I. Introduction
A. This is not an easy passage. It took me awhile to figure out what it was saying.
1. But often the most difficult passages turn out to be the most powerful once you understand what they’re saying.
B. And thanks to the many commentaries written by God-fearing, Christ-loving Bible scholars that are available to us today, we can understand what is being said in most passages of Scripture.
1. They know the languages better. They know the patterns better. They know the OT better. They know the context better. They know better what has been taught and concluded by the teachers of the church down through the ages.
2. In many ways, good commentaries are compilations of study and insight from 2000 years of church history.
C. Things you need to know to understand today’s passage:
1. Outside the camp was a place of shame and reproach. While millions of Israelites were camping in the wilderness on their way to the promised land after being delivered from slavery in Egypt, there was a structured lay-out for how the camp was laid out. And there was an outer border to their camp. And if someone or something were put outside the camp, it was a sign of rejection or repudiation (e.g. Num. 5:1-4).
2. After the Israelites moved into the city of Jerusalem, to an extent the same pattern continued. And so part of the rejection and repudiation of Jesus was the fact that He was taken outside the city to be crucified.
3. The animals sacrificed for the high priest and the people on the Day of Atonement were completely incinerated outside the camp. In our study of Hebrews, we’ve seen many references to one very special sacrifice in the OT. Each year on the Day of Atonement the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies to sprinkle the blood of this sacrifice upon the Mercy Seat, which was the top of the Ark of the Covenant. Most of the animal sacrifices in Israel were available to the priests for their consumption afterward, which was one of their priestly perks. Not so with the Day of Atonement sacrifices!“The bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the Holy Place, shall be carried outside the camp. Their skin and their flesh and their dung shall be burned up with fire.” (Lev.16:27)
4. And finally, we need to remember the occasion of the letter of Hebrews. It was written to Jewish converts to Christ who were being tempted and pressured by their former friends and families to return to Judaism.
II. Explanation of Hebrews 13:8–16
A. 8-9a Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. 9 Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings,
1. Jesus Christ doesn’t change and the truth of Jesus doesn’t change. The truth about Jesus is the same today as it was in the days of the apostles.
2. The Christian word for the timeless truth of Christ is orthodoxy, in contrast to heterodoxy, which refers to the diverse and strange teachings which have been introduced by some all through church history.
3. There is truth about Jesus, and there is untruth, there are lies.
4. It’s very important that we are right about who Jesus is. “Do not be led away” begs the question: Led away from what? Led away from Jesus! False teachings about Jesus are not just mistakes. They lead people away from Jesus!
B. 9b for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefitted those devoted to them.
1. There is a lot in the NT about people thinking that what foods you eat or don’t eat are very important.
a. Probably in this case these Hebrew Christians were being pressured to keep the food laws of their childhood, laws which the author had referred to in Hebrews 9:10 when he referred to laws which “...deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.” (The “time of reformation” here refers to the coming of Christ when He set aside the laws of clean and unclean foods – Mark 7:19.)
b. So now, “Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.” – 1Corinthians 8:8
c. “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” – Romans 14:17
d. 1Timothy 4:1–5 “The Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”
2. Most religion is rooted in material things, which is just a form of superstition.
3. True faith in Christ, on the other hand, involves being “strengthened by grace,” not by foods or any other material things. In other words, believers are nourished by spiritual realities, by the things above (Col.3:2), by our citizenship in the city that is to come (Heb.13:14).
a. This reminds us of what Jesus said in John 4:32 when He said, “I have food you know not of.” The food which nourishes Christ’s people is not the kind of food which perishes but that which endures to eternal life (John 6:27). It is the food which comes down from heaven (John 6:33).
C. 10-11 We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp.
1. Early Christians were accused by Gentiles of being atheists.
a. In the second century, Irenaeus said people were charging Christians in this way: “You Christians have no real religion, for you have no sacrifices.” This is because, as FF Bruce says, “Christians had none of the visible apparatus which in those days was habitually associated with religion and worship—no sacred buildings, no altars, no sacrificing priest.”
b. Later, after 16 centuries of accumulating visible apparatuses in the Christian church, Anglican Archbishop Laud visited Scotland in 1633 (after the Scottish Reformation) and similarly commented that its inhabitants had “no religion at all that I could see—which grieved me much” — because the believers in Scotland had forsaken those visible apparatuses in order to worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).
c. But now the author of Hebrews says, “We do have an altar (i.e. a sacrifice)!” And we also have a priest and a temple. And they’re more beautiful and more powerful than any others. But they are in heaven. And right now we participate with them spiritually — by faith, not by sight.
2. In the same way that the priests were not allowed to eat of the Day of Atonement sacrifices, so those who still worship in the old way have no right to eat of Christ, the one those sacrifices point to. Here the author is urging his readers not to go back to Judaism because they will lose access to the sacrifice of Christ!
D. 12-13 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.
1. In order to have access to Jesus, you don’t go back to the old temple of Judaism, you go outside the camp of Israel, where Jesus was crucified. This is where Jesus went, where Jesus is, and where we will find Him.
2. Don’t expect to find Jesus in palaces and on red carpets and at celebrity balls: nor with the rich and famous, nor with the nobility or the academic elite, nor with the famous or the ones who have swagger (1Cor.1:20-31).
a. But with the outcast and with the humble. You will find Jesus among the little people.
b. You will find Him in the manger, in the leper colony, in the slums, in the home of the outcast, at the table of the unpopular. You will meet Him in the place of pain, rejection, suffering, poverty, sickness, and need.
c. You can expect to find Him among the lowly and the weak, among the least of these.
3. You shouldn’t be surprised that following Jesus makes you unpopular with your old friends! The world hated Jesus and they’ll hate you too! (John 15:18-19)
4. If you want to be a celebrity, you won’t find Jesus there. You must decide whether you want to live the good life or whether you want to know Jesus.
a. It is so difficult for the rich man to inherit the kingdom (Matt.19:23-24). But for those who long for riches, the road is even more difficult (1Tim.6:9-10).
5. The story of my pain
a. I realized a few years ago that I had a history of not handling pain well. (I preached a short series on this in February of 2012.)
b. I realized that I had been running from pain instead of facing it. Instead of grieving and looking to the Lord for comfort, I was immersing myself in other things to avoid the pain.
c. The image which I have used to describe this is that of locking up the sources of my pain down in the dungeon of my heart. But eventually there were a lot of things down there in my dungeon and I could begin to realize I was living with the sound of groans and cries always in the background.
d. I was trying to resist the temptations involved with escaping from pain, but I wasn’t addressing the causes of my pain.
e. Eventually the Lord showed me that by avoiding my pain I was also avoiding His comfort and His help. He showed me that He wants to reveal Himself to me in my pain. He wants to meet me in my pain. He showed me that there is a fellowship I can enjoy with Him in the midst of my pain which I can’t enjoy any other way.
6. We usually associate happiness with a lack of pain. But not with Jesus. Jesus is with the lowly. Jesus is with the hurting. Jesus is with the poor. Jesus is with the weak. Jesus gives grace to the humble.
7. This concept is very related to what is going on here in Hebrews 13:12-13, which calls us to go to the place of rejection in order to meet Jesus.
8. This is more than just that we should expect to be persecuted because Jesus was persecuted. This shows us that there’s a way we meet Jesus when we’re mistreated or persecuted. One of the keys to a living knowledge of Christ is “the fellowship of his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10).
E. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.
1. Here in this life we have no lasting city.
2. Hymn (157T): “nor heaven have I, nor place to lay my head, nor home, but Thee.”
3. The author of Hebrews is telling his readers that they will find no real home among their fellow Jews. In this world Jesus had no place to lay His head (Luke 9:58). He was homeless. And in this world so are we.
4. Believers are homeless here. Our roots cannot be in a house, in a county, or even in a family. None of that will last. You can’t take any of that with you.
5. Our citizenship is in a heavenly city, one that is yet to be revealed (Phil.3:20-21).
6. What good is it to enjoy popularity with your friends if you miss out on your glorious, eternal home?
F. 15-16 Through him (Jesus) then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
1. So is following Christ a life of deprivation? On the contrary! It is a life of fullness and richness and abundance — in spite of the hardships!
2. So much so that it overflows in two directions:
a. It drives us to a sense of being rich and full, a lifestyle of praise/gratitude, of being overwhelmed by how blessed we are – v.15.
b. It drives us to a sense of wanting to help others, and to a lifestyle of giving, of sharing, of overflowing, etc. – v.16.
III. Special application for mothers of young children
A. It is hard to get away and spend time along with Jesus. You must keep fighting for it, but in your circumstances, it is especially hard, isn’t it? But you need to know that you can meet Jesus in the moments of stress, in the moments of sleeplessness, in the moments of exhaustion, in the moments of feeling alone, in the moments of feeling unappreciated, in the moments of not feeling well but having to do everything anyway.
B. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Jesus allows you to be interrupted. Jesus allows you to suffer and undergo hardship, Jesus allows you to be burdened and crazy busy. And then in the midst of it, He calls to you, saying, “Come unto Me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matt.11:28-30)