atonement; and He is our support. He died as the sin-offering outside the gate, and He lives to be our life by the communication of Himself. By His blood He entered into the archetypal Sanctuary and made a way for us, and He waits to guide us thither. Meanwhile we have become partakers of the Christ (Heb. 3:14), and live with the power of His life which in His own appointed way He brings to us.
Thus the point of the passage is not simply that those who continue Jews, and cling to the worship of the Temple, are excluded from the highest advantages of the Gospel; but that in itself absolutely the Gospel as compared with the Law offers not less but more to believers under that aspect of social worship in which the believer felt his loss most keenly. The Christian enjoys in substance that which the Jew did not enjoy even in shadow. If the Christian was now called upon to sacrifice all the consolations of the old ritual, he had what was far beyond them. It does not however appear that the writer of the Epistle implies that Jews by birth who still observed the Law could not enjoy the privileges of Christianity.
Briefly the argument is this: We Christians have an altar, from which we draw the material for our feast. In respect of this, our privilege is greater than that of priest or high-priest under the Levitical system. Our great sin- offering, consumed in one sense outside the gate, is given to us as our food. The Christian therefore who can partake of Christ, offered for his sins, is admitted to a privilege unknown under the old Covenant.
The phrase th'/ skhnh'/ latreuvein is remarkable: comp. Heb. 8:5 uJpodeivgmati kai; skia'/ latreuvousin . The Tabernacle itselfthe outward formis represented as the object of service. Christians also serve the Antitype of the Tabernacle, but that is Christ Himself. The use of latreuvein (the divine service) as contrasted with leitourgei'n (the official service) is to be noticed. Contrast Clem. 1 ad Cor. 32 (quoted above).
Heb. 13:11.
w|n ga;r eijsfevr.
] The proof of the reality of this surpassing privilege of Christians lies in the familiar ordinances in regard to the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement: Lev. 16:27. Of these victims only was the blood brought into the Holy of Holies. In two other cases the blood was brought into the Holy place; and here also the bodies were consumed outside: Lev. 4:11 f. (the sin-offering for a priest);
id.
vs. 21 (the sin-offering for the congregation).
zwv/wn
] Vulg.
animalium.
The use of this word is apparently unique. Elsewhere the victims are spoken of by their special namesbulls and goats,and I am not aware of any place in the Greek Scriptures in which a victim is spoken of by the general term
zw'/on
. In the N. T. the word is used of irrational animals (
a[loga zw'/a
: 2 Pet. 2:12; Jude 10), and of the four living creatures of the apocalyptic vision (Apoc. 4:6 ff.; comp. Ezek. 1:5 ff. LXX.). Perhaps the word is chosen here to mark the contrast between the sacrifices which were of nature only and the sacrifice of Jesus, who was truly man and yet more than man.
peri; aJmartiva"
] See Additional Note on Heb. 1:3.
eij" ta; a{gia
] The phrase may describe the Holy of Holies (Heb. 9:8 note), so that the reference is to the ceremonial of the Day of Atonement only; or it may include the Holy place, and take account of the victims whose blood was brought there.
The use of the preposition diav through ( per pontificem Vulg., sacerdotem d), where we might have expected uJpov by, is of interest. The