Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. 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. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

Hebrews 13:7-14 ESV

In some ways, the events of Exodus 32 are a kind of second Fall. The Israelites were already in sin through Adam’s rebellion against the Most High, what we have studied so far in Exodus has made that abundantly clear to us already. Yet the incident of the golden calf is a particularly grave moment in redemptive history. Israel had been delivered from Egypt with more signs and wonders than any people apart from Christ’s disciples had seen. Yahweh then pointedly displayed His shepherding provision for them in the wilderness. Finally, He brought them to Sinai, where He descended in glory upon the mountain and spoke for all the nation to hear. Despite such showers of grace, the people still rebelled against Yahweh and committed idolatry together as a nation.

Exodus 33 deals with the aftermath of that great sin, and sandwiched between God commanding Israel to enter Canaan without His presence (vv. 1-6) and Moses’ intercession for Israel (vv. 12-23), we read these verses:

Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses. And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.

Exodus 33:7-11

Commentator Philip Hughes writes:

Moses, by this action, effectively emphasized the fact that the people’s sin of apostasy had separated them from their God and had defiled the holy ground of the camp, with the result that it was now necessary for anyone who sought the Lord to go forth outside the camp. Thus the normal situation in which all territory outside the camp was regarded as unholy and the man who left the camp ipso facto became unclean was at this time reversed. Sin had rendered the camp unholy and Moses’ withdrawal in order to establish a holy location outside the camp prefigured the setting up of the Christian altar, Christ’s cross, outside the gate and the necessity for God’s people to join Christ there.[1]

Indeed, the text before displays precisely that reality. Despite the allure that returning to Judaism presented to Hebrews’ original readers and despite the scorn that came from following Christ, the sacrificial system of the old covenant had become an unholy blasphemy against the once for all sacrifice of Christ. A far greater communion with God than even Moses had is available to us through Christ, but we must go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach that he endured.

IMITATE THEIR FAITH // VERSE 7

In the first six verses of this chapter, the author of Hebrews began the final chapter of this sermon-letter with a series of commands that each expounded upon the command: “Let brotherly love continue.” Our present text opens with another command: Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.

All throughout chapter 11 the author of Hebrews set the lives of Old Testament saints before us, calling them “a great cloud of witnesses” that surrounds us. His goal in so doing was to exhort us to follow their example, to live by faith just as they did: “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (12:1).

The author now makes what is essentially the same exhortation, yet this time the author does not present the example of Old Testament saints. Instead, he calls upon them to remember their former leaders, that is, those who spoke to you the word of God. These leaders, with whom the readers had close and personal relationships, had joined the great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. That is how the outcome of their way of life can be known. These were former leaders who ran their race of faith until the end. Whether they died of ‘natural’ deaths or were martyred, we are not told. The author previously said that his readers had not yet endured to the point of shedding blood, but that does not exclude the possibility that some of their leaders may have done so. Either way, these leaders lived and then died in faith, and it was proper for them to be remembered and for their way of life to be considered.

Yet notice what we are to do once we have remembered our former leaders: imitate their faith. Robert Paul Martin writes:

Do not revere your elders as patriarchs whose faces adorn the walls or whose names rest above some doorway or on some building but whose religion has ceased to be known and loved and whose examples are no longer followed. If your elders prove in the end to be faithful men, remember them by imitating their faith and lives.[2]

Indeed, that is the greatest honor that can ever be shown to one’s elders, for all elders ought to have the same heart as John when we wrote: “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 4).

OUR CONFESSION OF FAITH // VERSE 8

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

At first glance, verse 8 seems to kind of come out of nowhere. Certainly, it is a marvelous statement on the immutability of Jesus, but how does it fit within the author’s logical train of thought?

Many suggest that the author is making a point of contrast between human leaders and Christ. Even our most faithful leaders will face death and leave us with only their life of faith to be remember. Jesus, however, is unchanging and undying. Earthly pastors are mortal and, therefore, can only shepherd during their lifetime. Yet Jesus is “the great shepherd of the sheep” (13:20), who put away our sins by the sacrifice of himself and always lives to make intercession for us. Amen!

Yet while that contrast is certainly true, I do not think that that is the only point that the author is making. Instead, I believe the primary connection between verses 7 and 8 is that verse 8 is making clear what the faith of their former leaders was. Jesus Himself is the substance and object of our faith. Indeed, the confession of our hope that the author has repeatedly called us to cling to throughout this letter is that Jesus is the Christ. He is the long-awaited Savior, the only Redeemer who is able to cleanse us of our sins and bring us back to God. We saw this last week in Owen’s specification that our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ is of secondary necessity, faith in Christ being primary. Indeed, Jesus is the heart and fullness of “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). This is attested by the very next verse of Jude, where he says that enemies of this faith “deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). Or consider the confession of faith that Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

There are plenty of people who have faith today who have faith in murky spiritual platitudes and feelings. Our faith is not so. The Christian faith is not in an ideology but in a Person. Our faith is in Christ alone. And though times and circumstances are constantly in flux, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Despite how different life in the 21st Century is from the 1st Century, we still confess the same Jesus as our brothers and sisters who first heard this letter read to them nearly two thousand years ago. And if Christ does not return for another one thousand years, Christians on that day will still confess the same Jesus that we do today. Jesus truly is “a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul” (6:19).

You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; they will perish, but you remain; they will wear out like a garment, like a robe you will roll them up, like a garment they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years have no end.

1:10-12

DO NOT BE LED AWAY // VERSES 9-12

Since Christ alone is the only sure and unchanging hope for our souls, do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them.

Some commentators think that the author of Hebrews is now warning against “a strange teaching that combined esoteric eating practices with their Christian faith.”[3] While there were plenty such teachings in the time of the New Testament, it does not seem to be in line with the rest of the sermon-letter. Instead, I think Calvin is right in his interpretation:

Now the doctrines which lead us away from Christ, he says, are divers or various, because there is no other simple and unmixed truth but the knowledge of Christ; and he calls them also strange or foreign, because whatever is apart from Christ is not regarded by God as his own; and we are hereby also reminded how we are to proceed, if we would make a due proficiency in the Scripture; for he who takes not a straight course to Christ, goes after strange doctrines.[4]

The road to destruction is broad enough to offer a great diversity of teachings. The road to life, however, is narrow, for Jesus as the Christ is the only teaching by which anyone can be saved from their sins and restored to communion with God. This is why it is of first importance that our faith is grounded upon the work of Christ, not in accordance with whatever we wish that He would be but in accordance with the Scriptures.

for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. Here the author is thinking of how the priests received their food from the sacrifices that were made to the Lord and comparing us to the most privileged of God’s people under the old covenant. His point is that the visceral sacrifices no longer benefit those who walk in them or who place their trust in them. Indeed, the only real benefit they ever provided was of pointing toward the perfect sacrifice of Christ; how much less now that the grace of Christ is known and ready to be received? The sacrifices of the old covenant were a perpetual reminder of sin and the need for a lasting atonement, but the sacrifice of Christ is the cleansing of sin and perfect atonement. Such grace ought to strengthen our hearts far more than a physical and ongoing sacrifice ever could.

Indeed, because of this grace, we have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. Again, eating food from the altar of the sacrifices was a privilege that was reserved only for the Levitical priests who served in the temple. Under the new covenant, however, every believer receives nourishment from a spiritual altar that the Levitical priests have no right to eat from. The point is this: receiving the grace of Christ is a far greater privilege than even the highest of honors within the old covenant. As Jesus Himself said, “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Matthew 11:11). John the Baptist represented the very best that the old covenant could offer. Indeed, as the direct forerunner to Christ, John the Baptist was almost a living embodiment of what the old covenant was designed to do. As such, even the lowliest Christian in the new covenant has far greater privilege and honor than even that great saint did.

How did such blessings come to us?

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. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood.

As we said earlier, because Israel was called by God to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), Israel’s camp was to be kept holy and undefiled, for being within their camp was a sign of being within God’s holy nation. To go outside the camp, therefore, was to go to the place of unholy defilement, to be separated from the people of God. If you remember from earlier in our study, there were two sacrifices made to Yahweh for the sins of Israel upon the Day of Atonement. After the high priest sacrificed a bull for his own sins, one goat was taken into the Most Holy Place to be sacrificed, while another goat was released into the wilderness and given over to Azazel. Here is how Leviticus 16:23-28 describes the conclusion of these sacrifices:

Then Aaron shall come into the tent of meeting and shall take off the linen garments that he put on when he went into the Holy Place and shall leave them there. And he shall bathe his body in water in a holy place and put on his garments and come out and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people and make atonement for himself and for the people. And the fat of the sin offering he shall burn on the altar. And he who lets the goat go to Azazel shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp. And 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. And he who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp.

Because the animals had become an embodiment of Israel’s sins, their carcasses needed to be burned outside the camp in the place of defilement. Notice also that the men who release the goat to Azazel and the one who burns the sacrifices must wash themselves and their clothing before being allowed to reenter the camp.

In chapters 7-10, Hebrews largely focused on Jesus’ working of the true Day of Atonement by entering the true Holy Place (God’s heavenly throne) and sprinkling His blood upon that true heavenly altar. Yet Jesus’ sacrifice was also the fulfillment of the second goat that was sent into the wilderness and of the sacrifices that were burned outside the camp. Physically, He was crucified outside of Jerusalem’s gates, but more importantly, His crucifixion was a work performed outside the spiritual camp. While upon the cross, the fire of God’s wrath fell upon Christ in all its fullness. The King of glory, through whom all things were made, was made “to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). The eternal Son of God who upholds all things by the word of His power “redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’” (Galatians 3:13). Christ took the full penalty of our sins upon Himself. He endured the wrath of God without any measure of mercy so that we can receive the mercy of God without any measure of His wrath.

BEAR THE REPROACH THAT HE ENDURED // VERSES 13-14

After worshiping the golden calf, the entire camp of Israel had become defiled, so to meet with God, they had to endure the reproach that God Himself was placing upon them by going to Him outside the camp. A similar act has now happened fully and finally through the sacrifice of Christ. God is no longer found in the temple, and He is no longer pleased with the Levitical sacrifices. The cross is now the tent for meeting God; therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.

And there certainly is still reproach. Whether Jew or Gentile, the cross of Christ brings reproach. As 1 Corinthians 1:22-23 says, “for Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.” And how could worshiping a crucified Lord not be a reproach? For Jews, it meant worshiping someone who had become accused and defiled. For the Gentiles, it meant worshiping someone who had been essentially stripped of His humanity and treated as less than garbage.

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). All throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry He went to and touched those who were defiled. In so doing, He did not become defiled like them; rather, His touch cleansed them. The same is true with the cross. Although Christ became a curse for us, the Holy One could not suffer corruption (Psalm 16:10). Instead, just like lepers were made clean, the tree of cursing has become the tree of life. The cross, an instrument of death and unparalleled disgrace, has become the only fountain of life and of grace upon grace upon grace.

Embracing Christ and His cross will never be without reproach, for it is inherently reproachful to the world. Dying to obtain life, humbling ourselves to find exaltation, serving as a road to true greatness. Such things are antithetical to our unholy and worldly hearts. Like Esau, we so easily smell the bowl of soup in front of us and question how a birthright could be of any more value. We chase after the lusts and allures of this world and fail to see that God has already given us all things through giving us His Son. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. All earthly cities, whether as great as Rome or an insignificant as Durant, will pass away. Some will not outlast the ravages of time; none will survive the shaking away of the heavens and the earth. Only the heavenly Jerusalem, to which we already have citizenship in Christ, will endure.

As we come to the Lord’s Supper, let us set our hearts and our minds upon that heavenly city, which is ours now by faith and will soon be made sight. As we come to the bread and cup before us, let us marvel anew at the all-sufficiency of Christ’s atonement for our sins. Let us cast away our sin and also lay aside any confidence in our own good works. If the temple and its sacrifices (which were instituted by God) are now a blasphemy to Christ’s once for all sacrifice, how much greater is the blasphemy of thinking that we can bring anything sufficiently pleasing to God ourselves? Let us instead cling our Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and through this physical bread and cup, may we taste and see the goodness of our God’s grace, which far surpasses the very best that old covenant could ever offer.

---

[1] Cited in Robert Paul Martin, Hebrews, 717-718.

[2] Martin, Hebrews, 696.

[3] R. Kent Hughes, Hebrews, 456.

[4] John Calvin, Commentaries Vol XXII, 346.