WE HAVE AN ALTAR: echomen (1PPAI) thusiasterion:
(altar: 1Co 5:7,8 9:13 10:17,20)
In this passage, the writer again
takes up his central theme of the sacrifice of Christ, which contrasts
with and is superior to the Levitical sacrifices. Recall that he had
just exhorted his readers to "be strengthened by grace not by foods"
(Heb 10:9-note)
and now proceeds to make an allusion to eating, albeit in the
present
context
it is not eating
literal foods but "eating" the spiritual food provided by Christ.
Thomas Constable explains
that...
Believers under the Old Covenant
ate part of what they offered to God as a peace offering (Lev 7:15,
16, 17, 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. (Hebrews)
Phillip Hughes writes...
Under the Mosaic dispensation the
priests were entitled to retain as food for themselves the flesh of
certain animal sacrifices and also the cereal offerings that were
presented (as explained, for example, in Lev. 7); but there were other
sacrifices of which they were not permitted to eat, such as the sin
offering described in Leviticus 4:1ff. and—a consideration of special
significance in our understanding of the present passage—the great
annual sacrifices for sin offered on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16).
The close association of the altar with the sacrifice that is offered
on it, and of the eater with both, is evident from the question
addressed by Paul to the Christians in Corinth: "Consider the practice
of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partakers in the
altar?" (1Co 10:18; cf. also the question, posed in a different
context, of 1Co 9:13: "Do you not know that those who are employed in
the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve
at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings?"). The particular
ritual which our author has in view here is, once again, that of the
Day of Atonement, when, on this day of the year alone, the blood of
the victim slain on the altar is brought into the sanctuary, that is,
the holy of holies, by the high priest. Yet those who serve the tent,
namely, the priests of the Levitical order, have no right to eat of
this, the most portentous of all the Jewish sacrifices; for on this
day the bodies of the sacrificial animals are totally burned outside
the camp.
We have (echo) is in the
present tense
indicating this "altar" is their continual (even permanent)
possession. So it behooves us to understand what is the altar which
they (and we as fellow NT believers) possessed, a question which will
be dealt with in the following discussion. The fact that the writer
introduces the concept of an altar in his argument (for the
superiority of the New Covenant), suggests that some detractors were
claiming that Christianity had no altar and was therefore inferior to
Judaism.
F F Bruce amplifies this
thought commenting that...
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.
Hughes explains that that
the criticism of "no altar"...
evokes the rejoinder from our
author that we have an altar, namely, the cross on which the sacrifice
of the Son took place, and that this is the reality which answers to
the shadow of the high-priestly offering on Israel's Day of Atonement;
and, further, that there is this significant distinction, in addition
to the important differences mentioned earlier in the epistle, that
whereas the Levitical priests have no right to eat of their sin
offerings, we Christians, who together constitute a holy priesthood
(1Pe 2:5), enjoy the privilege of partaking of Christ's sacrifice,
which is the true and perfect sacrifice for sin.
An altar -
What is the altar to which the
writer was referring?
Clearly it is not the altar in the Temple, for he has repeatedly
demonstrated that the Old Covenant order is ready to disappear (Heb
8:13-note)
(and the Temple itself would in fact be demolished by the Roman
General Titus in 70AD, not many years after the writing the epistle to
the Hebrews). If we think about the OT symbolism in the Tabernacle
(and later the Temple), the brazen altar was the first piece of
furniture one encountered when coming through the one door, the only
way to enter the outer courtyard (cp Jesus - Jn 14:6, Jn 10:9). The
brazen altar was the site of the blood sacrifice of the blemish free
animal and was a picture of the ultimate blood sacrifice of Jesus, for
the blood of bulls and goats would never take away sin (Heb 10:4-note,
Heb 9:9-note,
Heb 9:13, 14-note).
In short, the brazen altar was a depiction or symbol or type of the
ultimate sacrificial altar, the old rugged Cross which bore the
sinless body of the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world
(Jn 1:29). Some therefore see the reference to the altar as a
reference to the Cross whereas others see it as a reference to Christ
Himself.
F F Bruce resolves this
by explaining that
The word “altar” is used by
metonymy for “sacrifice”—“as
when, e.g., we say that a man keeps a good table, meaning thereby good
food.”...The Christian altar was the sacrifice of Christ, the
benefits of which were eternally accessible to them. Material food,
even if it was called sacred, perished with the using; in this new
and spiritual order into which they had been introduced by faith,
Christ was perpetually available, “the same yesterday, and today, yes,
and for ever.” (Bruce, F. F. The Epistle to the Hebrews. The New
International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm.
B. Eerdmans)
FROM WHICH THOSE WHO SERVE THE TABERNACLE HAVE NO RIGHT TO
EAT: ex ou phagein (esthio: AAN) ouk echousin (3PPAI) exousian oi te
skene latreuontes (PAPMPN): (serve: Nu 3:7,8 7:5 )
Those who serve the
Tabernacle - Referring to the
priests who served in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem (Herod's Temple at
that time). These Jewish priests who continually performed the
ritualistic Temple services (Heb 7:27-note,
Heb 10:11-note)
had no right to eat of or to assimilate the significance of the
sacrifice of the Passover Lamb of God. They preferred imperfect
sacrifices of animals to the once for all perfect sacrifice of the
Lamb of God. The missed the fact that the Tabernacle in which they
served was a symbol always meant to point to the sacrifice of the
Messiah on the Cross.
No right to eat - This
implies that believers in Christ do have a right to eat at this altar.
But the question that arises is how do we "eat" at this altar, the
altar of the Old Rugged Cross on which the Lamb of God was slain? We
“eat" at this altar when we trust in Christ's propitiatory (satisfying
the righteous demand of God for justice), substitutionary sacrifice, a
trust which is evidenced as genuine by our obedience to Him (because
we now have a new power to obey - Ezekiel 36:27). Some also suggest
that the writer may have been making an allusion to Jesus words in Jn
6:53,54.
Phillip Hughes adds
that...
The sacrifices of which those
Aaronic priests partook imperfectly prefigured the all-availing
sacrifice of him who is the Lamb of God and were incapable of
effecting more than a ceremonial and external cleansing; whereas the
one sacrifice of which we partake purifies us inwardly from all sin
(Heb 9:9f, Heb 9:13f, Heb 9:26; Heb 10:1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13,
14; cf. 1Jn 1:7, 9). Their eating was physical; ours is spiritual.
Their eating, further, was partial, and it was limited, because there
could be no eating of their sin offerings, which were incompetent to
convey what they portended since the brutish victims were unfitted to
take the place of sinful mankind, and it was only with the provision
by God of the totally sufficient sin offering of his incarnate Son
that such eating at last became a possibility and a reality. Our
eating, by contrast, is total and unrestricted.
John Brown writes that we...
are permitted to feast on the whole
sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We not only eat his flesh, but we do what
none of the priests durst do with regard to any of the sacrifices, we
drink his blood. We enjoy the full measure of benefit which His
sacrifice was designed to secure. We are allowed to feed freely upon
the highest and holiest of all sacrifices. Our reconciliation with God
is complete, our fellowship with Him intimate and delightful. (See
his discourse entitled "The Christian Altar" Hebrews 13:10)
R Kent Hughes adds that...
We are all ministers. And the
glory of Christianity is that we have an altar - we have an old
rugged cross. And there the Savior, Jesus Christ, serves inexhaustible
helpings of
grace (cp He 13:9-note). Do you want your
heart to be strong? Do you want to
be a strong person who has the resources to love each other (Heb 13:1-note), and take
in strangers (Heb 13:2-note), and care for prisoners
(Heb 13:3-note), and stay married or single and
chaste (Heb 13:4-note), and not love money
(Heb 13:5-note)?
Then stay close to the
altar and eat
and eat and eat again -
the grace of God.
