Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hebrews 13:10

We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

10 16. The One Sacrifice of the Christian, and the sacrifices which he must offer

10. We have an altar ] These seven verses form a little episode of argument in the midst of moral exhortations. They revert once more to the main subject of the Epistle the contrast between the two dispensations. The connecting link in the thought of the writer is to be found in the Jewish boasts to which he has just referred in the word “meats.” Besides trying to alarm the Christians by denunciations founded on their indifference to the Levitical Law and the oral traditions based upon it, the Jews would doubtless taunt them with their inability henceforth to share in eating the sacrifices (1Co 9:13) since they were all under the Cherem the ban of Jewish excommunication. The writer meets the taunt by pointing out (in an allusive manner) that of the most solemn sacrifices in the whole Jewish year and of those offered on the Day of Atonement not even the Priests, not even the High Priest himself, could partake (Lev 6:12; Lev 6:23; Lev 6:30; Lev 16:27). But of our Sacrifice, which is Christ, and from ( ) our Altar, which is the Cross on which, as on an Altar, our Lord was offered we may eat. The “Altar” is here understood of the Cross, not only by Bleek and De Wette, but even by St Thomas Aquinas and Estius; but the mere figure implied by the “altar” is so subordinate to that of our participation in spiritual privileges that if it be regarded as an objection that the Cross was looked on by Jews as “the accursed tree,” we may adopt the alternative view suggested by Thomas Aquinas that the Altar means Christ Himself. To eat from it will then be “to partake of the fruit of Christ’s Passion.” So too Cyril says, “He is Himself the Altar.” We therefore have loftier privileges than they who “serve the tabernacle.” The other incidental expressions will be illustrated as we proceed; but, meanwhile, we may observe that the word “Altar” is altogether subordinate and (so to speak) “out of the Figure.” There is no reference whatever to the material “table of the Lord,” and only a very indirect reference (if any) to the Lord’s Supper. Nothing can prove more strikingly and conclusively the writer’s total freedom from any conceptions resembling those of the “sacrifice of the mass” than the fact that here he speaks of our sacrifices as being “the bullocks of our lips.” The Christian Priest is only a Presbyter, not a Sacrificing Priest. He is only a Sacrificing Priest in exactly the same sense as every Christian is metaphorically so called, because alike Presbyter and people offer “ spiritual sacrifices,” which are alone acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1Pe 2:5). The main point is “we too have one great sacrifice,” and we (unlike the Jews, as regards their chief sacrifice, Lev 4:12; Lev 6:30; Lev 16:27) may perpetually partake of it, and live by it (Joh 6:51-56). We live not on anything material, which profiteth nothing, but on the words of Christ, which are spirit and truth; and we feed on Him a symbol of the close communion whereby we are one with Him only in a heavenly and spiritual manner.

whereof ] Lit. “from which.”

they have no right to eat ] Because they utterly reject Him whose flesh is meat indeed and whose blood is drink indeed (Joh 6:54-55). Forbidden to eat of the type (see Heb 13:11) they could not of course, in any sense, partake of the antitype which they rejected.

which serve the tabernacle ] See Heb 8:5. It is remarkable that not even here, though the participle is in the present tense, does he use the word “Temple” or “Shrine” anymore than he does throughout the whole Epistle. There may, as Bengel says, be a slight irony in the phrase “who serve the Tabernacle,” rather than “ in the Tabernacle.”

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

We have an altar – We who are Christians. The Jews had an altar on which their sacrifices were offered which was regarded as sacred, and of the benefit of which no others might partake. The design of the apostle is to show that the same thing substantially, so far as privilege and sanctifying influence were concerned, was enjoyed by Christians. The altar to which he here refers is evidently the cross on which the great sacrifice was made.

Whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle – A part of the meat offered in sacrifice among the Jews became the property of the priests and Levites, and they had, by the Law, a right to this as a part of their support; see Lev 6:25-26; Num 18:9-10. But the apostle says that there is a higher and more valuable sacrifice of which they have no right to partake while they remain in the service of the tabernacle or temple; that is, while they remain Jews. The participation in the great Christian sacrifice appertained only to those who were the friends of the Redeemer, and however much they might value themselves on the privilege of partaking of the sacrifices offered under the Jewish Law, that of partaking of the great sacrifice made by the Son of God was much greater.

Which serve the tabernacle – notes, Heb 9:2-3. The Jewish priests and Levites.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Heb 13:10

We have an altar

Our altar:

I.

OUR CHRISTIAN ALTAR. The very living heart of the gospel is an altar and a sacrifice. That idea saturates the whole New Testament, from the page where John the Forerunners proclamation is, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, to the last triumphant visions in which the Apocalyptic seer beheld a Lamb as it had been slain, the eternal Co-Regnant of the universe, and the Mediator through whom the whole surrounding Church for ever worships the Father. Jesus Christ is all which temple, priest, altar, sacrifice proclaimed should one day be. And just as the relation between Christs work and the Judaic system of external ritual sacri-rices is that of shadow and substance, prophecy and fulfilment, so, in analogous manner, the relation between the altar and sacrifice of the New Testament and all the systems of heathenism, with their smoking altars, is that these declare a want, and this affords its supply; that these are the confession of humanity that it is conscious of sin, separation, alienation, and the need of a sacrifice, and that Christ is what heathenism in all lands has wailed that it needs, and has desperately hoped that it might find. Christ in His representative relation, in His true affinity to every man upon earth, has in His life and death taken upon Himself the consequences of human transgression, not merely by sympathy, nor only by reason of the uniqueness of His representative relation, but by willing submission to that awful separation from the Father, of which the cry out of the thick darkness of the Cross, Why hast Thou forsaken Me? is the unfathomable witness. Thus, bearing our sin, He bears it away, and we have an altar.

II. OUR FEAST ON THE SACRIFICE. The Christ who died for my sins is not only my means of reconciliation with God, but His sacrifice and death are the sustenance of my spiritual life. The life of the Christian is the indwelling Christ. But how is that feeding on the sacrifice accomplished? He that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me. He that believeth, eateth. He that with humble faith makes Christ his very own, and appropriates as the nourishment and basis of his own better life the facts of that life and death of sacrifice, he truly lives thereby. To eat is to believe; to believe is to live. I need not remind you how, though there be no reference in the words of my text, as I have tried to show, to the external rite of the communion of the Lords body and blood, and though altar: here has no reference whatever to that table, yet there is a connection between the two representations, inasmuch as the one declares in words what the other sets forth in symbol, and the meaning of the feast on the sacrifice is expressed by this great word. This is My body, broken for you. This is the new covenant in My blood. Drink ye all of it.

III. OUR CHRISTIAN OFFERINGS ON THE ALTAR. What are these offerings? Christs death stands alone, incapable of repetition, needing no repetition, the eternal, sole, sufficient obligation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. But there be other kinds of sacrifice. There are sacrifices of thanksgiving as well as for propitiation. And we, on the footing of that great sacrifice to which we can add nothing, and on which alone we must rest, may bring the offerings of our thankful hearts. These offerings are of a twofold sort, says the writer. There are words of praise, there are works of beneficence. The service of man is sacrifice to God. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The Jewish and the Christian altar

I. ATTEND TO A FEW PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE JEWISH ALTAR.

1. It had its origin in Divine appointment.

2. The altar being built, it was afterwards dedicated, and in a solemn manner set apart for God.

3. When the altar was consecrated, it was ever afterwards reputed holy.

II. TRACE THE RESEMBLANCE, IN SOME INSTANCES, BETWEEN THE JEWISH AND THE CHRISTIAN ALTAR.

1. The altar was principally designed for sacrifice, and was, therefore, called the altar of burnt-offering (Exo 40:10). Now Christ is both the Sacrifice, the Altar, and the Priest.

2. The altar was designed for worship, and its most solemn acts were there performed. I will wash my hands in innocency, &c. I will go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy (Psa 26:6; Psa 43:4). And what the altar was to the Jews, that is Jesus to us; all our services are to be performed in His name, all our prayers and praises offered up through His mediation.

3. The altar was a place of refuge. Christ is in the truest sense the refuge of all who flee from the wrath to come, and who lay hold on the hope that is set before them in the gospel. (B. Beddome M.A.)

The altar of the Christian dispensation

I. THE LORD CHRIST, IN THE ONE SACRIFICE OF HIMSELF, IS THE ONLY ALTAR OF THE CHURCH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

II. THIS ALTAR IS EVERY WAY SUFFICIENT IN ITSELF FOR THE ENDS OF AN ALTAR; NAMELY, THE SANCTIFICATION OF THE PEOPLE, as Heb 13:12.

III. THE ERECTION OF ANY OTHER ALTAR IN THE CHURCH, OR THE INTRODUCTION OF ANY OTHER SACRIFICE REQUIRING A MATERIAL ALTAR, IS DEROGATORY TO THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST, AND EXCLUSIVE OF HIM FROM BEING OUR ALTAR.

IV. Whereas the design of the apostle in the whole of his discourse is to declare the glory of the gospel and its worship above that of the law, of our priest above theirs, of our sacrifice above theirs, of our altar above theirs, IT IS FOND TO THINK THAT BY OUR ALTAR, HE INTENDS SUCH A MATERIAL FABRIC AS IS EVERY WAY INFERIOR UNTO THAT OF OLD.

V. When God appointed a material altar for His service, HE HIMSELF ENJOINED THE MAKING OF IT, PRESCRIBED ITS FORM AND USE, WITH ALL ITS UTENSILS, SERVICES, AND CEREMONIES, ALLOWING OF NOTHING IN IT OR ABOUT IT BUT WHAT WAS BY HIMSELF APPOINTED. It is not, therefore, probable that under the New Testament there should be a material altar of equal necessity with that under the Old, accompanied in its administrations with various utensils, ceremonies, and services; while neither this altar itself, nor any of its services, were of Divine appointment.

VI. SINNERS, UNDER A SENSE OF GUILT, HAVE IN THE GOSPEL AN ALTAR OF

ATONEMENT, WHEREUNTO THEY MAY HAVE CONTINUAL ACCESS FOR THE
EXPIATION OF THEIR SINS. He is the propitiation.

VII. ALL PRIVILEGES, OF WHAT NATURE SOEVER, WITHOUT A

PARTICIPATION OF CHRIST AS THE ALTAR AND SACRIFICE OF THE CHURCH,
ARE OF NO ADVANTAGE UNTO THEM THAT ENJOY THEM. (John Owen, D. D.)

An altar in the Christian economy

1. The very name, institution, and existence of an altar implies that man is a sinner-that there is a quarrel between us and God. If no sin, there is needed no sacrifice; if an altar, there must be sin to necessitate the institution of that altar.

2. It teaches also another grand lesson, namely, that the wages of sin is death.

3. An altar suggests to us a disruption between God and man. It is one of the instinctive suggestions of the heart of man that there is a quarrel between him and God; and until he can see it in the light of revelation, he knows not the origin of that quarrel, he knows not how that quarrel may be made up. The existence of an altar in the Christian economy teaches that there is forgiveness with God, that He may be feared.

4. An altar suggests to us the important, that there being one altar, it is the only way of acceptance. If this be infinite in its sufficiency why seek anything else?

5. Another idea suggested by the name altar is protection. We read occasionally in the Bible of fleeing to the horns of the altar, laying hold upon the horns of the altar; thus, too, the Christian has in his altar perfect protection. Protection from what? Not from illness, from poverty, from losses, from crosses? These are sanctifying and may not therefore be prevented. But you will have protection from all that is penal; for the inscription most luminous upon the very face of that altar is There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.

6. This altar suggests to us the very important truth that through it and by it we always have acceptance with God; that not only is it the only way of acceptance, but it is the standing evidence of access to God.

7. This altar and the idea of an altar teaches us this great lesson, that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. A great crime cleaves to humanity; a stain deep as hell has fallen upon the human heart. All the tears of penitence cannot wipe it out, all the blood of martyrs cannot cancel it, no length of time will waste it, no ingenuity of man can mitigate it. There is only one element that can wash it away. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.

8. We learn another lesson from the name altar: it is the altar that sanctifies the gift. The way to have all the sorrows of your life sanctified, to have your great things made greater, and your little things made precious, and the way to receive them again a thousandfold, is to bring and offer them all upon Christ, the glorious altar that sanctifies the gift. What a magnificent idea does this give us of a Christian l The least act that a Christian does is thus a sacerdotal act. All Christians are priests.

9. This use of the word altar implies that there is a priest who offers the sacrifice; who is this priest? We have but one altar, we have therefore but one priest, and we do not need any other. Wherever the winds blow, wherever the waves of the ocean roll, wherever mans heart beats, and mans lungs breathe, and mans soul longs for a sense of the presence of

God, the great High Priest is accessible, able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by Him.

10. But this name, altar, having suggested to us so many truths, where, you ask, is the altar situated on which the great propitiation has been made, by which that everlasting High Priest continually stands and ministers for ever? Our altar is in the heaven, on the earth: wheresoever two or three meet in the name of Christ, there the altar stands, and there the altar is approached; for I am present in the midst of them. (J. Cumming, D. D.)

The Christian altar

I. First, we have an altar–THAT IS TO SAY, CHRISTIANITY RESTS FOR ITS BASIS ON THE INSTITUTION OF SACRIFICE. Though men have been divided from each other by oceans and continents, united neither by commerce nor by any mode of communication, though they have differed in their views of polity and government and religion, they seem to have been as one in this matter of sacrifice. They have all equally thought that the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth must die to propitiate God. And we would have you farther observe, as a proof of the Divine origin of this custom, that it was not an idea which would naturally originate with man. If it had been at all likely, according to the teaching of unassisted reason, that God would have been pleased with this mode of worship, then we might imagine that man had himself devised this mode of approaching his Creator. But let Reason sit in judgment on this custom of animal sacrifices, and what will be her verdict? To kill the unoffending–can that be pleasing to God? When I am conscious of guilt, and anxious for pardon, am I likely to appease Gods wrath by putting to death an innocent victim? We must surely admit that the practice of sacrificing animals, unless Divinely commanded, was an act of wanton cruelty, which, so far from disposing God to mercy, must have stirred Him to greater indignation; and that a custom so manifestly not suggested by reason, should yet have spread itself over the whole earth, seems to us the strongest possible proof of the divinity of its origin. Throughout the whole of the Jewish system there was a continual offering of the blood of animals upon the altars where God was worshipped; and however blind the Jews were, however hard their hearts were, however many truths they missed which the Almighty had meant them to learn, they did lay hold of tiffs truth–that there is no acceptable worship without sacrifice. And when the new religion appeared we can well imagine that this was one of the difficulties to a Jewish mind–that the votaries of the new system abandoned the altars of their fathers, and set up new altars of their own. We can conceive a Jewish objector approaching the apostles, and saying, How is this? From the time when men first began to call upon the name of the Lord, they have always worshipped at altars. Those altars have always reeked with blood. It is thus that our fathers have worshipped ever since the giving of the law, and even before the days of Moses. It is thus that Abraham worshipped on Mount Moriah. It was thus that Noah worshipped under the arch of the covenant bow. It was thus that Abel worshipped when men sought earliest to win back their way to Paradise. If you are worshippers of the true God, the God of our fathers, where are your altars? what are your sacrifices? Now, the words of our text seem to reply to such an objector, We have an altar; as though the writer said, We recognise the great principle which has been revealed to men all through the days of the law, which has been known even by heathen men among their grossest superstitions–the truth that without the shedding of blood there is no remission, and we, too, have an altar. We need not tell you that the altar here referred to is the Cross, and that the sacrifice offered upon it was the only begotten Son of God. Thus the text affirms that Christianity rests upon basis of sacrifice.

II. The text further affirms THAT THE CHRISTIAN SACRIFICE IS AN OFFERING, FOR SIN. Through the whole of the Jewish system men were taught that as it is the life which man forfeited by sin, so it is the life which must atone for sin. There is a passage in Leviticus which distinctly affirms it: The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. The passage occurs in connection with the command not to eat flesh in which there blood remained. The teaching seems to be this: You must not eat of blood because that is appointed as the symbol of atonement, and the blood is the symbol of atonement because it represents the life of the animal from which it is taken. It is not the matter of the blood that atones, but the life it bears and represents. The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it you upon the altar to atone for your lives, for the blood atones through the life. Hence you will find in the Jewish system that before the victim died the offerer was commanded to lay his hands upon its head. Now, in Scripture the laying on of hands was a symbolical action. It represented the transfer of something from the person imposing his hands to the person or thing upon which hands were laid. What had the offerer to transfer to the victim? Evidently his sin. He came to God as a sinner. His anxious desire was to obtain the forgiveness of his sin. His prayer was that the guilt of his sin might pass from him to the victim that he offered. And the Jews believed that where there was a frank confession and true renouncement of sin there was an actual transfer of sin from the man to the animal. Now, in this text before us the writer identifies the death of Jesus with those particular sacrifices. We have an altar, he says, of which they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. They might eat the free-will offerings and the thank-offerings, but they must not eat that particular sin-offering; for he goes on to say: The bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary for sin are burned without the camp. They had been so burned in the days of Moses when the camp was pitched in the wilderness. They were so burned still in the days of the apostles, outside the walls of Jerusalem. Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. You see that this text clearly connects the death of Jesus with the Jewish sin-offering, not with thank-offerings or with free-will-offerings, but with the sin-offering, and with the most sacred and impressive of all the sin-offerings–the offering whose blood was taken to the holiest place by the high priest for sin. We need not enlarge on the correspondence between the death of Jesus and the transactions on that day of atonement. We are taught that by the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, graciously offered as a sacrifice for us, a way has been opened to the holiest as through a veil, that veil no longer excluding and concealing from the presence of God, but rent on purpose to receive every penitent transgressor. We are taught that by the blood of Jesus shed for our sins we are permitted to come, not only with safety, but with boldness into the region of Gods manifested presence. We are taught that the offering, being infinitely precious, is attended by none of the imperfections which mark the Jewish sacrifices, but is adequate to meet all the requirements of a guilty conscience, and to present a sinner, soul and body, with perfect acceptance before the holy God.

III. But this text teaches us, further, THAT THE CHRISTIAN ALTAR WILL HAVE NO RIVAL, NO COMPETITOR YOU observe that the apostle has been telling us in this text that the Christian sacrifice corresponds with the Jewish sin-offering. A little further study will show that he tells us that the Christian sacrifice avails for none who put their trust in the old temple sacrifices. He describes the Jewish system as a camp pitched in the wilderness. It was not a continuing city. He tells us that Jesus went out of the camp, and he exhorts us to follow Him. For himself, he had long since resolved to know nothing among men save Jesus Christ and Him crucified; to worship at no altar but the altar of the Cross; and he here exhorts all his fellow Christians to copy his example, and, at whatever cost and suffering and reproach, to go forth to Him who, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. There is no need for us to emphasize this exhortation not to trust in Jewish sacrifices. Within seven or eight years after this letter was written Jerusalem was destroyed–the temple was abolished. From that day to this no Jewish sacrifices have been offered, so far was that from being a continuing city. But is there nothing that we may learn from this solemn admonition not to trust in the Jewish sacrifices? The underlying principle is this–that Christ will be the Saviour of none who mingle any other confidence with their simple rest upon His merit. You have to come to Jesus and to Jesus only; and if some of you have been looking for salvation long, do you not see here the reason that has kept you back from it? There has not been the renouncement of all other confidences which there must be. We have an altar all-sufficient to save us to the uttermost; but they have no right to eat of it, they have no saving share in the merit of it, who trust in the sacrifices of the temple. But that is not all that this text teaches us. Not only are we here taught that it is utterly destructive of Christian faith to follow the Jewish ceremonies as a ground of merit; we are further taught that it was dangerous to the simplicity of faith to follow them at all. Now, why were the apostles so anxious to have the Jewish ceremonies abolished? With a ritual that was the most gorgeous the world has ever known, if mankind could learn the truth from ceremonies and symbols, no ceremonies could be imagined more impressive than those which God Himself appointed in the temple at Jerusalem. Why not continue the types to help Christians to understand the Antitype? Why not have an order of priests on earth to remind us of the one Priest in heaven? Why not have sacrifices offered on Christian altars to remind us of the one Sacrifice by which our sins are taken away? Alas, the apostles knew too well how prone men are to rest in shadows and forget the substance, In all ages elaborate ceremonial has been destructive of the simplicity of faith. What, then, does this teach us as to our practical duty? It shows that there is a city out of which we have all to come. We all love it; we all cling to it–the city sometimes of gorgeous ritualistic pomp, the city sometimes of orderly Nonconformist worship; the city of mere outward morality and formal attendance upon the means of grace; the city of personal self-righteousness. Out of it we have to come if we mean to be saved by Christ–away from all that as a ground of trust. Out of it? Whither? To the ignominious place where criminals suffered. To the scene where the bodies of the beasts whose blood had been taken into the sanctuary for atonement were burnt with fire. To Golgotha, the place of a skull. There is our altar.

IV. But, lastly, THE ALTAR DEMANDS SACRIFICE. We are not to escape and think that it is all accomplished because the sacrifice has once been offered. Read on to the fifteenth verse. By Him let us offer the sacrifice of praise, the Jewish free-will offering, the thank-offering. Let us do this continually; not simply, as the Jews did, on great festivals and stated occasions, but always. And let this sacrifice of praise be the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. Mark it, the fruit of our lips–not simply the words of our lips. A great many words pass our lips that are not the fruit. Fruit has a root. The fruit of the lip grows out of the heart; and only when what the lip says is what the heart feels is that the fruit of our lips. There must be the fruit of our lips–the thanks to God that spring out of a truly renewed and grateful nature: the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. The margin says, confessing His name, and that is the best thanks we can give to God–not to talk about ourselves, but about Him, to confess what He is and what He has done for us. The fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. But that is not all. Forget not that there is something beyond even that. The sixteenth verse tells you: To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. Though the Jewish ritual has been abolished, though the nursing mother no longer brings her pair of turtle doves and her two young pigeons for an offering, though the man recovered from sickness no longer drives his bullock or his flock of sheep to the temple door, the heart of a Christian will be as grateful as the heart of a Jew. If we do not bring the victims we may bring the worth of them. (F. Greeves, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 10. We have an altar] The altar is here put for the sacrifice on the altar; the Christian altar is the Christian sacrifice, which is Christ Jesus, with all the benefits of his passion and death. To these privileges they had no right who continued to offer the Levitical sacrifices, and to trust in them for remission of sins.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

We have an altar: these strange doctrines are not only unprofitable, but perilous to Christians, since they disinterest all that entertain them, as to any participation of Christ; since his subjects, adhering to his simple and immutable doctrine, have a right and just claim to, and an actual use of, Christ, as their altar, in opposition to the Mosaical; and from whom they have altar sustenance for their souls, in opposition to the Jewish meats, while they attend on him; all the quickening benefits issuing from the sacrifice of his human nature on the altar of his Godhead, as reconciliation and adoption to God, justification of our persons, renovation of our nature, growth in grace, and perseverance therein, to the perfecting of it in glory, Joh 6:55-57; 1Co 9:13; 10:16-18. We have altar sanctification of our persons and offerings in our access to God from him, Heb 13:15; Mat 23:19; Eph 5:20; Col 3:17; so as all is accepted with the Father. We have altar protection and salvation, keeping us who attend on him unto the revelation of God in glory, Exo 21:14; Rev 6:9,11. This is altar individuation to all Christians; God had but one altar under the law, and he prohibited all others, and complained of and threatened the increase of them, Exo 20:24-26; 27:1,2; 2Ch 4:1; Hos 8:11; 10:1. This one altar did type out that true one of Christ, by which only sinners can come to God, and find acceptance.

Whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle; of this altar privilege all Jews or Judaizing Christians, who adhered to the Mosaical administration of the covenant in meats and ceremonies, have no lawful right or title to partake; they cannot have this honour while they cleave to them, because they thereby deny this altar, reject the Son of God, and are in it rejected by him.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

10. Christianity and Judaism areso totally distinct, that “they who serve the (Jewish)tabernacle,” have no right to eat our spiritual Gospel meat,namely, the Jewish priests, and those who follow their guidance inserving the ceremonial ordinance. He says, “serve thetabernacle,” not “serve INthe tabernacle.” Contrast with this servile worship ours.

an altarthe cross ofChrist, whereon His body was offered. The Lord’s table representsthis altar, the cross; as the bread and wine represent the sacrificeoffered on it. Our meat, which we by faith spiritually eat, is theflesh of Christ, in contrast to the typical ceremonial meats. The twocannot be combined (Ga 5:2).That not a literal eating of the sacrifice of Christ is meant in theLord’s Supper, but a spiritual is meant, appears from comparingHeb 13:9; Heb 13:10,”with GRACE, NOT withMEATS.”

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

We have an altar,…. By which is meant, not the cross of Christ, on which he was crucified; nor the Lord’s table, where his flesh and blood are presented to faith, as food, though not offered; but Christ himself, who is altar, sacrifice, and priest; he was typified by the altar of the burnt offering, and the sacrifice that was offered upon it; the altar was made of Shittim wood, and covered with brass, denoting the incorruptibleness, duration, and strength of Christ: the horns of it, at the four corners, were for refuge; whoever fled to it, and laid hold on them, were safe; so Christ is a refuge to his people, that come from the four corners of the earth; and who believe in him, and lay hold on him, are preserved and protected by his power and grace: the use of it was for sacrifice to be offered upon it; which being a male, without blemish, and wholly burnt with fire, was a sweet savour to God; and which was typical of Christ’s human nature, offered on the altar of his divine nature; which was pure and holy, suffered the fire of divine wrath, and was for a sweet smelling savour to God: this altar was but one, and most holy, and sanctified what was put upon it; all which is true of Christ: now this altar the saints have, and have a right to eat of it; even all Christ’s friends and beloved ones; all that are made priests unto God by him; all that know him, believe in him, have a spiritual discerning of him, and hunger and thirst after him:

whereof they have no right to eat that serve the tabernacle: there is something of this altar, or that was offered up upon this altar, that is to be eaten, even the flesh and blood of Christ; and to “eat” of it is to believe that Christ is come in the flesh, and is become an offering for sin, and for us that eat; it is to receive, embrace, and possess the blessings procured by it; which is done by faith, with spiritual joy and gladness, and with sincerity and singleness of heart: now those, who served the tabernacle, or adhered to the service of the ceremonial law, they had no right to eat of this altar: the allusion is to the priests’ eating of the sacrifices, and to some sacrifices, of which they might not eat, Le 2:10 and this is not to be understood of believers, before the coming of Christ, who did attend tabernacle service; for they ate the same spiritual meat, and drank the same spiritual drink, as believers do now; but of such, who obstinately persisted in the ceremonies of the law, when they were abolished; and so cut off themselves from all right to the substance of these shadows. See Ga 5:2.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

We have an altar ( ). We Christians have a spiritual altar (), not a literal one (7:13). This metaphor is carried out.

Whereof ( ). Our spiritual altar.

The tabernacle ( ). Dative case with (serve), being used for “the whole ceremonial economy” (Vincent) of Judaism.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Those who persist in adhering to the Jewish economy can have no part in the blessing of the new covenant. The two are mutually exclusive. The statement is cast in the mould of the Jewish sacrificial ritual, and in the figure of eating a sacrificial meal.

We have an altar [ ] . It is a mistake to try to find in the Christian economy some specific object answering to altar – either the cross, or the eucharistic table, or Christ himself. Rather the ideas of approach to God, – sacrifice, atonement, pardon and acceptance, salvation, – are gathered up and generally represented in the figure of an altar, even as the Jewish altar was the point at which all these ideas converged. The application in this broader and more general sense is illustrated by Ignatius : “If one be not within the altar (ejntov tou qusiasthriou the sacred precinct), he lacketh the bread of God…. Whosoever, therefore, cometh not to the congregation [ ] , he doth thereby show his pride, and hath separated himself,” Eph. 5. Ignatius here uses the word, not of a literal altar, but of the church. Comp. Trall. 7. Again : “Hasten to come together as to one temple, even God; to one altar, even to one Jesus Christ,” Magn. 7.

Of which – to eat [ – ] . The foundation of the figure is the sacrifice of the peace or thank – offering, in which the worshippers partook of the sacrifice. See Lev 7:29 – 35; Deu 12:6; Deu 27:7. The peace – offerings were either public or private. The two lambs offered every year at Pentecost (Lev 23:19) were a public offering, and their flesh was eaten only by the officiating priests, and within the holy place. The other public peace – offerings, after the priests had received their share, were eaten by the offerers themselves. Jehovah thus condescended to be the guest of his worshippers. The large scale on which such festivals were sometimes celebrated is illustrated in 1Ki 7:63. In private peace – offerings, the breast of the victim belonged to the Lord, who gave it to the priests (Lev 7:30), and the right shoulder was given directly to the priests by Israel (Lev 7:32). After the ritual of waving, the entrails were consumed, and the rest was eaten by the priest or the worshippers and their invited guests, among whom were specially included the poor and the Levites.

Right [] . See on Joh 1:12.

Which serve the tabernacle [ ] . This does not mean the priests only, but the worshippers also. Skhnh tabernacle is used figuratively for the whole ceremonial economy. A reference to the priests alone is entirely foreign to the context, and to the whole drift of the discussion which contrasts the privileges of Christians at large (we) with those of Israel at large. The writer is speaking in the present tense, of institutions in operation in his own time, to which tabernacle, in any other than a figurative sense, would be inappropriate. Moreover, latreuein to serve is used throughout the N. T., with the single exception of Heb 8:5, of the service of the worshipper and not of the priest.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “We have an altar,” (echomen thusiasterion) “We have, hold, possess, or control an altar; The “we” here refers to the new covenant people, the house that Jesus built, the church of the living God, in contrast with the house that Moses built, the program of sacrificial worship; Heb 3:1-6; Mar 13:34-37; 1Ti 3:15; Eph 2:19-22; 1Pe 2:5; 1Pe 2:9-10.

2) “Whereof they have no right to eat,” (hou phagein ouk echousin eksousian) “Of which they have or hold not authority (a right or privilege) to eat,” to partake in intimate eating fellowship of the Lord’s supper, at his table, in remembrance of him, till he comes again. The only eating that the church is to do in worship is the Lord’s Supper and none, except those who are members of his church, has any right to eat at this memorial altar or supper of worship, 1Co 10:20-22.

3) “Which serve the tabernacle,” (hoi te skene latreuontes) “Those Jews and priests religiously serving, worshipping at the tabernacle,” at another form, a differing program and order of worship service, where animal sacrifices were still then being made in Jerusalem, perhaps a little less than ten years before the temple of sacrificial worship was destroyed by Titus of Thespasia, in fulfillment of our Lord’s prophecy of the Jews into all nations till the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled, Mat 24:2; Luk 19:41-44; Luk 21:20-24.

A new covenant order of worship that was better, and superseded the old covenant order, had been established by Jesus Christ, and so many were neglecting its table of ordinances, and fellowship and new program of teaching and worship. For such they had been chided by Paul, again and again, Heb 2:1-3; Heb 3:6-9; Heb 4:11; Heb 4:16; Heb 5:11-14; Heb 6:1-3; Heb 10:19-25; Heb 10:32; Heb 10:37.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

10. We have an altar, etc. This is a beautiful adaptation of an old rite under the Law, to the present state of the Church. There was a kind of sacrifice appointed, mentioned in the sixteenth chapter of Leviticus, no part of which returned to the priests and Levites. This, as he now shows by a suitable allusion, was accomplished in Christ; for he was sacrificed on this condition, that they who serve the tabernacle should not feed on him. But by the ministers of the tabernacle he means all those who performed the ceremonies. Then that we may partake of Christ, he intimates that we must renounce the tabernacle; for as the word altar includes sacrificing and the victim; so tabernacle, all the external types connected with it.

Then the meaning is, “No wonder if the rites of the Law have now ceased, for this is what was typified by the sacrifice which the Levites brought without the camp to be there burnt; for as the ministers of the tabernacle did eat nothing of it, so if we serve the tabernacle, that is, retain its ceremonies, we shall not be partakers of that sacrifice which Christ once offered, nor of the expiation which he once made by his own blood; for his own blood he brought into the heavenly sanctuary that he might atone for the sin of the world.” (284)

(284) The verb ἁγιάζω means here expiation, as in Heb 2:11, and other places in this Epistle; and so it is taken by Calvin and the rendering of Stuart is “that he might make expiation,” etc. — Ed

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(10, 11) We need not such profitless teaching; we already have sustenance which is meat indeed, by which the heart is established. According to the Law, the priests (they. who serve the Tabernacle, see Heb. 8:5) received for themselves a greater or smaller portion of the animals offered as peace-offerings and trespass-offerings; in some cases, also, the flesh of the sin-offerings fell to their lot (Leviticus 4, 5, 7, 23). When the high priest presented a sin-offering on his own behalf (Lev. 4:3-12), or for the congregation (Heb. 13:13-21), he sprinkled some of the blood in the Holy Place in front of the veil; on the Day of Atonement alone was the blood taken within the veil into the Most Holy Place. In the case of these three offerings the priest received no part of the animal sacrificed; certain portions were burnt on the altar of burnt-offering, and the rest of the body was carried forth without the camp, and wholly consumed by fire. Though the writer here speaks of animals whose blood is brought into the Holy Place through the high priest, as an offering for sin, it is probable that (as in Hebrews 5-9) he has in thought the Day of Atonement only, so that here the Holy Place bears the sense of the Holiest of all. (See Note on Heb. 9:2.) (It will be noted that throughout he uses the present tense; see the same Note). For us there is but one sacrifice for sin, the efficacy of which endures for ever (Heb. 10:12): Jesus entering the Holiest Place for us in virtue of His own sacrifice has fulfilled the type contained in the high priests sprinkling of the blood. But whereas those priests might not eat of their sin-offering, to us greater privilege is given; we feed on Him who was slain for us, whose flesh war for the life of the world (Joh. 6:51-56). We then (who are all priests unto God) have an altar of which, on the very principles of their Law, they that serve the Tabernacle (see Heb. 8:5) have no right to eat. The stress is laid on the sacrifice, of which we eat, not upon the altar itself. If separately interpreted, the altar will be the place of sacrifice, the Cross.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

‘We have an altar, of which they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle.’

His reply is that we actually have an altar which provides us with spiritual food of which they know nothing and of which they cannot partake. For Jesus Christ was offered up as a sacrifice (Heb 9:12-14; Heb 10:10) which must mean that He was offered up on an spiritual altar provided by God. We must not see this as just an answer it is a proud boast. It is a declaration of triumph. It is now time for them to recognise that they (and we) have a better altar, of which they who serve the earthly tabernacle and what it represents have no right to eat while they are in their unbelief.

Those who serve in the tabernacle with all its ritual are provided with meat from the sacrifices which have been offered on the altar in Jerusalem, (speaking loosely, they can ‘eat meat from the altar’), but we should recognise that we have a better altar, a spiritual altar, on which has been offered a better Sacrifice once for all, one which, supplies us with better spiritual food than their altar ever could.

For what is an altar? It is a place where a sacrifice is offered to God. And as they should well know, when Jesus died He was being offered up as a sacrifice, which indicates that God had arranged for such ‘an altar’ outside Jerusalem at Golgotha, where this could occur. And that being so, through His being offered up there on that altar, a superior altar to that in Jerusalem, we can participate in Christ’s sacrifice for us. We can participate of God’s Passover Lamb (1Co 5:7; Joh 1:29). We can feed on the Bread of Life (Joh 6:35). We can partake of Jesus Christ (Joh 6:48-58; Joh 6:63).

And how do we thus feed and drink of Christ? Jesus puts the answer in clear terms in Joh 6:35, ‘He who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst’. In other words we feed and drink by coming and believing. We come in personal faith responding in our spirits to Jesus as revealed to us through His word, looking to Him in our hearts, and we exercise constant trust, faith and response day by day as we continue looking to Him (compare Heb 12:2). So do we eat and drink of Him, and participate in Him. And this is especially so as we meet together to look to Him and honour Him and worship Him.

(This is not referring directly to the Lord’s Table, even though the Lord’s Table does symbolise it. He is not comparing religious rituals and saying our religious ceremony is better than theirs. As he has done all through his letter, he is contrasting the earthly with the heavenly. He is saying, ‘they participate in an earthly altar and what it offers, we participate in a heavenly altar and what it offers’).

For, as he will now point out, this altar on which His sacrifice was made is ‘outside the camp’ (Heb 13:11). It is not tied to religious Jerusalem. It is a spiritual altar. It is not even visible. It is God’s invisible altar (like the invisible temple of Ezekiel, descending to earth and present in Israel but invisible to all but him – see Ezekiel 40 onwards) on which Jesus Christ offered Himself up even as He was being crucified, seen as an altar of sacrifice. It is the altar on which our Great High Priest offered Himself up as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.

The important thing that will be stressed here is not specifically where the altar was as seen on a map. That was not what mattered. What mattered was where it was not. What mattered was that it was situated ‘outside the camp’, and therefore outside the scope of the levitical priesthood and the polluted city. And those who serve the Jerusalem altar have therefore no right there for they have not come to Him to receive life and forgiveness. They have rejected Him.

Note on the Altar.

Many and varied have been the interpretations of this altar, mainly ignoring the context in which it is found. Some would refer it to the altars in their own churches, but that is to totally ignore the context in the letter. We cannot just erect our own altar and say, ‘this is what the writer was talking about’. Nor can we say that our altars represent that altar, as though we could represent our Great High Priest. For earlier he has stressed that there cannot be a sacrificing priest on earth (Heb 8:4). That is why the early church did not erect altars.

Others see it as referring to the Lord’s Table at which we partake of bread and wine, but there is nothing in the context to suggest this. What is contrasted to the meats is not the bread and the wine but the grace of God in a far wider sense, which is then expanded on in terms of Christ’s offering of Himself. There is nothing in Scripture which justifies seeing the Lord’s Table as in any way being a sacrifice, whether non-bloody or otherwise, or as being connected with an earthly altar. It is always seen as pointing back to one sacrifice for all time, and as taken along with a meal. Nor does participation in it require a priest (except in the sense that all Christians are priests and that they come to the Lord’s Table to offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving and the sacrifice of their own lives to His service). It is a celebration and participation in Christ through faith not a sacrifice.

Still others, with more justification, see it as Christ Himself. (They then usually also see Christ as the heavenly tabernacle as well). But it overloads the picture when we see Christ as altar, High Priest and sacrifice all together, and more importantly it is not justified in the context. The altar is the place where the sacrifice is offered and where the High Priest officiates. But while the sacrifice and the officiating of the High Priest are both shown earlier to be ‘types’ of Christ, there has been no suggestion in Hebrews that the altar is such a type.

Yet it is true in that in that altar He is visualising precisely what was accomplished there. By ‘we have an altar’ he is really meaning, we have a sufficient sacrifice that has been offered, and we have a great High Priest Who offered it on our behalf and has gone into the Heavens with its benefits in order to mediate on our behalf. In that sense the altar is Christ.

Some therefore refer to the cross as the altar. But that is to be too literal in our thinking. It was not Jesus Who hung Himself on the cross, it was the Roman soldiers. They placed Him on the cross. In contrast Jesus was offering Himself on an altar, on a spiritual altar of God’s making, an altar not made with hands. Thus to suggest the cross as the altar is being too literalistic. But we may certainly see the place where the cross was erected as the temporary site of God’s spiritual altar. It is just that the cross was what Rome used, whereas His offering of Himself was a spiritual and invisible action accomplished on a spiritual and invisible altar provided by God using symbolic language.

But certainly, whether we see the altar as Christ, or as the cross, or as a spiritual altar seen as provided by God, he depicts it as physically ‘outside the gate’ (Heb 13:12) where Jesus suffered, which specific reference, in contrast to ‘outside the camp’, can only mean that he has in mind one of the gates of Jerusalem (which would simply not apply in the case of the first two suggestions above). Thus we are clearly to see it as a spiritual altar parallel with the spiritual tabernacle mentioned earlier, ‘the true tabernacle’ (Heb 8:2; Heb 9:11; Heb 9:24) not made with hands. It has no physical form. It is an altar fashioned by God and connected with the heavenly temple, and is purely spiritual like the temple of Ezekiel, which descended on a mountain outside Jerusalem, seen only by the prophet himself. And it was by officiating at that spiritual altar by offering Himself as a sacrifice, that the Great High Priest, having offered Himself on it, passed through the heavens to enter the Holy Place in Heaven (Heb 4:14).

Furthermore this altar was only required for use once, and once used would be required no more. That is why, in context, it has come rather to symbolise the benefits to be received from His offering of Himself once for all upon it. Men did not literally eat from the altar but from the meat which was sacrificed on it, which was then carried away to be cooked and eaten. In the same way this new altar has provided the sacrifice which is satisfactory to all for all time, and therefore is no longer needed as an altar of sacrifice, nor is it ever to be so used again. We eat of that altar because we eat of the eternal sacrifice offered on it once for all. So the use of the altar and the offering were both once for all. Its importance lies in what it was once used for, and in the benefit we receive from the Sacrifice offered once for all upon it.

So unlike the Great High Priest, and Christ’s sacrificial blood once for ever obtained through His sacrifice of Himself on that altar, the efficacy of which go on day by day, the altar itself is no longer required. What we ‘partake of’ is what it has provided through the one sacrifice offered on it.

Thus when the writer says, ‘we have an altar’ he means simply that they are to recognise that the charge laid against them, that they have no altar, is untrue. They do have an altar. But not one that is in use now, nor one that can be seen. It is the spiritual altar on which Jesus was offered once for all, and from that offering come continually its benefits whereby we ‘partake of the altar’. That is we partake of the benefits of what was once offered upon it. In that sense Christ can be said to be the altar.

End of note.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Our Altar Is a Spiritual One Were Jesus Christ Was Crucified And Is Outside The Camp and Outside The City Where The Levitical Priests Hold Sway and Our Sacrifices Are Of A Different Nature To Theirs ( Heb 13:10-16 ).

His reference to sacrificial meals leads on into a reconsideration of the contrast between Jesus Christ and the old ways. It is time, he says, that they finally chose between participating in the ritual of Jerusalem and the levitical priesthood ‘within the camp’, or participating in Christ and His sacrifice and going to Him ‘outside the camp’. For as he has already demonstrated from Scripture, the old has passed and the new has come, and the new is not found by looking to Jerusalem.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Heb 13:10 . Justification of , Heb 13:9 , by the emphasizing of the incompatibility of the Christian altar with that of Judaism. We possess an altar, of which they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle, i.e. he who seeks in the Jewish sacrificial meals, and consequently in the Jewish sacrificial worship, a stay and support for his heart, thereby shuts himself out from Christianity, for he makes himself a servant of the tabernacle; but he who serves the tabernacle has no claim or title to the altar of Christians. That the subject in is the Christian , is acknowledged on all sides. But equally little ought it ever to have been disputed that by persons must be denoted who are contrasted with the Christians. For, in accordance with the expression chosen, the author can only mean to say that the Christians possess the right to eat of the altar; those , on the other hand, forego this right. Quite in a wrong sense, therefore, have Schlichting, Schulz, Heinrichs, Wieseler ( Schriften der Univ. Kiel aus d. J . 1861, p. 42), Kurtz, and others, referred likewise to the Christians, [125] in that they found expressed the thought: for Christians there exists no other sacrifice than one of which it is not permitted them to eat . They then suppose to be intended by either, as Schlichting, “omnes in universum Christiani,” or, as Schulz, particular officers of the society, who conducted the Christian worship. But in the first case apart from the fact that then, what would alone be natural, would have been written instead of the Christians would, as Bleek has already justly observed, have been designated by a characteristic which could not possibly be predicated of them; in the second, an anachronistic separation into clerics and laity would be imputed to the author, and the sense arising would be unsuitable, since the proposition, that the warrant for eating of the Christian sacrifice is wanting, could not possibly hold good of the clergy alone, but must have its application to Christians in general. By can thus be understood nothing other than the earthly, Jewish sanctuary, as opposed to the and of Christians, Heb 8:2 , Heb 9:11 . The , however, are not specially, as Bleek, de Wette, Delitzsch, Riehm ( Lehrbegr. des Hebrerbr . p. 161), Alford, and others suppose, the Jewish priests (Heb 8:5 ), but the members of the Jewish covenant people universally (Heb 9:9 , Heb 10:2 ).

The further is the altar, upon which the sacrifice of the New Covenant, namely, the body of Christ (comp. Heb 13:12 ), has been presented. Not “ipse Christus” (Piscator, Owen, Wolf; comp. Calvin), or the itself which has been presented (Limborch, Whitby, M‘Lean, Heinrichs, and others), nor yet the cultus (Grotius), can be denoted thereby. But likewise the explaining of the table of the Supper , the , 1Co 10:21 , with Corn. a Lapide, Chr. Fr. Schmid, Bhme, Bhr ( Stud. u. Krit . 1849, H. 4, p. 938), Ebrard, Bisping, Maier, and others (comp. also Rckert, das Abendmahl. Sein Wesen und seine Geschichte in der alten Kirche , Leipz. 1856, pp. 242 246), is inadmissible. For then there would underlie our passage the conception that the body of the Lord is offered in the Supper, Christ’s sacrifice is thus one constantly repeated; but such conception is unbiblical, and in particular is remote from the thought of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which the presentation of the sacrifice of Christ once for all, and the all-sufficiency of this sacrifice by its one presentation, is frequently urged with emphasis; comp. Heb 7:27 , Heb 9:12 ; Heb 9:25 ff., Heb 10:10 . Exclusively correct is it, accordingly, to understand by the altar, with Thomas Aquinas, Estius, Jac. Cappellus, Bengel, Bleek, de Wette, Stengel, Delitzsch, Riehm, l.c. , Alford, Kluge, Moll, Kurtz, Woerner, and others, the spot on which the Saviour offered Himself, i.e. the cross of Christ . But to eat of this altar, i.e. to partake of the sacrifice presented thereon, signifies: to attain to the enjoyment of the spiritual blessings resulting from Christ’s sacrificial death for believers; the same thing as is represented, Joh 6:51 ff., as the eating of the flesh and drinking of the blood of Christ.

[125] So also Hofmann ( Schriftbew . II. 1, 2 Aufl. p. 457 ff.), who will have only the twofold fact to be accentuated at ver. 10 : “that we are priests,” and “that we possess a means of expiation,” and brings out as the sense of the verse: “that we, whose only propitiatory sacrifice, and one for all alike, is Christ, have no other profit from our means of expiation, than that we are reconciled.” (!)

On Heb 13:11-13 , comp. Bhr in the Stud. u. Krit . 1849, H. 4, p. 936 ff.

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

DISCOURSE: 2346
THE CHRISTIANS ALTAR

Heb 13:10. We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

CHRISTIANITY itself is simple; comprising two points, our fall in Adam, and our recovery by Christ. Yet it admits of an endless diversity of statement and illustration. The Mosaic institutions especially, which were intended to shadow forth the Gospel, supply an inexhaustible fund of observation for the elucidation of it. The Jews gloried in their law, and were with great difficulty brought to renounce their reliance on it for salvation. But from the law itself we borrow those very illustrations which place in the strongest possible view the superiority of the Gospel. Their altar, for instance, was their great medium of access to, and of communion with the Deity. But the Apostle, guarding them against an undue respect to outward observances, tells them, that we, we Christians, have an altar far superior to theirs; an altar, of which those who serve the tabernacle, have no right to eat.

From these words, I shall take occasion to shew,

I.

The pre-eminence which we, under the Gospel dispensation, enjoy

[The Jews had two altars; the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt-offering. It is of this latter alone that we shall have any occasion to speak at this time. On this altar they offered all their sacrifices; certain portions of which were consumed upon the altar, and the remainder was left for the subsistence of the priests [Note: Num 18:8-19. 1Co 9:13.]: on which account they had no inheritance in Israel, seeing that the Lord was their inheritance [Note: Num 18:20-21.]. On some occasions, particularly that of the peace-offering, the offerers themselves also partook, and had by far the larger share [Note: Lev 7:11-21.]. But, when any sacrifice, the blood of which was carried within the vail, was offered, no one was suffered to eat of that: it was wholly burnt without the camp, whilst the tabernacle was standing; and without the city, when the temple was built [Note: Lev 6:30; Lev 16:27.]: and, in order to fulfil this type, our blessed Lord, who offered himself a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, suffered without the gates of Jerusalem [Note: ver. 11, 12.]. Now, his blood was carried within the vail; he himself, as our High-priest, bearing it thither for us [Note: Heb 9:11-12.]. Yet of his sacrifice may we all partake, provided we truly believe in him: but to those who yet serve the tabernacle, is all participation of this altar proscribed: the altar and the provision derived from it are the exclusive portion of those who believe in Christ.

Now then the question arises, Why cannot those who serve the tabernacle, partake of this altar? The answer is plain: they are conversant only with shadows, now that the substance is come; and by adhering to their ritual observances, prove to demonstration, that they do not believe in Him, who, by the sacrifice of himself, has fulfilled and abrogated them all. Even under the Jewish dispensation, the offerers derived no spiritual benefit from their sacrifices, any further than they looked through those sacrifices to Christ. How then can they derive any benefit from Christ, whom they pertinaciously reject? Conceive, for a moment, what they who partook of the Jewish altar professed. They professed, that they were sinners, deserving of Gods righteous indignation: that they desired reconciliation with their offended God (for they must bring their offerings with their own hands [Note: Lev 7:29-30.]): they must also lay their hands upon the head of their sacrifice, to shew that they transferred their guilt to him [Note: Lev 4:4; Lev 4:15; Lev 4:24; Lev 4:33.]. It was in the due observance of these rites that they became partakers of the altar: and if they had neglected their duty in these respects, they would have derived no benefit from the altar, or from the sacrifices that were offered upon it. Now these are the very things which are to be done by us under the New Testament dispensation. We must view the Lord Jesus Christ as the appointed Sacrifice; and bring him to the altar, and transfer our sins to his sacred head, and found all our hopes of acceptance on him alone: but this is what a Jew, who is yet resting on the observance of his legal ceremonies, can never do; and, consequently, he can never, whilst continuing in his error, partake of the benefits of the Gospel salvation. Our blessed Lord has declared this in the plainest terms: If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.]

Seeing, then, that we Christians exclusively enjoy this high privilege, let us contemplate,

II.

The duties arising from it

In fact, this is the proper foundation of all our duties: for, though it is true that we are bound to serve God as our Creator, yet, under the Christian dispensation, we should receive a still higher impulse from all the wonders of redemption: Being bought with a price, we should glorify God with our bodies and our spirits, which are his [Note: 1Co 6:20.]. But, to speak more particularly: have we access to this altar?

1.

Let us live upon that altar

[The priests subsisted altogether on the provisions which were derived from the altar. Now we all, if we believe in Christ, are kings and priests unto God: there is no difference in this respect between male and female; all are a royal priesthood; and all are entitled equally to a full participation of the Redeemers sacrifice: The life which we now live in the flesh, we are to live altogether by faith in the Son of God, who has loved us, and given himself for us [Note: Gal 2:20.]. There must be no depending on our works. Whilst living upon Christ, we must shew forth our faith by our works; but our works must proceed from life already received, and by strength derived from Christ. It is from life, and not for life, that all our works must be performed.]

2.

Let us present all our offerings upon it

[There was not any thing presented to God, except the first-fruits [Note: Lev 2:12.], without a memorial of it being burnt upon the altar. The part which was there consumed was Gods share; of which he, as it were, partook with the offerer: from whence it is called the food of the offering made by fire unto the Lord [Note: Lev 3:11.]. Now, whatever we have to offer unto God, our prayers, our praises, our alms [Note: ver. 15, 16.], our whole selves [Note: Rom 12:1.], we must lay it upon that altar. Never can it ascend up to God as a sweet savour, unless it be laid upon Christ, and ascend from him inflamed with fire that came down from heaven. It is the altar that sanctifies our every gift [Note: Mat 23:19.]: and hence St. Peter gives us this plain direction; To whom coming, that is, coming to Christ as the living foundation-stone of Gods spiritual temple, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ [Note: 1Pe 2:4-5.]. O! let us ever remember, that neither our persons nor our services can ever be accepted of God in any other way than this.]

3.

Let us invite the whole world to a participation of it

[There is no bar to our admission to it, but unbelief. The very murderers of our Lord were invited to accept the benefits of our Lords sacrifice. It matters not whether we have been Jews or Gentiles; if only we come to Christ, we shall find acceptance through him: for he has told us that none shall ever be cast out who come unto God by him. Let us proclaim this to the very ends of the earth, that from the rising of the sun, even to the going down of the same, Gods name may be great among the Gentiles; that in every place incense may be offered to him, and a pure offering [Note: Mal 1:11.]; and that all flesh may see the salvation of God [Note: Luk 3:6.].]

Let me now address a few words,
1.

To those who place an undue reliance on these advantages

[Many imagine, that because they have access to God through Christ [Note: Eph 3:18.], they shall, of necessity, find acceptance with God. But there must be a suitableness in the sacrifices which we offer to him. What if men had offered to God the torn, the lame, the sick; would God have accepted it at their hands [Note: Mal 1:13-14.]? No: nor will he accept us, if we do not offer to him such sacrifices as he demands: they must be holy, if we would have them acceptable [Note: Rom 12:1.]. There must be in us a penitent and contrite spirit [Note: Psa 51:17.]: and if this be wanting, our every sacrifice will be abhorred: He that killeth an ox, will be as if he slew a man; and he that sacrificeth a lamb, as if he cut off a dogs neck; and he that offereth an oblation, as if he offered swines blood [Note: Isa 66:2-3.]. Let us then examine well our motives, our principles, our manner of drawing nigh to God; that He who searcheth the heart, and to whom the inmost recesses of it are open [Note: Heb 4:13. . The sacrifices were not only flayed, but cut down the back-bone, to be inspected.], may approve of us as Israelites indeed, in whom is no guile.]

2.

To those who are endeavouring to improve them aright

[I have said that your offerings must be holy. But be ye not therefore discouraged; as though you, on account of your imperfections, could never find acceptance with God: for God knows whereof you are made, and remembers that you are but dust: and, as under the law, if a man were poor, and unable to bring a lamb for a trespass-offering, God permitted him to bring two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, such as he could get, (repeating it no less than four times, that he might bring such as he could get [Note: Lev 14:22; Lev 14:30-32.];) yea, if for a free-will offering he condescended to accept even leavened bread [Note: Lev 7:13.], and a mutilated beast [Note: Lev 22:21-23.], say, who amongst you needs to be discouraged? Nay, I will even ask, who amongst you has sincerely, however imperfectly, offered himself up to God, and not found some token of his acceptance, and some manifestations of his love, in his own soul? Doubtless, as the Levites, when dedicating themselves to the Lord, were first sprinkled with the water of purifying, and then shaved their flesh, and washed their clothes, and then offered their sacrifice [Note: Num 8:7-8; Num 8:21.]; so should you, as far as possible, put off the old man, and put on the new, whilst you are coming to Christ for pardon and acceptance: but, for real efficiency in holiness, this mode must be reversed: you must first lay hold on his promises of mercy, and then cleanse yourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, and perfect holiness in the fear of God [Note: 2Co 7:1.]. Nevertheless, I still ask, have you not found God ever ready to hear and to accept your prayers? It is remarkable, that though a peace-offering was to be eaten on the day that it was presented, yet, if it were offered as a free-will offering in consequence of a vow, it might be feasted upon by the offerer both on that day and on the day following; though by no means on the third day [Note: Lev 7:15-16.]. So I will ask, whether the savour of your religious exercises has not often abode upon your soul long after the hour in which they were presented unto God? If it continue not a third day, it is to teach you, that you are not to live upon your frames and feelings, but to be continually presenting yourselves to God afresh. Take ye then this encouragement from the Lord; and let the fire never go out upon your altar, and the altar never want a sacrifice to ascend up with an odour of a sweet smell before your God [Note: Eph 5:2.].]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

(10) We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. (11) For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. (12) Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. (13) Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach. (14) For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come. (15) By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. (16) But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

There is but one Altar which the Church of Christ knoweth, and that is a precious Altar indeed; namely, Christ himself. It was on this Altar, even his divine nature, the Lord Jesus offered himself to God, through the Eternal Spirit, Heb 9:14 . Christ is our New Testament Altar, and our Sacrifice, and our High Priest, and, the Sacrificer. Now they can have no right, neither benefit, in this Altar, or Sacrifice, and Sacrificer, who are looking to any sacrifice beside. And not only are they prohibited from any right to this our Altar, who serve the Jewish Tabernacle; but any Christian Tabernacle, falsely so called, that is, they who sacrifice to their own net, and burn incense to their own drag: Heb 1:14 , and, according to the Prophet, are building themselves up in their own fancied righteousness, and making Christ only a part Savior with themselves.

This is a beautiful illustration of the Old Testament service, and which at once proves, that the whole of the ministry, on the great day of atonement, related but to Christ. Let the Reader first read the account of the appointment, as minutely related, Lev 16 , and he will be struck with the type, in its close resemblance to Christ. Jesus did all this in substance, as the High Priest then did in the shadow, in the day when he suffered without the gate, that is, without Jerusalem, on the Mount Calvary. And, as the bodies of those beasts, whose blood was brought into the Sanctuary by the High Priest, for sin, were burnt without the Camp: Lev 16:27 , so Christ, in his own Person, endured the fiery indignation of sin, as the Church’s representative; and then went by his own blood into heaven itself, there to appear in the presence of God for us, Heb 9:11-12 . And what a most affectionate exhortation the Holy Ghost adds to this beautiful illustration, when he invites the Church, to go forth, from the observance of all self-offerings whatever; from the camp of the world, and from all vain things, of any fancy attainments of our own; seeking acceptance wholly in the Person and finished salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ? This will indeed bring reproach; but it is Christ’s reproach, being for his sake, and on his account. This would be doing good in the only way in which the child of God, regenerated by grace, can do good; namely, communicating to others, by our word, and by our example, that Christ is our all, and in whom we depend for all. With such sacrifices God is well pleased. Yes! For the child of God, who dares in such a day as the present, amidst a Christ-despising generation, openly to avow, that he is looking wholly to Christ, and that he makes Christ his all, for life and salvation; must sacrifice both name and reputation, and sometimes many earthly comforts besides, in the connections, and relationships of natural life. And from no class whatever will he find greater bitterness manifested, than from modern Pharisees, who profess to honor Christ as well as he, in giving him the glory of the procuring cause of salvation; but contend, that what Christ hath done, and suffered, is not a finished salvation, but that our sincere repentance, and obedience, and faith, may on Christ’s account be accepted of God. Alas! did those men but seriously consider, how wretched at the best, are all the performances of creatures such as we are, they would discover what a flimsy thing the sincerity, and obedience, and repentance, yea, faith itself, considered as an act of ours, must be to trust in when going in before God. Wretched indeed would be my guilty soul, if an atom of mine became necessary for acceptance in that solemn hour!

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

10 We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.

Ver. 10. We have an altar ] That is, a sacrifice, even Christ our passover, whose flesh is meat indeed, Joh 6:35 ; Joh 6:53 , but to believers only, not to those that pertinaciously plead for ceremonies and services of the law, Gal 5:4 . Hic edere, est credere.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

10 .] What is the connexion with Heb 13:9 ? It is represented as being entirely done away by our interpretation of . If I regard it aright, it is not only not done away, but established in its proper light. Those ancient distinctions are profitless: one distinction remains: that ourtrue meat is not to be partaken of by those who adhere to those old distinctions: that Christianity and Judaism are necessarily and totally distinct. See more below. We have an altar (to what does the Writer allude? Some have said (Schlichting, Sykes, Michaelis, Kuinoel, and even Tholuck) that no distinct idea was before him, but that he merely used the term altar , to help the figure which he was about to introduce. And this view has just so much truth in it, that there is no emphasis on ; it is not . The altar bears only a secondary place in the figure; but still I cannot think that it has not a definite meaning. Others understand by the altar, Christ himself . So Suicer, Wolf, al. So Cyr.-alex. de Adoratione, ix. vol. i. p. 310, , , . This again has so much truth in it, that the Victim is so superior to the altar as to cast it altogether into shade; but still is not Himself the altar. Some again (Corn. a-Lapide, Bhme, Bhr, Ebrard, Bisping, Stier, al.) understand, the table of the Lord , at which we eat the Lord’s Supper. This is so far true, that that table may be said to represent to us the Cross whereupon the Sacrifice was offered, just as the bread and wine, laid on it, represent the oblation itself: but it is not the altar, in any propriety of language, however we may be justified, in common parlance, in so calling it. Some again, as Bretschneider, have interpreted it to mean the heavenly place , where Christ now offers the virtue of His Blood to the Father for us. This again is so far true that it is the antitype of the Cross, just as the Cross is the antitype of the Lord’s table: but we do not want, in this word, the heavenly thing represented by, any more than the enduring ordinance representing, the original historic concrete material altar: we want that altar itself: and that altar is, the CROSS, on which the Lord suffered. That is our altar: not to be emphasized, nor exalted into any comparison with the adorable Victim thereon offered; but still our altar, that wherein we glory, that for which, as “pro aris,” we contend: of which our banners, our tokens, our adornments, our churches, are full: severed from which, we know not Christ; laid upon which, He is the power of God, and the wisdom of God. And so it is here explained by Thos. Aquinas, Jac. Cappell., Estius, Bengel, Ernesti, Bleek, De Wette, Stengel, Lnem., Delitzsch) to eat of which (cf. esp. 1Co 9:13 , ) they have not licence who serve the tabernacle (who are these? Some, as Schlichting, Morus, and strange to say more recently Hofmann, Schriftb. ii. 1. 322 ff., understand by them the same, viz. Christians, as the subject of . We Christians have an altar whereof (even) they who serve the (Christian) tabernacle have no right to eat: i. e. as explained by Hofmann, as the high priest himself did not eat of the sin-offerings whose blood was brought into the tabernacle, but they were burnt without the camp, so we Christians have no sacrifice of which we have any right to eat, no further profit to be derived from that one sacrifice, by which we have been reconciled to God. But this is, 1. false in fact. We have a right to eat of our Sacrifice, and are commanded so to do. All that our Lord says of eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood (explain it how we will) would be nullified and set aside by such an interpretation. And, 2. it is directly against the whole context, in which the , whatever they are, are pronounced profitless, and they who walked in them contrasted with us who have higher privileges. To what purpose then would it be to say, that we have an altar of which we cannot eat? that we have a sacrifice which brings us no profit, but only shame? I pass over the interpretation which understands by the words some particular class of Christians among the Hebrews, because it involves the anachronism of a distinction between clergy and laity which certainly then had no place: and also because it would furnish no sense at all suiting the passage, referring as it then would to some Christians only, not to all. The only true reference of our words, as also that which has been all but universally acknowledged, is that to the Jewish priesthood, and in them to those who have part with them in serving the rites and ordinances of the ceremonial law. These have no right to eat of our altar: for just as the bodies of those beasts whose blood was brought into the sanctuary were burnt without the camp, so Jesus suffered altogether without the gate of legal Judaism. Let us then not tarry serving that tabernacle which has no part in Him, but go forth to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. For we cleave not to any abiding city, such as the earthly Jerusalem, but seek one to come. Let us then not tarry in the Jewish tabernacle, serving their rites, offering their sacrifices; but offer our now only possible sacrifice, that of praise, the fruit of a good confession, acceptable to God through Him. Thus and thus only does the whole context stand in harmony. Thus the words in keep their former meanings: cf. ch. Heb 8:5 , where we have : and remember that , barely so placed, cannot by any possibility mean any part of the Christian apparatus of worship, nor have an antitypical reference, but can only import that which throughout the Epistle it has imported, viz. the Jewish tabernacle: cf. ch. Heb 8:5 ; Heb 9:21 al. Bengel, with his keen sight for nice shades of meaning, has noticed, “est aculeus, quod dicit , non ”).

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Hebrews

OUR ALTAR

Heb 13:10 ; Heb 13:15

‘We have an altar.’ There is a certain militant emphasis on the words in the original, as if they were an assertion of something that had been denied. Who the deniers are is plain enough. They were the adherents of Judaism, who naturally found Christianity a strange contrast to their worship, of which altar and sacrifice were prominent features. Just as to heathen nations the ritual of Judaism, its empty shrine, and temple without a God, were a puzzle and a scoff, so to heathen and Jew, the bare, starved worship of the Church, without temple, priest, sacrifice, or altar, was a mystery and a puzzle. The writer of this letter in those words, then, in accordance with the central theme of his whole Epistle, insists that Christianity has more truly than heathenism or Judaism, altar and sacrifice. And he is not content with alleging its possession o the reality of the altar, but he goes further, insists upon the superiority, even in that respect, of the Christian system. He points to the fact that the great sin-offering of the Jewish ritual was not partaken of by the offerers, but consumed by fire without the camp, and he implies, in the earlier words of my text, that the Christian sacrifice differs from, and is superior to, the Jewish in this particular, that on it the worshippers feasted and fed. Then, in the last words of my text, he touches upon another point of superiority – viz., that all Christian men are priests of this altar, and have to offer upon it sacrifices of thanksgiving. And so he exalts the purely spiritual worship of Christianity as not only possessed of all which the gorgeous rituals round about it presented, but as being high above them even in regard to that which seemed their special prerogative. So, then, we have three things here – our Christian altar; our Christian feast on the sacrifice; and our Christian sacrifices on the altar. Let us regard these successively. I. First, then, our Christian altar. ‘We have,’ says the writer, with a triumphant emphasis upon the word, ‘We have an altar’; ‘though there seems none visible in our external worship; and some of our converts miss the sensuous presentation to which they were accustomed; and others are puzzled by it, and taunt us with its absence.’ Now it is to be noticed, I think, that though in sacrificial religions the altar is the centre-point round which the temple is reared, it is of no moment in itself, and only comes into consideration as being that upon which the sacrifice is offered. So I do not suppose that any specific object was in the mind of the writer as answering to the altar in those sacrificial systems. He was thinking most of the sacrifice that was laid upon the altar, and of the altar only in connection therewith. But if we are not satisfied with such an explanation of the words, there are two interpretations open to us.

One is that the Cross is the altar. But that seems to me too gross and material, and savouring too much of the very error which this whole Epistle is written to destroy – viz., that the material is of moment, as measured against the spiritual. The other explanation is much to be preferred, according to which, if the altar has any special significance, it means the divine-human personality of Jesus Christ, on and in which the sacrifice is offered. But the main thing to be laid hold of here is, I take it, that the central fact of Christianity is an altar, on which lies a sacrifice. If we are to accept the significance that I have suggested as possible for the emblem of my text, then the altar expresses the great mystery and gospel of the Incarnation, and the sacrifice expresses the great mystery and gospel of the passion of Christ’s life and death, which is the atonement for our sins. But that possibly is too much of a refinement, and so I confine myself here to the general ideas suggested – that the very living heart of the gospel is an altar and a sacrifice. That idea saturates the whole New Testament, from the page where John the forerunner’s proclamation is, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,’ to the last triumphant vision in which the Apocalyptic seer ‘beheld a Lamb as it had been slain’; the eternal Co-Regnant of the universe, and the mediation through whom the whole surrounding Church for ever worships the Father.

The days are past, as it seems to me, when any man can reasonably contend that the New Testament does not teach – in every page of it, I was going to say – this truth of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Time was when violent contortions and effort were resorted to in order to explain its language as not necessarily involving that significance. But we have got beyond that now, and we oftener hear from deniers this: ‘Oh yes! I admit that throughout the New Testament this sacrificial idea is present, but that is only a chip of the old shell of Judaism, and we are above that level of religious thought.’ Now, I am not going to enter upon a discussion, for which neither place nor time are suited; but I will just suggest that the relation between the ancient system of revelation, with its sacrifice, altar, priest, temple, and the new system of Christianity is far more profoundly, and, I believe, far more philosophically, set forth in this Epistle to the Hebrews, as being the relation between shadow and substance, between prophecy and fulfilment, than when the old is contemptuously brushed aside as ‘Hebrew old clothes,’ with which the true Christianity has no concern. Judaism teas because Christ was to be, and the ancient ritual whether modern ideas of the date of its origin be accepted or no was a God-appointed mirror, in which, the shadow of the coming event was presented. Jesus Christ is all which temple, priest, altar, sacrifice proclaimed should one day be. And just as the relation between Christ’s work and the Judaic system of external ritual sacrifices is that of shadow and substance, prophecy and fulfilment, so, in analogous manner, the relation between the altar and sacrifice of the New Testament and all the systems of heathenism, with their smoking altars, is that these declare a want, and this affords its supply; that these are the confession of humanity that it is conscious of sin, separation, alienation, and that need of a sacrifice, and that Christ is what heathenism in all lands has wailed that it needs, and has desperately hoped that it might find. There are many attempts made to explain on other grounds the universality of sacrifice, and to weaken the force of its witness to the deep necessities of humanity as rooted in the consciousness of sin, but I venture to affirm that all these are superficial, and that the study of comparative religions goes on wrong lines unless it recognises in the whole heathen world a longing, the supply of which it recognises in Jesus Christ and His work. I venture to say that that is a truer philosophy of religion than much that nowadays calls itself by the name. And what lies in this great thought? I am not going to attempt a theory of the Atonement. I do not believe that any such thing is completely possible for us. But this, at least, I recognise as being fundamental and essential to the thought of my text; ‘we have an altar,’ that Christ in His representative relation, in His true affinity to every man upon earth, has in His life or death taken upon Himself the consequences of human transgression, not merely by sympathy, nor only by reason of the uniqueness-of His representative relation, but by willing submission to that awful separation from the Father, of which the cry out of the thick darkness of the Cross, ‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ is the unfathomable witness. Thus, bearing our sin, He bears it away, and ‘we have an altar.’ Now notice that this great truth has a distinct teaching for those who hanker after externalities of ritual The writer of this Epistle uses it for the purpose of declaring that in the Christian Church, because of its possession of the true sacrifice, there is no room for any other; that priest, temple, altar, sacrifice in any material external forms are an anachronism and a contradiction of the very central idea of the gospel And it seems very strange that sections of Christendom should so have been blind to the very meaning of my text, and so missed the lesson which it teaches, and fallen into the error which it opposes, as that these very words, which are a protest against any materialisation of the idea of altar and sacrifice, should have been twisted to mean by the altar the table of the Lord, and by sacrifice the communion of His body and blood. But so it is. So strong are the tendencies in our weak humanity to grasp at some sensuous embodiment of the truth that the Christian Church, as a whole, has not been able to keep on the lofty levels of my text, and has hungered after some external signs to which it may attach notions of efficacy which attach only to the spiritual sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Thus we have got a strange contradiction, as it seems to me, of the spirit and letter of my text, and of the whole Epistle from which it comes, and there, has crept surreptitiously into, and been obstinately maintained in, large sections of the Christian Church the idea o a sacrificing priesthood, and of a true sacrifice offered upon a material altar. My text protests against all that, and said to these early Christians what it says to us: ‘Go into your upper rooms and there offer your worship, which to sense seems so bare and starved. Never mind though people say there is nothing in your system for sense to lay hold of. So much the better. Never mind though you can present no ritual with an altar, and a priest, and a sacrifice. All these are swept away for ever, because once Jesus Christ hath put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. Our temple is His body; our priest is before the throne. We rear no altar; He has died. Our sacrifice was offered on Calvary, and henceforward our worship, cleared from these materialities, rises unto loftier regions, and we worship God in the spirit, and have no confidence in the flesh.’ Still further, this truth has a bearing on the opposite pole of error, on those who would fain have a Christianity without an altar. I am not going to say how far genuine discipleship of Jesus Christ is possible with the omission of this article from the creed. It is no business of mine to determine that, but it is my business, as I think, to assert this, that a Christianity without an altar is a Christianity without power; impotent to move the world or to control the individual heart, inadequate to meet the needs and the cravings of men. Where are the decaying Christians? Where are the Christians that have let go the central fact of an incarnate sacrifice for the world’s sin? The answer to the two questions is the same. Wherever you find a feeble grasp of that central truth, or a faltering utterance of it on the part of the preachers, there you find deadness and formality. Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ’s servants, I was going to say, obey the same law, and that law is, no cross, no crown. If Christ has not died, the world’s sacrifice, He will never reign, the world’s King. If His Cross be an altar it is a throne. If it be not, it is merely a gallows, on which a religious enthusiast, with many sweet and lovable qualities, died a long time ago, and it is nothing to me. ‘We have an altar,’ or else we have no religion worth keeping. II. Mark here, secondly, our feast on the sacrifice.

From this altar, says the writer, the adherents of the ancient system have no right to partake. That implies that those who have left the ancient system have the right to partake, and do partake. Now the writer is drawing a contrast, which he proceeds to elaborate, between the great sacrifice on the Day of Atonement and the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. The former was not, as many other sacrifices were, partaken of by priests and worshippers, but simply the blood was brought within the holy place, and the whole of the rest of the sacrifice consumed in a waste spot without the camp. And this contrast is in the writer’s mind. We have a sacrifice on which we feast.

That is to say, the Christ who died for my sins is not only my means of reconciliation with God, but His sacrifice and death are the sustenance of my spiritual life. We live upon the Christ that died for us. That this is no mere metaphor, but goes penetratingly and deep down to the very basis of the spiritual life, is attested sufficiently by many a word of Scripture on which I cannot now dwell. The life of the Christian is the indwelling Christ. For he whose heart hath not received that Christ within him is dead whilst he lives, and has no possession of the one true Hie for a human spirit, viz., the fife of union with God. Christ in us is the consequence of Christ for us; and that Christianity is all imperfect which does not grasp with equal emphasis the thought of the sacrifice or the cross, and of the feast or the sacrifice.

But how is that feeding on the sacrifice accomplished? ‘He that eateth Me, even he shall ‘live by Me.’ He that believeth, eateth. He that with humble faith makes Christ his very own, and appropriates as the nourishment and basis of his own better life the facts of the life and death of sacrifice, he truly lives thereby. To eat is to believe; to believe is to live. I need not remind you, I suppose, how, though there be no reference in the words of my text, as I have tried to show, to the external rite of the communion of the Lord’s body and blood, and though the ‘altar’ here has no reference whatever to that table, yet there is a connection between the two representations, inasmuch as the one declares in words what the other sets forth in symbol, and the meaning of the feast on the sacrifice is expressed by this great word. ‘This is My body, broken for you.’ ‘This is the new covenant in My blood’: ‘Drink ye all of it.’ ‘We have an altar,’ and though it be not the table on which the symbols of our Lord’s sacrificial death are spread for us, yet these symbols and the words of my text, like the words of His great discourse in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, point to the same fact, that the spiritual participation of Christ by faith is the reality of ‘eating of Him,’ and the condition of living for ever. III. And now, lastly, my text suggests our Christian offerings on the altar. ‘By Him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually.’ What are these offerings? Christ’s death stands alone, incapable of repetition, meeting no repetition, the eternal, sole, ‘sufficient obligation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.’ But there be other kinds of sacrifice. There are sacrifices of thanksgiving as well as for propitiation. And we, on the footing of that great sacrifice to which we can add nothing, and on which alone we must rest, may bring the offerings of our thankful hearts. These offerings are of a two-fold sort, says the writer. There are words of praise. There are works of beneficence. The service of man is sacrifice to God. That is a deep saying and reaches far. Such praise and such beneficence are only possible on the footing of Christ’s sacrifice, for only on that footing is our praise acceptable; and only when moved by that infinite mercy and love shall we yield ourselves, thank offerings to God. And thus, brethren, the whole extent of the Christian life, in its inmost springs, and in its outward manifestations, is covered by these two thoughts – the ‘feast on the sacrifice once offered, and the sacrifices which we in our turn offer on the altar. If we thus, moved by the mercy of God, ‘yield ourselves as living sacrifices, which is our reasonable service,’ then not only will life be one long thank-offering, but as the Apostle puts it in another place, death itself may become, too, a thankful surrender to Him. For He says, ‘I am ready to be offered.’ And so the thankful heart, resting on the sacrificial life and death of Jesus Christ, makes all life a thanksgiving, ‘death God’s endless mercy seals, and makes the sacrifice complete.’ There is one Christ that can thus hallow and make acceptable our living and our dying, and that is the Christ that has died for us, and lives that in Him we may be priests to God. There is only one Christianity that will do for us what we will need, and that is the Christianity whose centre is an altar, on which the Son of God, our Passover, is slain for us.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

altar. The reference is to the sin-offering, which was wholly burnt outside the camp. Lev 4:1-21; Lev 16:27.

whereof = of (Greek. ek) which

right. Greek. exousia. App-172.

serve. Greek. latreuo. App-190.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

10.] What is the connexion with Heb 13:9? It is represented as being entirely done away by our interpretation of . If I regard it aright, it is not only not done away, but established in its proper light. Those ancient distinctions are profitless: one distinction remains: that ourtrue meat is not to be partaken of by those who adhere to those old distinctions: that Christianity and Judaism are necessarily and totally distinct. See more below. We have an altar (to what does the Writer allude? Some have said (Schlichting, Sykes, Michaelis, Kuinoel, and even Tholuck) that no distinct idea was before him, but that he merely used the term altar, to help the figure which he was about to introduce. And this view has just so much truth in it, that there is no emphasis on ; it is not . The altar bears only a secondary place in the figure; but still I cannot think that it has not a definite meaning. Others understand by the altar, Christ himself. So Suicer, Wolf, al. So Cyr.-alex. de Adoratione, ix. vol. i. p. 310, , , . This again has so much truth in it, that the Victim is so superior to the altar as to cast it altogether into shade; but still is not Himself the altar. Some again (Corn. a-Lapide, Bhme, Bhr, Ebrard, Bisping, Stier, al.) understand, the table of the Lord, at which we eat the Lords Supper. This is so far true, that that table may be said to represent to us the Cross whereupon the Sacrifice was offered, just as the bread and wine, laid on it, represent the oblation itself: but it is not the altar, in any propriety of language, however we may be justified, in common parlance, in so calling it. Some again, as Bretschneider, have interpreted it to mean the heavenly place, where Christ now offers the virtue of His Blood to the Father for us. This again is so far true that it is the antitype of the Cross, just as the Cross is the antitype of the Lords table: but we do not want, in this word, the heavenly thing represented by, any more than the enduring ordinance representing, the original historic concrete material altar: we want that altar itself: and that altar is, the CROSS, on which the Lord suffered. That is our altar: not to be emphasized, nor exalted into any comparison with the adorable Victim thereon offered; but still our altar, that wherein we glory, that for which, as pro aris, we contend: of which our banners, our tokens, our adornments, our churches, are full: severed from which, we know not Christ; laid upon which, He is the power of God, and the wisdom of God. And so it is here explained by Thos. Aquinas, Jac. Cappell., Estius, Bengel, Ernesti, Bleek, De Wette, Stengel, Lnem., Delitzsch) to eat of which (cf. esp. 1Co 9:13, ) they have not licence who serve the tabernacle (who are these? Some, as Schlichting, Morus, and strange to say more recently Hofmann, Schriftb. ii. 1. 322 ff., understand by them the same, viz. Christians, as the subject of . We Christians have an altar whereof (even) they who serve the (Christian) tabernacle have no right to eat: i. e. as explained by Hofmann, as the high priest himself did not eat of the sin-offerings whose blood was brought into the tabernacle, but they were burnt without the camp, so we Christians have no sacrifice of which we have any right to eat, no further profit to be derived from that one sacrifice, by which we have been reconciled to God. But this is, 1. false in fact. We have a right to eat of our Sacrifice, and are commanded so to do. All that our Lord says of eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood (explain it how we will) would be nullified and set aside by such an interpretation. And, 2. it is directly against the whole context, in which the , whatever they are, are pronounced profitless, and they who walked in them contrasted with us who have higher privileges. To what purpose then would it be to say, that we have an altar of which we cannot eat? that we have a sacrifice which brings us no profit, but only shame? I pass over the interpretation which understands by the words some particular class of Christians among the Hebrews, because it involves the anachronism of a distinction between clergy and laity which certainly then had no place: and also because it would furnish no sense at all suiting the passage, referring as it then would to some Christians only, not to all. The only true reference of our words, as also that which has been all but universally acknowledged, is that to the Jewish priesthood, and in them to those who have part with them in serving the rites and ordinances of the ceremonial law. These have no right to eat of our altar: for just as the bodies of those beasts whose blood was brought into the sanctuary were burnt without the camp, so Jesus suffered altogether without the gate of legal Judaism. Let us then not tarry serving that tabernacle which has no part in Him, but go forth to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach. For we cleave not to any abiding city, such as the earthly Jerusalem, but seek one to come. Let us then not tarry in the Jewish tabernacle, serving their rites, offering their sacrifices; but offer our now only possible sacrifice, that of praise, the fruit of a good confession, acceptable to God through Him. Thus and thus only does the whole context stand in harmony. Thus the words in keep their former meanings: cf. ch. Heb 8:5, where we have : and remember that , barely so placed, cannot by any possibility mean any part of the Christian apparatus of worship, nor have an antitypical reference, but can only import that which throughout the Epistle it has imported, viz. the Jewish tabernacle: cf. ch. Heb 8:5; Heb 9:21 al. Bengel, with his keen sight for nice shades of meaning, has noticed, est aculeus, quod dicit , non ).

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Heb 13:10. , we have) This verse has two clauses: on the first, Heb 13:15-16 depend; on the second, the verses that intervene. Chiasmus.-, an altar) the Cross of Christ, on which His body was sacrificed.- ) of (from) which. They are partakers also of this altar who eat the sacrifice offered upon it, not on the other: comp. 1Co 10:18.-, to eat) The meat, the flesh of Christ given for us. It is an antithesis to ceremonial meats. It is chiefly eaten in the Sacred Supper, where His body is set forth as given up for us, and His blood shed for us, in that single sacrifice of the cross.-, not) Gal 5:2, etc.- , the tabernacle) A parabolic Amphibology, such as we find at ch. Heb 9:8, note. For the tabernacle, if we consider the Protasis, expressed at Heb 13:11, denotes the anterior part of the sanctuary; but if we consider the Apodosis, which is found at Heb 13:12, it implies the whole Levitical worship. There is also a point in the fact, that he says, , not , who serve the tabernacle, not in the tabernacle. In like manner paul, Rom 7:6, note.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Christ Our Altar

“We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.” Heb 13:10

Moses describes the altar of sacrifice for us in Exo 27:1-8. All that the altar of the tabernacle and the temple signified typically is fulfilled for us really and truly in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is our Altar.

The Altars Use

The altar of sacrifice typified Christ in the use for which it was made. The altar sanctified the gift, the sacrifice, which was placed upon it, and made it acceptable to God (Mat 23:19). Christ sanctifies us. He makes the believing soul and our sacrifices acceptable to God (1Pe 2:5).

There was one altar for all the people, one altar for all their sins, one altar for all their sacrifices. There is one Altar for sinners; and that Altar is Christ.

The altar bore the violent heat of divine wrath, so that the sinner might go free. While the fire consumed the sacrifice on the altar, the altar itself was not destroyed. Even so, Christ our Altar bore the violent heat of Gods wrath. He poured out his soul unto death for our sins as a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savor. Yet, he is not destroyed. This sacrifice, rather than being consumed by the wrath of God, has consumed the wrath of God (Rom 8:1).

The altar was a place of refuge for guilty men (1Ki 1:50; 1Ki 2:28-30). What else can a guilty man do but take hold of the horns of the altar? Christ alone is the Refuge for guilty sinners.

There were four horns on the altar. These four horns represented the universality of Christs redemption, reaching to the four corners of the earth. It is written, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. You will be wise to lay hold of the horns of the Altar, and plea for Gods mercy. What encouragement the Holy Lord God gives to sinners to do just that in the invitations and commands of the gospel (Isa 43:25-26).

The Altars Position

The altar of Sacrifice was typical of Christ in its position. The moment the sinner entered the door of the tabernacle, the first, the most important, most prominent thing he saw was that huge brazen altar. As he went into approach God, the first thing he saw was the altar. As he left the tabernacle and went out to live in the world, the last thing he saw was the altar.

In all things spiritual Christ is pre-eminent (Col 1:18). All the fullness of grace dwells in him (Col 1:19). Indeed, all the fulness of the eternal Godhead dwells in him (Col 2:9). In order to approach God, we must come by the Altar, Christ Jesus (Heb 7:25). As we attempt to live in the world, we must live with the Altar of Sacrifice, the Lord Jesus Christ, ever before our hearts eyes. Every relationship in life is affected by this Altar.

The Altars Form

The altar of sacrifice was typical of Christ in its form. It was four square, like Christ our Altar: full, complete, perfect. All the fulness of Gods love is revealed in him and resides in him (Eph 3:19). All the fulness of Gods covenant grace and promises is in Christ (Isa 49:8; 2Sa 23:5). All the fulness of Gods salvation and grace is in Christ (1Co 1:30; Eph 3:8). He is the Creator of all things, the Upholder of all things, the Ruler of all things, and the Heir of all things.

There were no steps going up to the altar, because there is no possibility of sinners approaching God by the steps of their own works. There are no steps of preparation before we come to the Altar. When the priest approached the altar, no nakedness could be seen, because there were no steps to the altar.

So it is with sinners coming to God by faith in Christ. Because we come to him by faith alone, the shameful nakedness of our souls is altogether unseen. We are washed in his blood and robed in his righteousness.

The altar was completely covered with blood, because sin can only be put away by blood (Heb 9:22). Justice must be satisfied; and nothing but the blood of Christ could ever satisfy Gods holy, inflexible, infinite justice.

The Altars Materials

The altar of sacrifice was typical of Christ in its materials. The shittim wood represented the incorruptible humanity of Christ. The brass represented the eternal Godhead of Christ. The shittim wood overlaid with brass represents the eternal duration of the sufficiency of Christs sacrifice.

The Altars Fire

And the fire, which continually burned upon the altar of sacrifice, was also typical of Christ. That perpetual flame represented the eternal love of Christ for his people, the zeal of Christ for the glory of God, the purifying of Gods elect by the blood of Christ, and the unfailing intercession of Christ for us.

Come to Christ our Altar. He is the only Altar, the appointed Altar, a living Altar, a lasting Altar, an accessible Altar, and a saving, sin-atoning Altar. Sinners have no hope but to lay hold of the horns of this Altar. Horns suggests strength. Christ is able to save. Horns imply sufficiency. Christ is the Horn of salvation. He is a Horn of plenty. Child of God, come to Christ your Altar. Come continually (1Jn 2:1-2). Eat of the Altar. Come and offer yourself to God upon this Altar (Rom 12:1-2). We cannot come to God any other way (Joh 14:6). And we cannot be rejected if we come to God by means of the Altar he has established (Heb 10:19-22).

Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible

an altar: 1Co 5:7, 1Co 5:8, 1Co 9:13, 1Co 10:17, 1Co 10:20

serve: Num 3:7, Num 3:8, Num 7:5

Reciprocal: Gen 8:20 – builded Exo 27:1 – altar of shittim wood Exo 37:25 – General Exo 38:1 – the altar Exo 40:6 – General Exo 40:29 – the altar Num 7:84 – the dedication Deu 26:4 – before the Jdg 21:4 – built there 2Ch 7:7 – hallowed Isa 6:6 – which Isa 19:19 – General Isa 53:10 – when thou shalt make his soul Isa 60:7 – they shall Eze 44:29 – eat Eze 45:17 – he shall prepare Luk 5:38 – General

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Heb 13:10. The Mosaic system had a literal altar service on which animals were burned in sacrifice. Some parts of the beasts were reserved for food to be eaten by the priests who performed the service. We Christians also have an altar that is not a literal or temporal one; it is the sacrificial service of Christ. Those who accept the teaching of the Judaizers in going back to the old tabernacle, forfeit their right to the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice; they have fallen from grace (Gal 5:4).

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Heb 13:10-12. And yet we have our altar and our meat. We are worshippers, nay, even priestly worshippers. Our altar is the cross: our sin-offering the body of our Lord. His flesh is meat indeed, and His blood is drink indeed. But all is hidden from the view and forbidden to the touch of those who serve the earthly tabernacle. Under the Law, some offerings were shared by the priest and people, and the arrangement implied that fellowship was restored and ceremonial expiation was completed. But the sin-offering of atonement was not eaten (Lev 6:30), and the bodies of national and priestly expiations were burnt without the camp. When atonement was a figure only, and not a reality, the worshipper had no communion with what professed to furnish it. Now we discern the body, and are partakers of it, and claim the reconciliation which the partaking implies. The old altar must be renounced, and the old sacrifice abandoned. Men must go to the place where Christ was offered (cp. Heb 9:28), the place where Christ offered Himself (Heb 9:25), and those who seek acceptance through legal sacrifices have no part in Him, as they had no part in that sacrifice, which was the completest type of His work, yet was itself powerless to make full atonement, and therefore insufficient to secure the reconciliation and the strength of which the eating of the altar was the sign.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

These words are brought in as a farther reason why the Christian Hebrews should not return to Judaism, or any other doctrine different from the gospel of Christ: We Christians, says the apostle, have an altar: that is, a sacrifice, a priest offered upon, and sanctified by, the altar of the cross.

Note here, that the church of Christ alone and his sacrifice; for he was both priest, altar, and sacrifice, all himself, and still continueth so to be.

Note, 2. That this altar, is every way sufficient in itself for the ends of an altar; and therefore the introduction of any other sacrifice requiring a material altar, is derogatory to the sacrifice of Christ, and exclusive of him from being an altar.

Observe next, The persons excluded from having any right unto, or expectation of benefit by, this altar, namely, such as serve the tabernacle; that is, such as cleave still to the worship appointed for the Jewish tabernacle, and adhere to the Mosaical observations.

They have no right to this altar by any divine instituation, no right by virtue of their office and relation to the tabernacle.

Learn hence, That all privileges, of what nature soever, without a participataion of Christ, as the altar and sacrifice of his church, are of no advantage to them that enjoy them; We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Heb 13:10. We have an altar That is, a sacrifice upon an altar, namely, Christ, who was sacrificed on the altar of the cross, who also is the only Christian altar, to which we bring all our sacrifices and services. The apostle, having set forth the only way of the establishment of the heart in faith and holiness, and the uselessness of all distinctions of meats for that purpose, here declares the foundation of all this; for whereas the ground of all distinction of meats and other ceremonies among the Jews was the altar in the tabernacle, with its nature, use, and services, he lets them know that Christians have an altar, and services quite of another kind than those which arose from the altar of old, such as he describes Heb 13:13-16. This seems to be the direct design of the apostle in this place, and a proper analysis of his words. Whereof they have no right to eat To partake of the benefits which we receive therefrom; who serve the tabernacle Who adhere to the Mosaic law, or who maintain the necessity, and continue the observance, of the Jewish ceremonies and worship. For this in effect was to deny Christ to be come in the flesh, and to have offered himself a sacrifice on the cross.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

ARGUMENT 19

THE TWO OFFERINGS.

While the Father so loved this lost world that He gave His only Son, to die a ransom and redeem every son and daughter of Adams ruined race from the doom of sin, death, and hell, yet it is a significant fact here unequivocally revealed, that Jesus gave Himself to suffer and die that He may sanctify His people by His blood. Hence we see the double offering, i.e., that of the Father for a wicked world, and that of the Son to sanctify the Church.

10. The altar here is the cross of Calvary on which the Lamb of God bled and died. Allusion is here made to the Levitical priests who fed on the sacrifices offered in the sanctuary.

11. This verse describes the sin-offering, which the priests were not allowed to eat, because the law required them to carry it out beyond the lines of the encampment, and utterly consume it with fire, thus vividly emblematizing Gods method with sin, which is absolute extermination. This sin-offering typifies Christ, whose human life was utterly exterminated without the wall of Jerusalem, for the sins of the whole world. Just as the priests had no right to partake of the sin-offering, so ecclesiastical clergy have no official right to partake of Christ. They have to come, divested of official distinction, low down in the dust like all other sinners, or make their bed in hell. Away with the pompous pretensions of popery, prelacy and priestcraft! It is a hotch-potch of Satans lies. hatched in hell for the damnation of them and their deluded votaries. For this reason, doubtless, Christ did not spring from the tribe of Levi, to which all the priests belonged, but from Judah, in which there were no priests. Despite this impassable chasm between Christ and the clergy, yet the official appropriation of the Christhood by the ecclesiastical custodians and conservators has been the heresy of all heresies, blinding the popular mind, ritualizing the churches, plunging them into idolatry and engulfing millions in hell.

12. Therefore Jesus in order that He might sanctify the people by His own blood suffered without the gate. This verse reveals the great fact that after the Father had given the Son to die a ransom for a guilty world, the Son spontaneously gave Himself that He may sanctify His people by His own blood. Oh, how prominent in the Bible the two works of grace, i.e., the one to redeem a guilty world, and the other to sanctify the redeemed Church. Why did Jesus die outside the walls of Jerusalem? It was to deliver the world from the heresy of priestcraft and ecclesiasticism, and illustrate His accessibility to the guilty millions of all ages and races. Jesus died not within the pales of the Church where His atonement is appropriated and doled out by an intriguing clergy and carnal officiary, but His expiation of human guilt takes place on Mount Calvary, standing without the wall in the open firmament of this great sin-debauched world, perfectly accessible to every lost soul of all ages and nations. These indisputable facts eternally sweep away all the arrogant claims of popes, bishops, priests, pastors and ecclesiastical officials and church rites. This one thing is certain beyond all defalcation: in the plan of salvation there are only two parties, i.e., the sinner and Christ.

13. Consequently let us go forth to Him, without the camp, bearing His reproach. In this we do not see Comeoutism. We certainly should remain in our churches, to shine and shout for Jesus and save others. But in harmony with the pure spirituality of the Bible we are to understand this commandment. If you depend on your preacher and church for salvation, and especially for sanctification, you will never get it. You have to leave church rites, clerical manipulations and human help, and go away alone to Jesus and settle the problem of your regeneration as a sinner and your sanctification as a Christian. Beware how you take the ipse dixit of a man on this momentous question involving for your soul heaven or hell. Be sure you leave all sects, creeds, pastors, evangelists and official boards; go and settle these immortal issues with Jesus only. When God does the work He is certain to notify you. Never rest without the witness of the Spirit to your regeneration as a sinner, and your sanctification as a Christian, as the meridian sun in his noonday glory.

14. This epistle was written but a short time before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, to which here is evidently a prophetical allusion, corroborated by the mournful evanescence of all things temporal.

15. Therefore through Him let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips confessing His name. Oh, what a positive commandment and fervent exhortation in favor of the incessant testimony, which the holiness people are forever ringing out! The dead churches, like Ananias and Sapphira, keep back a part of the price, i.e., the fruits of their lips, and, like them, plunge into spiritual death, toppling into hell. Take warning and learn to obey this command, i.e., incessantly offering unto God the fruit of your lips, i.e., everlastingly and eternally with your mouth open, testifying for God.

16. Do not forget benefaction and fellowship: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased. So, when you get the clear witness of the Spirit to your regeneration as a sinner and sanctification as a Christian and go on with your mouth open, ringing out your testimony, incessantly offering unto God the fruit of your lips, amid all, be sure that you are always doing good, and extending your loving Christian fellowship to all you meet. In that case you have the blessed assurance in this Scripture that God is not simply reconciled to you, but delighted with you.

17. This long verse is a fervent exhortation to follow the spiritual leaders whom the Holy Ghost has sent among you, especially in view of the fact that you must meet them before the great white throne, when God will put them on the witness-block to testify in your case. As you desire their testimony to acquit you in that awful hour, be diligent to obey their Godly precept and emulate their saintly example.

18. Pray for us… wishing to deport ourselves beautifully among all.

Here Apollos and his evangelistic comrades, fifteen hundred miles beyond the seas in Italy, beseech their consanguinity in Palestine to pray for them that they may move throughout the whole world shining in the beauty of holiness.

19. How naturally do we all sigh to behold again the beautiful green hills and sunny skies of our native land. Here Apollos and his comrades ask their kindred at Jerusalem to pray that they may once more see the Holy City. I trow that prayer was never answered. The storms of war and death, which so soon deluged the Holy Land with blood, and whitened it with bones, were too nigh to admit the reasonable probability that these brethren would be likely to get back from Italy, and make an evangelistic tour in Palestine, as the R man armies not only destroyed the city, but slew a million of Jews by sword, pestilence and famine, selling a million more into slavery, and driving the scathed and peeled remnant out of the country to roam among the Gentiles. The Emperor Adrian even went so far as to make it a penalty of death for Jews in other countries to be found traveling with their faces toward Jerusalem. Such was his devotion to the Roman gods and his implacable hatred to the Jewish and Christian religion that he did his utmost to obliterate their memory from the earth. He even cast away the name Jerusalem, having the city rebuilt by the Gentiles under the name Elia Capitolina, which name it retained two hundred years, meanwhile Jerusalem was slumbering in oblivion. When the Emperor Constantine and his mother, Queen Helena, were converted to Christianity, A.D. 325, they came to Jerusalem, hunted up the sacred places, had the city rebuilt in splendor and beauty, restoring the good old name, Jerusalem, which it has ever retained.

Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament

Verse 10

They have no right to eat, &c.; that is, those cannot claim any share in the redemption of Christ, who still cling to, and depend upon, the ceremonial observances of the Mosaic economy.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

13:10 {7} We have an {f} altar, whereof they have no right to eat which {g} serve the tabernacle.

(7) He refutes their error by an apt and fit comparison. They who in times past served the Tabernacle, did not eat of the sacrifices whose blood was brought for sin into the holy place by the high priest. Moreover these sacrifices represented Christ our offering. Therefore they cannot be partakers of him if they serve the tabernacle, that is, stand in the service of the law: but let us not be ashamed to follow him out of Jerusalem, from which he was cast out and suffered for in this also Christ, who is the truth, answers that type in that he suffered outside the gate.

(f) By the altar, he means the offerings.

(g) Of which they cannot be partakers, who stubbornly retain the rites of the law.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Believers under the Old Covenant ate part of what they offered to God as a peace offering (Lev 7:15-18). However believers under the New Covenant feed spiritually on Jesus Christ who is our peace offering. Those still under the Old Covenant had no right to partake of Him for spiritual sustenance and fellowship with God since their confidence was still in the Old Covenant.

"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 priests. Their pagan neighbors thought they had no God, and called them atheists; their Jewish neighbors too might criticize them for having no visible means of spiritual support." [Note: Bruce, The Epistle . . ., p. 400.]

Roman Catholics have tended to see in this "altar" a reference to the mass, whereas Protestants have viewed it as a reference either to Christ Himself or His cross or a heavenly altar. I prefer Christ Himself since it is through Him that we are to offer a sacrifice of praise to God (Heb 13:15; cf. 1Pe 2:5).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)