Hebrews Chapter Thirteen, Our Lord's Suffering

 

Hebrews 13:11 For the bodies of those animals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp. [12] Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.

 

Further clarification is given as to what the writer is alluding to. Referencing the Day of Atonement, he reminds his readership that the high priest entered the Most Holy Place once a year, and that with blood for the atonement, Leviticus 16:15-17.

He was to enter alone for this task, bearing blood. The blood would atone for not only him, but also all the people of Israel regardless of their confession. This is a further reason why Christians may not eat at the altar. We may not claim any right or suppose our works count toward our salvation. We read in Exodus, “And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it,” Exodus 20:25. The idea in embryo was that the penitent sinner was not to work to build an altar for sacrifice. The work and the sacrifice were God’s, and He did not want sinful man believing that his act contributed to his atonement. Christ entered alone with His own blood into Heaven to plead it merits to the Father, and we know the Father accepted His sacrifice. The offering was made, accepted, and Christ rose to demonstrate that all whose faith rests in Him might have newness of life in His name.

 

While the blood is taken into the Holiest of All to make atonement, the body was taken without the camp to be burned. Jesus our Lord suffered outside Jerusalem on the hill Golgotha. In the Old Testament, God declares to Moses as a statute regarding the sacrifice, “But the flesh of the bull, with its skin and its offal, you shall burn with fire outside the camp. It is a sin offering,” Exodus 29:14. Jesus our Lord is God’s sin offering on our behalf. We read, “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,” Romans 8:3. God made Christ who knew no sin to be sin for us, 2 Corinthians 5:21. The sinless One became sin, and offered His life for ours, suffering condemnation by hanging on a tree, Galatians 3:13.

 

The blood of the sacrifice was brought into the Holy of Holies, but the body was burned. Burning in the Old Testament tended to be indicative of God’s judgment. The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown by fire, Genesis 19:24. That God chose fire as a judgment was a warning or sign to those afterward who wished to live ungodly lives, and what would likewise become of them, 2 Peter 2:6. God rained fiery hail in Egypt as part of a judgment against the impotence of their gods, Exodus 9:24, 12:12. Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, were slain by the Lord when fire went out from Him to consume them for their profane offering, Leviticus 10:2. The Day of the Lord, described by the prophet Malachi, is a day of fire that will consume the enemies of God and His people, Malachi 4:1. So much so that only ashes remain for His people to tread across when He sets them at liberty, Malachi 4:3. With this testimony the apostle Peter stands in complete agreement, going so far as to say that all material creation will suffer a burning of cosmic proportion in, “the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved,” 2 Peter 3:12.

 

Isaiah the prophet, when addressing the state of the lost who transgressed against Yahweh, says of their condition, “their fire is not quenched,” Isaiah 66:24.  Our Lord Jesus applied this statement to the fires of Hell, removing any ambiguity concerning the eternal state of the wicked, Mark 9:48. This is further evidenced from the Gospel of Luke. In Luke chapter 16 we learn of the rich man who died, whose body was buried, and whose soul was in torment in Hell, Luke 16:22, 23. The fire of spiritual torment so befouled him that he actually believed the flames were physical, and begged for water, Luke 16:24. The Lord Jesus likened His return to the sudden violent overthrow of Sodom, when fire suddenly consumed the wicked, Luke 17:29.

 

This historical event will happen yet once more to defend the camp of the saints against a final, satanic confederacy that seeks to kill God’s people. God overthrows this effort with fire from Heaven, consuming them, Revelation 20:9. To a lesser degree the two witnesses possess the power to call down fire from Heaven to consume those who would do them harm, Revelation 11:5. In the latter days of Elijah’s ministry, the king of northern Israel summoned the prophet, angry that Elijah condemned him for inquiring after demons rather than God, 2 Kings 1:6. Twice the prophet calls fire from Heaven to consume a contingent of soldiers sent to apprehend him, 2 Kings 1:10, 12. Fire is symbolic of God’s judgment upon wickedness, consuming it to ash so that nothing remains. The fire purges the stain of sin by eliminating it altogether.

 

Jesus our Lord was taken by cruel men, inspired by the Jews, enabled by the Romans, to suffer death outside the city. He hung on a cross, which likewise was a symbol of God’s judgment upon the wicked. “If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God,” Deuteronomy 21:22, 23. Paul seized on this imagery, invoking it when he writes, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”),” Galatians 3:13.

 

His salvific act sanctified the people. It set them apart. For those who accept His death as our own, it sets us apart. Sets us apart for what, one may ask? For our reasonable service, Romans 12:1. Bear in mind that we live because of Christ. We are saved because of Christ. We may pray the Father because of Christ. Our lives are finally put in perspective and given purpose because of Christ. Our reasonable service, therefore, is to live for the One that died on our behalf, that His life may continue on in us. The works we do then are not our own but His, as He continues to seek and to save that which was lost through the agency of those already redeemed and coworkers in preaching the gospel. This is why works are not done FOR salvation. They are, when done in the Spirit, His works. He is doing them through us now, as His Holy Spirit teaches us, empowers us to walk with Him and continue the good work He began, and whose message He passed on to those conformed to conduct it: even those who believe in His name. We are set apart like the instruments of the tabernacle, sanctified unto good works now that we have been redeemed from our sins and set at liberty, Titus 2:13, Ephesians 2:10.