9 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them. 10 We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat.
V9 ties in to yesterday's verses. Looking back at the saints that have gone before us, and recognizing that Jesus Christ never changes (if God was faithful to the saints before us, He will be faithful to us today and tomorrow) - we need to take care not to get caught up in some "new truth". There is no new truth. Jesus Christ never changes and the truth about Jesus Christ never changes. God's Word never needs to be updated because "times have changed". God's truth is timeless. And, so as not to be caught off guard and swept into new teachings - we need to be sound in doctrine. We need to know the Word.
And we need to recognize that our strength is found in grace, not ceremony.
I found a couple of different interpretations of v10.
John Piper says...
He's referring to the priests in Jerusalem who have rejected Jesus as their Messiah, but who go on "serving the tabernacle" which was meant to point to Jesus as the final sacrifice and the cross of Jesus as the final altar of sacrifice (Hebrews 9:26; 10:12). So the altar he has in mind is the cross where our final sacrifice was offered once for all for our sins. There is where our food is found. There is the table where grace was prepared.
John MacArthur says
We have an altar, He's not talking about Christians necessarily; He's talking about Jews. I think that's the key, once you establish that the thing flows. We, Jews, have an altar. Remember that word altar we have--and there the altar includes the sacrifice and the ritual, we have an altar, people. You remember that thing? "Of which they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle." Who are the men who serve the tabernacle? The priests. Was there a certain sacrifice on a certain altar they couldn't eat? Yes there was: it was the sin offering. On the Day of Atonement when the sin offering was made they could not eat it. All the other times when they made offerings, the priests ate what was left. The sin offering, once it was made and the blood was sprinkled on the holy of holies on the mercy seat, the animals were taken outside the camp and burned. That's verse 11. For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned where? Outside the camp. He explains right there, I think, which altar it is. He says we have a particular altar sacrifice. We have a particular ritual, where you cannot partake. In fact, the remains of the sacrifice are taken outside the camp and burned.
This, you know what it is? It's an analogy. All He's doing is giving them an analogy to teach them a principle. Here's the principle. You people need to be separated from the system. You know, like those sin offerings that nobody could touch but they had to be taken outside the camp? You need to be so separated from the camp of the world. That's essentially what He's getting at. He's simply drawing a little analogy--you can't push it very far. He's saying like the animals in the sin offering were taken outside, the believer needs to be removed from sinful man. Removed from the system, removed from the world and come apart.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Hebrews 13:11-14
1 comment:
I lean toward Piper's interpretation on that one, but it's really neither here nor there. Great post!
Post a Comment