Don't let yourselves be carried off by strange teachings of whatever sort. The heart needs to be strengthened by grace , you see, not by rules about what to eat, which don't do any good to those who observe them.
We have an altar from which those who minister in the tabernacle are not allowed to eat. For the bodies of the animals whose blood is taken into the sanctuary by the high priest as a sin-offering are burned outside the camp. That's why Jesus too suffered outside the gate, so that he might make the people holy with his own blood. So, then, let's go out to him, outside the camp, bearing his shame. Here, you see, we have no city that lasts; we are looking for the one that is still to come.
Our part, then, is this: to bring, through him, a continual sacrifice of praise to God - that is, mouths that confess his name, and do so fruitfully. Don't neglect to do good, and to let 'fellowship' mean what it says. God really enjoys sacrifices of that kind!
I've built a lot of walls in my life. Sacred walls. They protect me from being hurt by my enemies and more so by those who I allow closer access, my wife, my family, my friends. I know how to build these walls in my sleep. It is a skill acquired during and after many battles, many years of oppression and wounds and scars have found themselves on my inner self.
The problem is that these walls, with their silly 'rules' and varying distances away from the 'real me' not only keep out the bad, they prevent close meaningful fellowship with people I care the most for. Better to be safe though right? Wrong, it may be a riskier way to live, but a life without walls is the life that is truly life. A holy life must have those walls taken down till not a stone is left unturned. It is a broken and a poured out life that Jesus invites us into. It is a wreckless and untameable love He calls us to. If He is to be Lord of all, then all those walls must come down. YHWY will not be placed in a box, the Father is a wild and untameable creator, the Spirit broads over chaos and brings righteous order by the power of the Word...there are no categories for Him. His name is above every name.
We continue to be speaking to this small community of Jewish Christians most likely living in or around Jerusalem. They are frightened, they are under enormous pressure from friends and family, they have their own internal struggle with the way they understand the world and this new Way that has caught them up in the love of God and away from everything they knew. The mention of the altar and the sacrifices is an almost direct command that they need to start seriously distancing themselves from the Temple. Jesus has not only condemned it due to its corruption and the part its regimes played in His execution, but because as long as it stands there is an idol that misrepresents, to the people of God and the world, the God revealed fully in and through the true temple, the body of Jesus Christ.
These are tense times and these walls must come down in order for something new to truly and fully break loose into the world. The vindication of Jesus, as with any prophet, is the coming to fruition of His prophecy. Whatever that looks like. In the Hebrew scriptures the coming of the prophet, in Jesus' case, the Son of Man was almost always on the backs of a foreign, and thus pagan army, many times followed by a period of exile. The means here would be the same, but they people of God were already in exile. They were taking part in a temple system that had whored itself with the oppressing foreign government in order for its leaders to have some sort of political and/or religious power (they didn't separate the two) over the people. Hoping that if YHWY did act or if they just waited it out that they would come out on top, their primary concern. They maintained this through compromises that were in their own best interests and not consistent with God's ways, nor were they concerned for the well-being of majority of people, much less the marginalized that Jesus spent most of his time with.
The author of Hebrew's not only set's up an alternative, but he dares say the altar that they eat from is 'better than' the temple altar. Picking up the continuing theme of the letter. He warns them against submitting to any of these strange food laws, derived of course from the Hebrew scriptures, but useless none-the-less. They have no power in regaining their image bearing status. Our sanctification in God's sight, is by progressive strengthening of our hearts to love and care for those everyone else, the world, would sideline. Those who have accepted Jesus' as the sovereign King are able to 'eat' from the true bread of presence, the Word of God delivered upon them by the Holy Spirit. The Aaronic and Levitical priesthood have no right to eat of this altar...yes...them's fightin' words right there!
Jesus suffered and died outside the gates of the Temple and is therefore completely independent of and superior to anything to do with the old, fallen system. It played it's part in the story, but has now run its course of usefulness in God's purposes. So now the author is imploring them again, having prepared them earlier in the letter for the reality of what it means to answer Jesus call, "Come, follow me." They will no doubt be spat upon, called traitors and despised by mainstream Judaism, Pharisees and/or Essenes as well as the more secular nationalist movements vaguely guising themselves as being religious for the political power it wielded over the masses, led of course by the Sadducees. This was not the 'city' they hoped for and therefore the ties can be cut and they can go out to where Jesus went and beyond in order to seek and find the 'city' that is to come once this one is brought to an end.
As we saw in chapters 11 and 12, we are already part of this 'new city'. The assembly's job then, is to not only seek this 'new city' this 'kingdom' outside the 'gates' of the old, but to start embodying it right away through true, meaningful worship and fellowship built on a membership that requires nothing more than a fruitful confession that Jesus is in fact now Lord over all things because He is reconciling Heaven and Earth in and through His body and blood and spirit poured into this world at the point of the cross...he starts this in the hearts of those who pour forth glad rejoicing and praise to his Lordship.
God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
I hear of your love and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints; and I pray that the fellowship of your faith may become effective through the knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ's sake.
For I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.
May it be so...
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