Explanatory Notes: Hebrews 13:9-16

Second installment in honor of Tisha B'Av, the 9th of Av commemorating the Fall of Jerusalem in AD70.
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13:9 Do not be carried away with various strange teachings. For it is good for the heart to be established by grace, not with foods by which those who used to walk were not benefited.
The way the author moves from his general statement about "strange teachings" to this cryptic comment about foods leads us to think the teachings in mind were all too well known to the author and original audience. The author thus is not simply encouraging the audience to avoid misguided teaching. They both know the specific teaching he has in mind.

The instruction that unfolds has to do with 1) foods that 2) establish the heart, 3) of an atoning sort. Hebrews thus would not refer to keeping food laws, for the image is of foods that are thought to have a positive effect, not foods to avoid. The author does not refer to the Eucharist, for he goes on to contrast "our" altar from the altar in question, and the contrast is surely with some alternative Jewish practice rather than some alternative Christian one.

Certainly participation in the temple would fit the bill, if the temple were still standing. But this suggestion would only work well if the audience was located in Jerusalem, which was of course the prevalent view throughout much of Christian history, although very few would suggest this destination today.

So when we ask what sort of food a Diaspora Jew might eat and think to have atoning value, our minds surely have to turn to the category of "various and strange." And here we suggest that, after the temple's destruction, we can easily imagine that various synagogue meals might have acquired some surrogate sense for the now absent sacrifices of the temple. Unfortunately, we are forced to speculate on what exactly these foods might have been.

The mention of grace in contrast to foods echoes the familiar Pauline teaching on grace as the path to justification. Grace for Hebrews here is surely a reference to Christ's all sufficient sacrifice. The path to a "perfected conscience," an established heart, is through the offering of Christ rather than through cultic meals.

Some have suggested that this verse provides the key to understanding the entire situation behind Hebrews, that certain Jewish Christians are troubled over atonement because they are losing connection with synagogue mediated access to the temple. But this admonition would surely be anticlimactic if it were, finally, what the whole letter was about. It seems more likely that it is related to the central problem of the sermon rather than the central issue. A "conservative" Christian audience dealing more broadly with the loss of the temple would seem to fit the bill.

13:10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tent do not have authority to eat.
The altar in question is probably Christ's death, metaphorically speaking. Levitical priests do not have authority to eat from it, that is, unless they confess that Jesus is the Son of God. It is of course possible that Hebrews alludes to the Eucharist here, but it is difficult to know whether Christians thought of it in such terms at this time.

The mention of the "tent" rather than the temple fits with the author's more theoretical argument throughout Hebrews based on the wilderness tabernacle. Yet if he were referring to literal priests in the literal temple, surely an explicit reference would be appropriate here. Nor should we suppose that you could find Levites very easily in the Diaspora.

In the end, such a continued metaphorical reference at this point--when a concrete practice is in view--points more to a time after the temple was destroyed than before. Would it make sense to liken someone in the Diaspora to "one who has authority to serve the tent" when the temple was still fully operational? Or would one likely think of some part of local Jewish worship "the tent" prior to the temple's destruction?

13:11 For [when we think] of the animals whose blood is brought into the Holies for sin by the high priest, their bodies are burned outside the camp.
As he has done more than once, the author suddenly switches to a different cultic metaphor, this time that of the Day of Atonement when the carcasses of sacrificial animals were taken outside the wilderness camp.

13:12 Therefore, Jesus also suffered outside the gate so that he might sanctify the people with his own blood.
Now he makes explicit that the atonement provided through Jesus is the grace and altar to which he has alluded. Again, the incredible flexibility of the author's metaphors comes out. Earlier in Hebrews, Christ's entrance into heaven was metaphorically understood as the entrance of the high priest into the Holy of Holies. In this image, Christ's suffering outside the city wall is likened to taking the carcasses of the dead animals from the Day of Atonement outside the camp.

It is difficult for us to get into the mind of the ancients when it comes to purification and the sanctification or "making holy" of something. Indeed, we suspect that the dynamics of purity for them operated on a less than fully conscious level. Blood was understood somehow to make something unclean clean. Taking the carcasses outside the gate somehow transferred the impurity outside the camp.

Sanctification in Hebrews carries these sorts of connotations. Something unclean cannot belong to God, and sin makes unclean. To sanctify, to make holy and clean, thus requires the purification of sins, their cleansing. Such cleansing typically requires blood to be shed and a transference of impurity away from the sinner.

13:13 Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp, bearing his disgrace.
The author then turns the normal understanding of purity and purification on its head, in keeping with the way he has made Christ into the type of which the earthly cultus was the antitype. Sanctification is to be found outside the gate in the wilderness not inside the camp.

The point for the audience is to bear the disgrace of their identity with Christ as in fact a matter of honor. They might of course experience such disgrace from the Jewish communities where the "strange teachings" are being propagated. However, if Hebrews was written in the wake of the temple's destruction, a Christian community in Rome would experience great shame by association with the Jews being paraded through the streets of Rome in triumph. This would particularly be true of a "conservative" Christian community such as the audience of Hebrews would seem to have been.

13:14 For here we do not have a city that remains, but we are seeking one that is coming.
The association of the disgrace the author has in mind with a city supports this reading. The "camp" that the author has in mind is a city, and the only city that makes sense of the camp metaphor is Jerusalem. The statement that we do not have a city that remains here on earth would have particular meaning in the wake of Jerusalem's destruction, and would support the idea that Hebrews is meant in part to console its audience in the wake of the temple's destruction.

The mention of a city that is coming reminds us of 11:13-16 where the author talks about a coming city and country. 13:14 gives a strong argument that these were also allusions to Jerusalem and the Jewish state. The city that is coming is thus a heavenly city, the heavenly Jerusalem (cf. 12:22), not an earthly one.

13:15-16 Therefore, let us also offer up through him continually a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips confessing His name. And do not forget good deeds and fellowship, for God is very pleased with sacrifices of this sort.
The author thus, like Paul before him, applies cultic imagery to the daily activities of the people of God. We do offer sacrifices to God, but they are sacrifices of praise that confess our allegience to God. We offer sacrifices of good deeds and of fellowship with one another. These are sacrifices that bring God's favor and pleasure. Earthly sacrifices and their "Levitical" surrogates, on the other hand, are no longer appropriate and were never truly effective.