues, excommunicated, and no longer allowed to take part in sacrifice and feast. The Christian teachers never required them to break with their old Temple associations. Both our Lord Himself and His apostles, throughout their lives, preserved their Jewish relations, and observed their Mosaic customs. It was not the policy of early Christianity to break with Judaism. In good time, in the providence of God, the Jewish ceremonial would fall away; the system was decaying; almost all the life was already gone out of it; and soon the Romans would put the final stroke to it and bury it for ever. But the Jews—the intense, bigoted Jews—forced the separation, and compelled the Jewish Christians to take a definite attitude, and satisfy themselves, if they could, with the spiritual religion which they had chosen. Those Jewish Christians had to endure the enticements of friends, who would use all kinds of arguments to induce them to return back to the old formal religious system of their fathers. And, among other things, we may be quite sure they would sneer at the spirituality of the Christian religion, and say: “See, you have no tabernacle, no altar, no sacrifice, no feast, no day of atonement, no priest. You have nothing but a sentimental notion that Jesus of Nazareth is alive; and all that you and we really know is that He was crucified. How ridiculous such a vague and unsubstantial religion looks beside such a formal and stately system as Mosaism, which has the imprint of Divine authority, and the testimony of efficiency from saintly souls through the long ages!” The allurements and persuasions were seriously affecting the Christians, and filling the hearts of the Christian teachers with grave anxiety. This epistle throughout bears on this perilous condition of the Jewish Christian Churches. And the argument is this—the spiritual alone is the real. We do not want to spiritualise those old ceremonials. We want to bring to light the spiritual things that were in—pictured in—those old ceremonies. The time has come when men can have the spiritual realities, and may be willing to let the pictures fade away. Do not be unduly moved when they say that, because the religion of Christ is spiritual, it can have no tabernacle, no altar, no sacrifice, no priest. It has the spiritual reality of all these things that was at the heart of all the old formality. Christianity has a spiritual tabernacle, a spiritual sacrifice, a spiritual Priest. If you would enter fully into the spiritual, you would be wholly satisfied, you would find that you were lifted up to a higher plane, and could not possibly go back to the “weak and beggarly elements,” as St. Paul calls them. Danger always lies in half-heartedness. When professing Christians did not enter fully into the spiritual truth and spiritual privilege, they were exposed to the full force of temptations, which had no force at all on whole-hearted men and women. In the midst of a series of practical counsels concerning the Christian life and relationships, the writer is reminded again of the one great message he had been trying so variously to present to them. Ere he closes his letter he will state his point once again, and then end with some kindly greetings. His message all through has been, “Be not carried away by divers and strange teachings.” His plea all through is—Enter fully into the spiritual apprehension of that religion whose tabernacle is not made with hands, whose sacrifice is the surrender of an obedient will, and whose Priest is the risen, ascended, glorified Son of God.
I. The inefficiency of the merely material in religion.—Because forms and ceremonies are found useful, men easily get to say that they are essential. The truth is that, like fire and water, they are good servants, but bad masters. The old Mosaic system had for a long time been a mere automaton, a machine that kept up a routine working. There was no ark, and no mercy-seat, and no Shekinah glory in the Holy Place. That is the difficulty of all ritual religion. It is good while the life is in it, but it is always in peril of losing its life, and then becoming worse than worthless. The writer has already urged that formal ceremony could “not make the comers thereunto perfect,” as pertaining to the conscience. No sacrificial or sacramental system can ever touch the conscience. He reminds of all the former teachings when he says of the “meats” and drinks and divers washings of Judaism, that they did “not profit those who were occupied therewith.” Those who stood up so valiantly for the old Mosaic system had no real ground for their over-confidence. The real value of the material system was the spiritual truth which was in it, and found temporary expression by means of it. If it be said that there must be a material element in the religion that is adapted to man, still it must be anxiously and persistently urged—Keep the material element in its place, and in strictest limitations. It has a strange power of encroaching; it can cover over, hide, and even stifle the spiritual. The material form of doctrine has often stifled spiritual truth; and the material form of services and sacraments has often stifled spiritual life. It cannot be too constantly urged that religion becomes inefficient in proportion as it becomes formal and outward, a matter of postures, and garments, and rites, and services, and self-restraints. On Christianity this sign is fixed: “God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”
II. The exclusiveness of spiritual religion.—To use a colloquialism, we may say that the writer “turns the tables upon” the mischievous Judaising teachers. They had pleaded that the Jewish Christians, even if they kept up association with Judaism, could have no real part or lot in it. Its altar was not for them. Its sacrifices could be of no avail for them. This writer says—Tell them that we have an altar, of which they, who serve the tabernacle, have no right to eat. They will not let you share their privileges, which lie on but a low level. You take high ground with them, and say—You cannot share our spiritual privileges. Your material-mindedness makes it impossible. The exclusiveness of spiritual religion is something which belongs to the very nature of things. The carnally, materially-minded cannot know them; they are spiritually discerned. No judicial act is necessary; he simply cannot. The spiritual man can, on all fitting occasions, and in all wise ways, use ceremonials, but the ceremonial man can do nothing with the spiritual. He is necessarily shut out, excluded. He cannot eat at this altar. Becoming spiritual-minded creates no stand-offness of the Pharisee, who says, “I am holier than thou.” But the spiritual-minded become exclusive, in the very nature of the case. They breathe another atmosphere, and move in another sphere. They are exclusive, as Christ was when He moved to and fro among men.
III. Then the writer recalls to mind a feature of the old ceremony of atonement, and, after the Rabbinical method of treating Scripture, makes it illustrate his point. Instead of being troubled by their excommunication from material Jewish privileges, they might remember something very suggestive in old covenant ceremony. Cast out were they?
1. So were the bodies of the animals who had given their life-blood as atonement for the redemption of Israel; and
2. So was Christ, who gave His blood—His life—a ransom for many, but was turned out of Jerusalem, and crucified outside the city. Cast out were they Let them take place with the burnt bodies outside the camp. They had given their life for men. They were turned out because of the work they had done; and there was high honour in their burning. Let them take place outside Jerusalem—if they were in any sense turned out of Jerusalem—with Jesus, whose body hung on the cross, outside the city wall. He had given His life for men. He was turned out because of the work He had done. And there was sublime honour resting on Him who died “without the camp.” The point of the illustration lies in the bodies of the beasts being those beasts whose blood had been taken for the sin-offering of atonement, and in the body of Jesus being the body in which He had offered to God the sacrifice of the obedient will as the spiritual atonement. The plea is full of most gracious persuasiveness: “Let us therefore go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.” It is as if he had said: In Christ you are giving yourselves to the salvation of men; your life is the spiritual life of men. Do not hesitate then, if it comes to this; you are burned like the bodies of the beasts; you are crucified like the body of your Lord. “Go forth to Him without the camp.” Be excommunicated, if you must be. “Bear His reproach.” You are after Him, and for Him, the saviours of the world. Your spiritual life is the light and hope of men. “Bear His reproach,” the earth-strain of Him who gave His life for us, and is the Life and Light of men.
IV. The persuasion to enter fully into spiritual religion.—This teacher saw clearly enough that the mistake of the Jewish Christians, and the thing which put their Christian faith in peril, was their temporising. They were trying to keep in with Judaism, and at the same time to keep in with Christianity. Their heart was divided. Their attitude was represented by the proverbial “two stools.” And in pressing them to go forth with Christ, outside the camp, bearing His reproach, he is really pressing them to give up Judaism altogether. Let go those old ties to a formal religion; enter fully into the spiritual standing in Christ Jesus; realise fully your spiritual privileges in Christ Jesus; use freely all the spiritual agencies—tabernacle, altar, sacrifice, priest—provided in Christ Jesus. Breathe the spiritual atmosphere; feed on the spiritual food; live out the spiritual life; enjoy the spiritual fellowships. You will find them so soul-satisfying, that the reproach which may come to you will seem no more to you than it seemed to Christ, who, “for the spiritual joy, that was set before Him, endured the cross”—the highest form of reproach—“despising the shame.” Let us go forth outside all formal religion, as Christ went forth out of formal, material, continuing Jerusalem. Let us go forth into the city to come—the spiritual city, the new Jerusalem, the Jerusalem that is above—to the age which has been so long anticipated, the spiritual age. Say it out once for all, “We’ve no abiding city here”—no abiding material city, no formal ceremonial religion, centred in a tabernacle or in a city made with hands. We seek the city to come, the new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from God—the city that is always coming to souls spiritually quickened. An altar do we want? Christ is our altar. A priest do we want? Christ is our priest. A sacrifice do we want? Christ is our sacrifice. Do you ask, How shall we respond to the spiritual sphere into which, with the quickened and regenerate life, we enter? The answer is given us at once, “Through Him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise”—that is, a spiritual sacrifice—“to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, which make confession to His name.” Can he be misunderstood in pleading so earnestly that they would enter into spiritual religion? Would they think that he urged them to go away from the world, and form communities like the Essenes of those times, and the hermits and monks of later times? He would correct the mistake at once by showing them—
V. The satisfying sphere of earthly activities, relations, and services which spiritual religion provides.—“But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” Never let us make the mistake of thinking that spiritual religion is unearthly. Our Divine Lord taught us better than this when, interceding with God for His disciples, He said, “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil.” What we have to affirm persistently is, that man is not man until he is spiritual man; and when he is spiritual man, he is the most truly human being, and the best fitted to sustain all earthly responsibilities. “I knew a man in Christ.” That man was most truly and most worthily a “man in the world.” The spiritual man is the Christly man, who is ever going about doing good, and prepared to do it up to measures of self-sacrifice. “Bearing His reproach.” Can we put in a word what the reproach of Christ is,—what it was in those early times; what it has been in every age since then; what it is, in appropriate forms, for us to-day? It is the reproach cast on the spiritual by the carnal. It always will be cast.
1. It is the reproach always cast on those who persist in seeking spiritual truth. (Heretics, Mystics, Quakers.)
2. It is the reproach always cast on those who persist in doing spiritual service to humanity. Jesus, the miraculous Healer and Provider, everybody wants. Jesus, the Life and Light of men, only the few “babe-souls” ever seem to want.
3. It is the reproach always cast on those who persist that life, at its best, is the culture of spiritual character. They follow Christ, who was in Himself, in His character, the Saviour of the world; Reproach of the spiritual! We do but bear it with Christ.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Hebrews 13:10; Hebrews 13:15. Our Altar—“We have an altar.” There is a certain militant emphasis on the words in the original, as if they were an assertion of something that had been denied. Who the deniers are is plain enough. They were the adherents of Judaism, who naturally found Christianity a strange contrast to their worship, of which altar and sacrifice were prominent features. Just as to heathen nations the ritual of Judaism, its empty shrine, and Temple without a God, were a puzzle and a scoff, so to heathen and Jew the bare, starved worship of the Church, without temple, priest, sacrifice, or altar, was a mystery and a puzzle. The writer of this letter in these words, then, in accordance with the central theme of his whole epistle, insists that Christianity has more truly than heathenism or Judaism altar and sacrifice. And he is not content with alleging its possession of the reality of the altar, but he goes further, and insists upon the superiority even in that respect of the Christian system. He points to the fact that the great sin-offering of the Jewish ritual was not partaken of by the offerers, but consumed by fire without the camp, and he implies, in the earlier words of my text, that the Christian sacrifice differs from, and is superior to, the Jewish in this particular—that on it the worshippers feasted and fed. Then, in the last words of my text, he touches upon another point of superiority, viz. that all Christian men are priests of this altar, and have to offer upon it sacrifices of thanksgiving. And so he lifts up the purely spiritual worship of Christianity as not only possessed of all which the gorgeous rituals round about it presented, but as being high above them even in regard to that which seemed their special prerogative.
I. Our Christian altar.—Two explanations are open to us. One is that the cross is the altar. But that seems to me too gross and material, and savouring too much of the very error which this whole epistle is written to destroy, viz. that the material is of moment, as measured against the spiritual. The other explanation is much to be preferred, according to which, if the altar has any special significance, it means the Divine-human personality of Jesus Christ, on and in which the sacrifice is offered. But the main thing to be laid hold of here is, as I take it, that the central fact of Christianity is an altar, on which lies a sacrifice. If we are to accept the significance that I have suggested as possible for the emblem of my text, then the altar expresses the great mystery and gospel of the Incarnation, and the sacrifice expresses the great mystery and gospel of the passion of Christ’s life and death, which is the atonement for our sins. But that possibly is too much of a refinement, and so I confine myself here to the general ideas suggested—that the very living heart of the gospel is an altar and a sacrifice. That idea saturates the whole New Testament, from the page where John the forerunner’s proclamation is, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” to the last triumphant visions in which the apocalyptic seer “beheld a Lamb as it had been slain,” the eternal Co-regnant of the universe, and the Mediator through whom the whole surrounding Church for ever worships the Father.
II. Our feast on the Sacrifice.—From this altar, says the writer, the adherents of the ancient system have no right to partake. That implies that those who have left the ancient system have the right to partake, and do partake. Now the writer is drawing a contrast, which he proceeds to elaborate, between the great sacrifice on the Day of Atonement and the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The former was not, as many other sacrifices were, partaken of by priests and worshippers, but simply the blood was brought within the Holy Place, and the whole of the rest of the sacrifice consumed in a waste spot without the camp. And this contrast is in the writer’s mind. We have a Sacrifice on which we feast. That is to say, the Christ who died for my sins is not only my means of reconciliation with God, but His sacrifice and death are the sustenance of my spiritual life. We live upon the Christ that died for us. That this is no mere metaphor, but goes penetratingly and deep down to the very basis of the spiritual life, is attested sufficiently by many a word of Scripture on which I cannot now dwell. The life of the Christian is the indwelling Christ. For he whose heart hath not received that Christ within him is dead while he lives, and has no possession of the one true life for a human spirit, viz. the life of union with God. Christ in us is the consequence of Christ for us; and that Christianity is all imperfect which does not grasp with equal emphasis the thought of the sacrifice on the cross and of the feast on the Sacrifice.
III. Our Christian offerings on the altar.—“By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.” What are these offerings? Christ’s death stands alone, incapable of repetition, needing no repetition, the eternal, sole, “sufficient obligation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.” But there be other kinds of sacrifice. There are sacrifices of thanksgiving as well as of propitiation. And we, on the footing of that great Sacrifice to which we can add nothing, and on which alone we must rest, may bring the offerings of our thankful hearts. These offerings are of a twofold sort, says the writer. There are words of praise; there are works of beneficence. The service of man is sacrifice to God. That is a deep saying and reaches far. Such praise and such beneficence are only possible on the footing of Christ’s sacrifice, for only on that footing is our praise acceptable; and only when moved by that infinite mercy and love shall we yield ourselves thank-offerings to God. And thus, brethren, the whole extent of the Christian life, in its inmost springs, and in its outward manifestations, is covered by these two thoughts—the feast on the Sacrifice once offered, and the sacrifices which we in our turn offer on the altar. There is one Christ that can thus hallow and make acceptable our living and our dying, and that is the Christ that has died for us, and lives that in Him we may be priests to God. There is only one Christianity that will do for us what we all need, and that is the Christianity whose centre is an altar on which the Son of God, our Passover, is slain for us.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
Hebrews 13:14. No Continuing City.—The truth presented in the text is one to which we at once give our consent, taught by many a sad experience.
I. The uncertainty of all earthly things.—Most persons experience a feeling of melancholy when the principle of the text is forced on their attention. There are times when, amid the changing scenes of earth, we cast about for something solid and enduring; but the more we search the more deeply we become convinced of the uncertainty of all human relationships. In vain we seek for something that knows no change, and will abide. The earth itself teaches its inhabitants this unsatisfying truth. As it gradually took form, passing through its various eras, change, unceasing change, was its abiding characteristic. In all its history; in its seasons, and soil, and scenery, and climate; and in the story of man upon it, is the same constant change. A mother fondles you as an infant; then through a long season of anxiety and care she watches from childhood into youth, and from youth to manhood; and by-and-by, in turn, you watch her gliding down the slope of life, and presently follow in her steps. A few years pass, and it becomes evident that this very body of ours has been changing, and in manhood every element of the bodily constitution has been renewed. The same change marks the advance of the soul from the first dawn of intelligence to the full development of mental vigour. The mind never can stay long unchanged, either in the condition of its mental powers or its spiritual faculties. The history of men and the history of nations repeats for us the same fact. Simple and natural was the mode of life pursued by the patriarchs of old. The grass sprang up fresh around them, and they fed their flocks. Then pastures were bared and the wells dried up, and they struck their tents and wandered forth. They had no “continuing city.” When the nomadic life was over, they built settled habitations, and raised their families, only to see them scattered far and wide over the earth. Man lays the foundations of empires; slowly and through many conflicts the kingdom rises toward perfection in constitution and order and developed civilisation, at last to find the fires of discontent imperilling it, and leaving it a prey to some strong and aggressive neighbour. For even the empire has “no continuing city.” The language of a people is always changing forms and meanings. The wants of a nation may keep the same, but the modes of supplying them are ever changing. The earth must be tilled and her fruits gathered in; the ocean must be swept of her treasures, and land knit to land across her; but the agencies for effecting these ends are ever varying. The vesture that adorns the human figure was once slowly produced by the human hand, and now it is rushed into existence on the wings of steam. The journey, once accomplished with difficulty and exertion, is now the simple act of rest. The message once communicated at the quickest by swift runners now flashes from mind to mind as does the lightning. Here we have “no continuing city”; and when we have passed away, the marvellous discoveries of our age will excite the smile of new generations that shall have tamed yet new and mightier nature-forces to do their bidding. There is, perhaps, no truth with which we are more familiar. All around us everything is speaking of decay and change; the story is written on the wasting rock and crumbling peak, on the old tower and the ivied wall. The flowing river and the gurgling stream, the tints of autumn, and the falling leaves, all tell it out, with no uncertain sound.
II. The permanence of all Divine and heavenly things.—The previous verses give admonitions concerning a true, spiritual life, and direct us from the change, dissatisfaction, and sorrow of our earthly life to Him who is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.” By the exercise of Christian love, by charity and a heart open to the sufferings of those around us, by a happy contentment and a simple trust in God, and above all by having our heart ever reposing on Christ in every circumstance of joy or sorrow, we are taught to live in this world as though we were not of it. If we are cherishing this life, our hearts will be gradually lifted up above this earth, and we shall be able so to fix our affections on things here as not to rely on them for our happiness. Even before we have left our earthly abode the foundations of our future habitation may be laid. Our lives should be pilgrimages. Footsore and weary the traveller plods homeward; the clear sky, the rich sunset, the fruits by the wayside, the cool leafy shades, tempt him to stay, but his soul is full of the thought of home, and onward, still onward, he must go. What is that city which we seek? Its walls rise high; its mansions are secure; no aching heart dwells there; no tearful eye, no bent and drooping form, no withered or suffering frame, is seeking it. “There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, for the former things have passed away.” It is that spiritual and eternal city, “whose builder and maker is God.” We are pilgrims and strangers here, as indeed all our fathers were. But we do not unduly heed the changes of earth, or unrestrainedly weep over its uncertainties. We are travelling through; what matters a little discomfort on the way! We are going home—home to God. He is our “city yet to come.” And He changeth never.—A. Thomson, B.A.
Remindings of our Mortality.—If any one has visited Rome, he will remember—for none who have travelled thither can forget the scene—the long street of tombs which forms one of the approaches to the Eternal City. For miles on the road these monuments erected over the departed stand on either side of the way, at brief but uncertain intervals, until the traveller reaches the gate. Exactly thus it is with us on our pilgrimage to that city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God; on every hand we are reminded of our mortality, until we in our turn fall by the wayside, and swell the number of the dead.—Archbishop Trench.