Hebrews 13:11-14

¹¹The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. ¹²And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. ¹³Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. ¹⁴For here we do not have an enduring city,  but we are looking for the city that is to come.

Jesus the True Sacrifice

Today, Good Friday, we both mourn the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we celebrate the deep love, and the forgiveness of sins, that the Son of God has brought to us. Our passage today from Hebrews gives us deep insight into the work of Jesus’ death, and our response to him as Christians.

The author in verse 11 is referencing the Day of Atonement and the Jewish sacrificial system. “For the wages of sin is death …” Paul says in Romans 6:23. This is seen in the Jewish sacrificial system, where God allowed animals to die the death the people deserved for their sins. But this system was just a placeholder, a foreshadow, an animal sacrifice could not truly pay for sins, it could not make one truly clean.

And this leads us to verse 12: Jesus is likened to the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement: as the bodies of the sacrificed animals were burned outside the camp, so was Jesus crucified outside the city as a sacrifice. And Jesus himself, the Son of God, was the true sacrifice, the sacrifice that the whole system pointed to. He alone truly, permanently, forgives sins. And through Jesus' own blood, through his death on the cross, it says he makes people holy - he forgives, and makes people clean before him.

All glory be to God! Out of God’s great love, and for his glory, Jesus suffered for us. And in his overwhelming grace, he has offered us something we do not deserve: forgiveness of sins, and eternity with him.

So, what then is our response to this wonderful truth? Verse 13 says, “Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.” Our response is to go to Jesus - to love him with our lives, to give him ourselves, to trust in him completely.

As we do this, we need to remember that Jesus is outside “the camp.” Going to him will require us to leave things behind - to leave behind the camp of the world, the camp we have built up for our own glory, the camp of our own selfish aspirations. In going to him, God will call us to leave behind our old destructive ways - to leave it all behind, to go to him, and to offer ourselves to him.

This isn’t easy. Verse 13 tells us that when we go to him, we will bear the disgrace that he bore. We will be ridiculed. But in verse 14 we remember our hope: “For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” As God tells us in Revelation, he will one day create again the heavens and the earth. Sin will be gone, evil vanquished. And his people, those forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ, will be with him in eternity. This is the “city that is to come.” This is our hope.

I quoted Romans 6:23 earlier, but I didn’t finish the whole verse. It reads, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” All thanks be to God! Jesus has brought us forgiveness - let us go to him. And let us remember our hope, “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23).

Prayer: Jesus, we thank you for your life, death, and resurrection. All glory be to You! Let us come and worship you every day for what you have done - you deserve it. Let us love you with all of ourselves. And give us hope, even when things are hard, for eternity with you. In Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.