Chapter 13
13:1 The first instruction is decree that establishes and upholds a communal state. It declares that “brotherly love” is and must be the basis and condition for life in the congregation as the household of God. That is already the case, for Jesus has established them as a priestly brotherhood. Fraternal love will “remain” and must “remain” so, no matter what may happen. It is in fact one of the things that “remain” when the present order of things is shaken up by God (12:27); it is part and parcel of the “kingdom that cannot be shaken” (12:28), the city of God that “remains” forever (13:14). Here the term “brotherly love”, which was used to describe the intense regard for biological kinship within a family and a clan in the ancient world, is reapplied to relationships in the congregation. All those who confess Jesus as God’s Son are blood brothers. Since he took on their blood and flesh, he calls them his “brothers”. They are his “holy brothers” (3:1), “saints” who are partners with him as God’s anointed Priest—and that corporately as an eternal priestly fraternity! That is their common status as citizens of heaven.
13:2 The second instruction is a reminder not to “forget” to offer hospitality, “the love of strangers”. As is shown by the wordplay, this Greek term involving “love” is closely related to “brotherly love” (13:1). Since this is nothing new for the congregation, they are reminded to continue to be a hospitable community. Hospitality to strangers was prized in the ancient world because foreigners were especially vulnerable to exploitation since they had no legal status or protection in any alien community. But if a family offered hospitality to them, they became honorary members of that household for as long as they stayed there; they came under the sacrosanct protection of that family and its gods. The instruction for the congregation to practice hospitality covers two main groups: fellow Christians who were escaping persecution and itinerant missionaries and evangelists. It most likely included other visitors as well.
The congregation is to offer hospitality to strangers is that they could thereby unwittingly be “receiving angels as guests”. That claim recalls two incidents from Genesis 18–19, Abraham’s welcome to three men at Mamre, two of whom were angels and the other the Lord, and Lot’s welcome of the two angels before the destruction of Sodom. Both Abraham and Lot were initially unaware of the identity of their guests, and both were blessed by their encounter. In the case of Lot, the guests he protected then protected him and his family by their presence with them. Yet what was once a rare occurrence in the OT is now likely to be far more common because the congregation joins with the angels in its performance of the Divine Service in the heavenly city of Jerusalem. Since the congregation belongs to the heavenly realm, the holy angels are its companions, ministering spirits who assist them as heirs of salvation. That happens even if they are mostly unaware of the presence of the angels with them. The angels are as much a part of the congregation as its visible members. The angels offer spiritual protection and blessing to those who offer food, shelter, and legal protection to otherwise unprotected strangers.
13:3 The congregation is “remember” to care for two needy groups: its imprisoned and maltreated members. This gives us a little glimpse of its situation as a persecuted community. On the one hand, the congregation is urged to “remember those in prison” by making provision for them from their communal offerings. This was a matter of necessity because in the ancient world prisoners depended on their kinsfolk or on the charity of their fellow citizens for their food and clothing, since their jailers did not usually provide those things. On the other hand, they are also urged to stand by those who are mistreated by the public confiscation of their property and other kinds of victimization by supporting them materially, even if they themselves would come under attack as well by their association with these mistreated Christians. The reason for their solidarity with these victims of injustice was their own bodily interdependence with one another within the congregation as a physical “body” of people (13:3). Thus persecution, which was meant to isolate individual members from the community and destroy it, would instead serve to consolidate the congregation as a body of people.
13:4 The fourth instruction comes in two parts. It deals with two aspects of marriage as a vital part of life within a holy, heavenly community. This focus on marriage rather than on sexual behavior is unique in the NT. The positive instruction that marriage is honorable and is to be kept so is meant to counter any disparagement of marriage as an institution, something that was all too common in the ancient world and remains so today. In itself marriage is to “be held in honor by all” because the institution of marriage as an exclusive lifelong union between a man and a woman is God’s precious, priceless gift to humanity, to men and women created in his image. That applies to all people, not just those who are married, because God has given it in the order of creation for the benefit of every person. When God created Adam and Eve for conjugal life together with each other, he also established marriage as his good gift to them and their descendants, an institution that is essential for the good order and preservation of any society. It becomes holy within the Christian community, where Christ sanctifies those baptized believers joined together with one another and him (2:11). So Christian marriage is doubly precious, both as a good gift from God and as a holy estate.
The instruction with a double negative, that “the marriage bed” is and is to be kept “undefiled” is meant to counter the all-too-common view in the ancient world and in the world today that in itself sexual intercourse is something unclean, something that defiles a couple and so disqualifies them from God’s approval. That, however, is not what is taught in the Scriptures. They teach that within marriage sexual intercourse is in itself neither holy nor unclean, but ritually clean, like ordinary food and drink. But the conjugal bed of a wife and her husband, the place for their sexual intercourse, becomes unclean if either party has sexual intercourse with any unmarried person or with another married person. Thus fornication and adultery, respectively, dishonor a marriage and defile the marriage bed. These are such grave offenses because they do not just disrupt the peace of the family as a unit within the congregation; they also desecrate the holiness of the community. Since these offenses desecrate God’s holiness, they incur his wrath, for he is a consuming fire for anything unclean that comes into his presence (12:29). God deals with the defilement of the congregation’s holiness by judging “fornicators and adulterers” (13:4). They have no place in his presence unless they are cleansed from their sin. But that’s not the main point of the instruction here. Its point is that marriage is to be highly prized and that the marriage bed is to be kept pure and undefiled as a holy state within the holy congregation.
13:5 The fifth instruction covers the attitude of the congregation toward money. The focus here is not on their misuse of money and possessions but on their “way of life” as God’s people. Unlike their pagan compatriots, they have been given a new kind of life, a life free from “the love of money,” a life in which they can be content with their possessions as sufficient for them and their needs. They no longer belong to a consumer society with its commercial values and its fearful insecurity, because they are a community that is based on “brotherly love” (13:1) and dependence on God for their livelihood. To be sure they still need money and possessions, but they do not need to be driven by “the love of money,” because they have a far more reliable source of security. They have God’s presence with them and his promises to them. Just as the Israelites had the promise from Moses that God would go with them to provide for them on their journey through the desert to the promised land (Deut 31:6, 8), so the congregation has God’s emphatic promise that he would “never ever let [them] down” by failing to care for them, nor would he “ever abandon” them, so that they would have to fend for themselves in a hostile environment. Powerful people have been able to confiscate their possessions and deprive them of their livelihood (10:32–34), but they cannot take that away from them. They have true security in an insecure society.
13:6 So, in response to what God has promised to them as his people, they can say what the psalmist says in Ps 118:6. There the speaker is Israel’s victorious king, who has been vindicated by God in his reliance on him for deliverance from defeat in battle. In this psalm the king calls on all God’s people to join him in this thankful confession of faith. Here that circle is extended by the teacher to include himself and the congregation in the same bold confession of faith which they now make together with Jesus, their victorious King. The confession comes in three parts: a confession of faith in the Lord as their “helper,” their powerful ally who has given them the victory; a declaration of fearlessness in the face of opposition; and a triumphant boast in the form of a defiant rhetorical question (“what can any human being do to me?”) that expects an emphatic “nothing” as its answer. In this final OT quotation in the book of Hebrews, the words of Jesus to God the Father (2:12; 10:5–7) and about himself and his disciples (2:13; 8:8–12) culminate in a word which he speaks together with the congregation and all God’s people to the world at large, a word which displays their bold “freedom of speech” before God and the world. They confess him by saying exactly what he says.
13:7–8 The sixth instruction is for the congregation to emulate their past “leaders,” the former pastors of the congregation. This follows from the previous verse, because their former leaders exemplify that confession of faith (13:6). It comes in two parts. The congregation is instructed to “remember” their former leaders because they spoke “the Word of God” to them. That was how they led the congregation. They did not establish the congregation as a holy brotherhood by themselves apart from God; it was not founded on what they said but on what God said. They were his spokesmen. They were the local link in the chain of speaking that came from God through the prophets and Jesus to the apostles, from the apostles to their leaders, and from their leaders to the congregation (see 2:3). The congregation therefore remembers them best by remembering the Word of God that they taught and enacted. The church is also instructed to “imitate their faith by reviewing the outcome of their conduct” (13:7). They are to imitate their leaders by believing what they believed as well as by believing as they did. That kind of imitation does not come just from considering what they believed and taught; it comes from viewing their life as a whole, how they lived the life of faith and how they died as men of faith, for they embodied what they proclaimed and modeled it for the congregation. So just as the congregation reviewed the saints of old who lived by faith (chapter 11) and was encouraged to look up to Jesus, the author and finisher of their faith (12:2), so it is told to contemplate the lives of their leaders as examples of faith. These leaders may have now left this world, but what they believed still remains, because “Jesus Christ is the Same One—yesterday and today and forever” (13:8). The congregation imitates them by having the same faith in the same Jesus as the Christ, God’s anointed King and High Priest. Leaders may change, but Jesus Christ remains “the Same One” “today” for the present generation as he was “yesterday” for previous generations87 and will be “forever” in all future generations and for all eternity (1:12). That was what their previous leaders taught and believed. That is what the congregation is to retain as their confession of faith.
13:9 The seventh instruction warns the congregation against being “carried away by diverse and strange teachings.” The greatest threat to the peace of the congregation as a liturgical community is the propagation of unprofitable teachings that destabilize the congregation by shifting it away from its reliance on Jesus Christ, who is always the same across all generations (13:8). Just as he remains the same, so the teaching of him remains the same. While these constant things were taught and modeled by its former pastors, the new teachings are described as “diverse” and “strange.” They are “diverse” because they appeal to the bored imagination by their colorful novelty, showy variety, and superficial glitter, and “strange” because they are alien to the tradition of the congregation and unauthorized by Christ and those whom he had appointed to teach God’s Word. So the congregation is warned not to be carried off its course and away from Christ by these flamboyant propositions. The exact contents of these “strange teachings” is left unexplained, probably because they were matters of common knowledge and possibly due to the author’s pastoral tact.
13:10 The explanation of how God establishes “the heart” “by grace” begins with a congregational confession of faith. With it comes a complex argument by ritual analogy that assumes familiarity with the regular public services in the OT. The focus in this verse is on only one function of the altar for burnt offering in the tabernacle. It provided most holy food for the priests who served at it in the daily service. Since that altar was most holy, it sanctified the foodstuff that was offered to God on it (Ex 29:37). While the meat and the bread from the daily peace offerings and grain offerings of the Israelites provided holy food for them and their families to eat as well as for the priests and their families, the meat from their sin offerings and guilt offerings and the bread from the daily public grain offering was the most holy food from God for the priests on duty, the food that sanctified them. Only those priests who served at the altar had the right to eat that most holy sanctifying food from the Lord’s table. The altar belonged to the priests, and the priests to the altar. That was their priestly inheritance! Yet even though they ate the meat from the sin offerings of the people, they had no right to eat the meat from their own sin offerings. That was burnt outside the camp (Lev 6:30 [MT 6:23]).
Like those priests, the congregation possesses “an Altar” (Heb 13:10), since they serve as co-priests with Christ in the heavenly tent. It is not the same altar that was located in the tabernacle and the temple, but a different altar, an altar that the congregation has as part of its eschatological inheritance from God. That inheritance is not a legal right but a privilege, a gift of grace from God. Well, what is that altar, and how does it function for the congregation? That is, without doubt, the most controversial question in the interpretation of Hebrews, an issue on which there is little or no agreement, because any consensus is hampered not just by the lack of decisive data in Hebrews but also by the theological and historical presuppositions of its interpreters.
13:11 The fact that the priests were debarred from eating the meat from the sin offerings for themselves and the people on the Day of Atonement set a ritual precedent for the new covenant. The precedent was the regulation for the priests who “serve at the tent” (Heb 13:10), the term in Hebrews for the tabernacle and the temple in Jerusalem. On the Day of Atonement the high priest made atonement for the whole tent and its altar. He “brought” the “blood” from the “sin offering” into the Holy of Holies, so that he could use it to purify “the holy places” (Heb 13:11), the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place, and to sanctify the altar for burnt offering (Lev 16:11–19). But on that day neither the high priest nor his fellow priests were allowed to eat the meat from the sin offering for the people, as was their usual right, let alone eat any meat from their own sin offering, which they were never allowed to eat. Instead, “the bodies of those animals” were taken “outside the camp” and “burnt up” there. So, just as the priests of the old covenant had no right to eat the meat from those sin offerings, they too have no right to eat any part of the sin offering in the new covenant, that is, to eat from Christ’s Altar. That right belongs to those who are “outside the camp,” those who are outside the earthly city of Jerusalem. This marks the most striking innovation in the new covenant, for if all the people who belong to it have the right to eat the food from Christ’s offering for sin, they must be priests who are ritually clean and have no need for any further sacrifice for atonement.
13:12 Now comes the main part of this argument by ritual precedent, an argument that compares and contrasts the offerings of animals on the Day of Atonement with Christ’s death as his self-offering. Both are sin offerings that involve blood brought into a holy place. Yet they differ in three significant respects: the identity of the high priest who offers the sacrifice, the location for the death of the victim, and the beneficiaries who are sanctified by the blood. First, Jesus is the High Priest who does not serve in the order of Levi at the temple in Jerusalem. As the eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek, he serves in a different tent, the true tent that has been set up by God himself, and unlike the high priests, he had no need to offer any sacrifice for himself, because he himself was without sin.
Second, he “suffered” by being put to death “outside the gate” of the holy city (13:12). In the old covenant the animals that were to be offered on the altar were ritually slaughtered within the precincts of the sanctuary. They died in that holy place to keep it holy. But Jesus was put to death “outside the gate” of the temple and of the holy city. Both the temple and the city of Jerusalem are holy places, the temple as God’s holy house, his earthly residence, and the city as a holy camp, the home for God’s holy priests and people. The area “outside the gate” of the camp, beyond the gate of the city, is common ground. It belongs to those who are outside the congregation of Israel. That includes those who are not the people of God, the Gentiles. Thus Jesus died for them and for all.
Third, while the blood from the sin offerings that were offered by the high priest on the Day of Atonement purified the sanctuary, the priests, and the people, it sanctified nothing except the altar for burnt offering (Lev 16:19). In contrast with that, Jesus died as a victim “outside the gate” for “the people” who were “outside the gate” (Heb 13:12). They are the beneficiaries of his sin offering. What’s more, as High Priest he now ministers before God in order “to sanctify” them with “his own blood”; he consecrates them to serve as co-priests together with him outside the gate, outside the temple and the city of Jerusalem. That’s where the body of Jesus, which was not destroyed by fire, is given to them to eat in his Holy Meal. That’s where they now serve the living God as they celebrate the Lord’s Supper. His sanctification of them as his co-priests fulfills the prophecies in Is 4:3 and Is 62:12 that all those who took refuge in heavenly Zion would be holy.
13:13 The conclusion of the argument is given by an appeal that builds on the two previous exhortations in 12:28. The teacher invites the congregation to join him and all the saints as they “go out” to Jesus “outside the camp.” This location is the Divine Service. It is not the temple in the earthly city of Jerusalem but in a place “outside” the former “camp.” It is the place where Jesus sanctifies them with his blood, the place of assembly where his blood gives them access to the heavenly realm. It is not just the place where he was put to death to bring purity and holiness to the whole world. It’s the place where he now serves as their High Priest, the place where he sanctifies them as priests, the place where they now serve together with him. His presence and his blood make them and that place holy.
13:14 In the face of the temptation to play it safe by assimilation with their pagan environment, they are reminded that they have gone out to join Jesus outside the city of Jerusalem because they are citizens of the heavenly “city”, the place where he reigns as King at God’s right hand. They may not yet reside there securely, but, like the patriarchs, they “seek” to settle down in that city rather than in any other place “here” on earth. Paradoxically, they are pilgrims on earth who seek the heavenly city and yet already now visit it regularly in the Divine Service. The congregation is, as it were, an earthly colony of that great heavenly city. Unlike the city of Rome, which foolishly claimed to be eternal, and unlike the earthly city of Jerusalem, which some mistakenly claimed would one day become an eternal city here on earth, this city which is “to come” is eternal. It is a “city that remains.”
13:15 Now the writer encourages the congregation to join together in serving the living God in four ways, the first being a “sacrifice of praise.” As Jeremiah had foreseen, all the Old Testament sacrifices for atonement would be replaced by a service of thanksgiving in the age to come (Jer 33:10–11). So we now have a Holy Meal, a Eucharist, in which the sanctifying body and blood of Jesus are received with thanksgiving. The celebration of that meal is marked by thanksgiving and praise, thanksgiving to God for what he gives his people as a gracious gift in it and praise which tells what God has accomplished for them through his Son (1 Cor 11:26). Second, the sacrifice of praise is offered up to God “through” Jesus. Third, the sacrifice of praise is offered to God “regularly.” This may be understood in two ways. On the one hand, the congregation offers it “regularly” whenever it gathers together to participate in the Divine Service. On the other hand, it is also a song that never ends because it is offered “continually” by Jesus together with the angels in the heavenly assembly. Fourth, the sacrifice of praise is “the fruit of lips that confess the name” of Jesus, God’s Son. It is the fruit of that confession in three complementary ways—its product, its content, and the Meal from it. Knowing and confessing who Christ is produces praise. As the product of that confession it is also its content, for the sacrifice of praise recounts what the congregation believes about Jesus and why. The Lord’s Supper is also the fruit from it, the Meal that they are privileged to enjoy because they confess that Jesus is God’s Son, their great High Priest.;
13:16 Their sacrifice of praise is closely connected with the “common offering” that is presented to God in the Divine Service, an offering that consists of foodstuff and money, the offering from which bread and wine were most likely taken for consecration in the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood. So the exhortation to offer up the sacrifice of praise leads immediately to the eighth instruction to the congregation: they should not “forget” that offering. The OT gives us the background to this charitable aspect of the sacrifices that God had ordained for his people in the promised land. The meals from the peace offerings, with their meat and bread and wine, were to be shared not just with the members of the family but also with those who had no firstfruits or firstborn animals or tithes to offer: servants, the Levites, resident foreigners, orphans, and widows (Deut 12:11–12, 17–19; 14:22–27; 16:9–11, 13–14). As well as that, the Israelites were to give the whole tithe to them as alms every third year (Deut 14:28–29; 26:12–13). This was also the practice in the early church. A common offering was collected in the Divine Service to support their leaders, the needy members of the congregation, and others in want. Yet unlike the practice at the temple, that contribution was not offered individually but by the whole congregation as its common offering to God. It was sanctified by its presentation to God. That made it a holy offering.
13:17 The ninth instruction encourages the members of the congregation to “heed” their present “leaders” and to “defer” to them. This recalls the previous instruction in 13:7 for them to “remember” their former “leaders.” Their leaders are the congregation’s pastors, those who speak God’s Word to them when they gather for worship. So the call to heed them is a call to heed God’s Word as it is spoken to them. By trusting in their pastors they trust God’s Word. They “defer” to them by going along with what they say and do in accord with God’s Word, as well as by accepting them and their authority as the leaders of the congregation.
13:18-19 The last instruction is a request for congregational prayer. By speaking of “us”, the teacher does not just make this request for himself but for other pastors too. The congregation is told to pray for the teacher and his associates because they “have a good conscience” and desire to “conduct” themselves “well in everything”. Their conscience has been cleansed by the blood of Jesus. That qualifies them to “come near” to God, to approach him in prayer, since they may in all confidence expect good things from God as his holy people. What’s more, since they “have a good conscience,” they are also “desiring” to conduct themselves “well in everything” in accordance with God’s will. Their good conduct flows from their good conscience. That request for prayer concludes the chain of instructions in this chapter. It is the last, very specific instruction on “brotherly love” (13:1) in the Christian community, a love that extends beyond the congregation to Christians elsewhere.
13:20-21 The key to the interpretation of 13:20–21 is to understand how the benediction and the doxology function in their liturgical context as speech acts, verbal enactments that are meant to accomplish something. Thus the benediction is not, as is commonly claimed, a prayer wish, but a performative utterance. It actually conveys God’s blessing to the congregation as it is spoken in his name. It does what it says; it gives what it proclaims. It equips the congregation “with every good thing” that it needs to “do” God’s “will” (See Numbers 6:22-27).
God is the source and giver of peace. He “brought back” Jesus from the realm of “the dead” to exalt him as “Lord” and to make peace between himself and the world through Him. He is also the Lord of God’s flock, the people of God. Since he has been raised from the dead, he is now “the great Shepherd of the sheep”, the King who gathers God’s flock, takes care of it, and brings it back to life with God, just as God had promised to do in Ezek 34:20–24; 37:24–27. Yet he is a Shepherd with a difference. In the ancient world and in the OT, the image of a shepherd was commonly used as a royal title. It was a term with imperial connotations. So “the great Shepherd” could be understood as a royal title for the supreme emperor, the great King over all kings. But our King does not rule by shedding the blood of His enemies, but by shedding His own blood.
By the performance of the benediction, God “equip[s]” the congregation “with every good thing” that they need from him in order to “do his will”. The verb “equip” evokes the picture of the congregation as a human body that needs to be fitted out in the right way for it to work properly. God therefore gives his people his heavenly gifts to work with him on earth, for that is their vocation. They do God’s will by working with him as his holy people.
13:22 After that benediction the teacher adds two personal notes. In the first one he makes an “appeal” in which he once again addresses the congregation as “brothers”, “holy brothers” in God’s family, members of God’s household. He asks that they “bear with” him by heeding his brief “word of encouragement”. That refers to two things. First, it describes the whole letter as his message of encouragement to them in the Divine Service. That is, indeed, an apt description of its nature and purpose. Throughout the whole sermon, the teacher delivers a word of encouragement to the congregation, the encouragement that was prophesied by Isaiah, the encouragement that comes from the revelation of God’s glory in Jesus. This teaching of encouragement ends with an act of encouragement. The teacher encourages his hearers by blessing them.
13:23 The second personal note is to tell them that since Timothy has been released from prison, he may also accompany the teacher on his projected visit to the congregation. While the visit does not depend on Timothy’s arrival from wherever he has been imprisoned, they will both come together to see the congregation if he turns up soon enough for them to travel together. The description of him as “our brother” indicates that both the author and Timothy were pastors in the congregation
13:24–25 The letter ends with the exchange of greetings. This assumes that the letter would be read out aloud to the whole congregation as a sermon in the Divine Service. The greetings are from the author to the congregation. This exchange also presupposes that any preacher would normally end his sermon by greeting the congregation and asking them to share that greeting with one another. These are therefore not just conventional greetings at the conclusion of a letter, greetings that serve a social purpose, but they are liturgical greetings that function liturgically in the congregation that is assembled for the Divine Service. The liturgical nature of the greetings is shown by the designation of the congregational members as “saints”, people with holy status who can approach God together with the angels because they have been sanctified, and by the bestowal of “grace” in the closing greeting.
13:1 The first instruction is decree that establishes and upholds a communal state. It declares that “brotherly love” is and must be the basis and condition for life in the congregation as the household of God. That is already the case, for Jesus has established them as a priestly brotherhood. Fraternal love will “remain” and must “remain” so, no matter what may happen. It is in fact one of the things that “remain” when the present order of things is shaken up by God (12:27); it is part and parcel of the “kingdom that cannot be shaken” (12:28), the city of God that “remains” forever (13:14). Here the term “brotherly love”, which was used to describe the intense regard for biological kinship within a family and a clan in the ancient world, is reapplied to relationships in the congregation. All those who confess Jesus as God’s Son are blood brothers. Since he took on their blood and flesh, he calls them his “brothers”. They are his “holy brothers” (3:1), “saints” who are partners with him as God’s anointed Priest—and that corporately as an eternal priestly fraternity! That is their common status as citizens of heaven.
13:2 The second instruction is a reminder not to “forget” to offer hospitality, “the love of strangers”. As is shown by the wordplay, this Greek term involving “love” is closely related to “brotherly love” (13:1). Since this is nothing new for the congregation, they are reminded to continue to be a hospitable community. Hospitality to strangers was prized in the ancient world because foreigners were especially vulnerable to exploitation since they had no legal status or protection in any alien community. But if a family offered hospitality to them, they became honorary members of that household for as long as they stayed there; they came under the sacrosanct protection of that family and its gods. The instruction for the congregation to practice hospitality covers two main groups: fellow Christians who were escaping persecution and itinerant missionaries and evangelists. It most likely included other visitors as well.
The congregation is to offer hospitality to strangers is that they could thereby unwittingly be “receiving angels as guests”. That claim recalls two incidents from Genesis 18–19, Abraham’s welcome to three men at Mamre, two of whom were angels and the other the Lord, and Lot’s welcome of the two angels before the destruction of Sodom. Both Abraham and Lot were initially unaware of the identity of their guests, and both were blessed by their encounter. In the case of Lot, the guests he protected then protected him and his family by their presence with them. Yet what was once a rare occurrence in the OT is now likely to be far more common because the congregation joins with the angels in its performance of the Divine Service in the heavenly city of Jerusalem. Since the congregation belongs to the heavenly realm, the holy angels are its companions, ministering spirits who assist them as heirs of salvation. That happens even if they are mostly unaware of the presence of the angels with them. The angels are as much a part of the congregation as its visible members. The angels offer spiritual protection and blessing to those who offer food, shelter, and legal protection to otherwise unprotected strangers.
13:3 The congregation is “remember” to care for two needy groups: its imprisoned and maltreated members. This gives us a little glimpse of its situation as a persecuted community. On the one hand, the congregation is urged to “remember those in prison” by making provision for them from their communal offerings. This was a matter of necessity because in the ancient world prisoners depended on their kinsfolk or on the charity of their fellow citizens for their food and clothing, since their jailers did not usually provide those things. On the other hand, they are also urged to stand by those who are mistreated by the public confiscation of their property and other kinds of victimization by supporting them materially, even if they themselves would come under attack as well by their association with these mistreated Christians. The reason for their solidarity with these victims of injustice was their own bodily interdependence with one another within the congregation as a physical “body” of people (13:3). Thus persecution, which was meant to isolate individual members from the community and destroy it, would instead serve to consolidate the congregation as a body of people.
13:4 The fourth instruction comes in two parts. It deals with two aspects of marriage as a vital part of life within a holy, heavenly community. This focus on marriage rather than on sexual behavior is unique in the NT. The positive instruction that marriage is honorable and is to be kept so is meant to counter any disparagement of marriage as an institution, something that was all too common in the ancient world and remains so today. In itself marriage is to “be held in honor by all” because the institution of marriage as an exclusive lifelong union between a man and a woman is God’s precious, priceless gift to humanity, to men and women created in his image. That applies to all people, not just those who are married, because God has given it in the order of creation for the benefit of every person. When God created Adam and Eve for conjugal life together with each other, he also established marriage as his good gift to them and their descendants, an institution that is essential for the good order and preservation of any society. It becomes holy within the Christian community, where Christ sanctifies those baptized believers joined together with one another and him (2:11). So Christian marriage is doubly precious, both as a good gift from God and as a holy estate.
The instruction with a double negative, that “the marriage bed” is and is to be kept “undefiled” is meant to counter the all-too-common view in the ancient world and in the world today that in itself sexual intercourse is something unclean, something that defiles a couple and so disqualifies them from God’s approval. That, however, is not what is taught in the Scriptures. They teach that within marriage sexual intercourse is in itself neither holy nor unclean, but ritually clean, like ordinary food and drink. But the conjugal bed of a wife and her husband, the place for their sexual intercourse, becomes unclean if either party has sexual intercourse with any unmarried person or with another married person. Thus fornication and adultery, respectively, dishonor a marriage and defile the marriage bed. These are such grave offenses because they do not just disrupt the peace of the family as a unit within the congregation; they also desecrate the holiness of the community. Since these offenses desecrate God’s holiness, they incur his wrath, for he is a consuming fire for anything unclean that comes into his presence (12:29). God deals with the defilement of the congregation’s holiness by judging “fornicators and adulterers” (13:4). They have no place in his presence unless they are cleansed from their sin. But that’s not the main point of the instruction here. Its point is that marriage is to be highly prized and that the marriage bed is to be kept pure and undefiled as a holy state within the holy congregation.
13:5 The fifth instruction covers the attitude of the congregation toward money. The focus here is not on their misuse of money and possessions but on their “way of life” as God’s people. Unlike their pagan compatriots, they have been given a new kind of life, a life free from “the love of money,” a life in which they can be content with their possessions as sufficient for them and their needs. They no longer belong to a consumer society with its commercial values and its fearful insecurity, because they are a community that is based on “brotherly love” (13:1) and dependence on God for their livelihood. To be sure they still need money and possessions, but they do not need to be driven by “the love of money,” because they have a far more reliable source of security. They have God’s presence with them and his promises to them. Just as the Israelites had the promise from Moses that God would go with them to provide for them on their journey through the desert to the promised land (Deut 31:6, 8), so the congregation has God’s emphatic promise that he would “never ever let [them] down” by failing to care for them, nor would he “ever abandon” them, so that they would have to fend for themselves in a hostile environment. Powerful people have been able to confiscate their possessions and deprive them of their livelihood (10:32–34), but they cannot take that away from them. They have true security in an insecure society.
13:6 So, in response to what God has promised to them as his people, they can say what the psalmist says in Ps 118:6. There the speaker is Israel’s victorious king, who has been vindicated by God in his reliance on him for deliverance from defeat in battle. In this psalm the king calls on all God’s people to join him in this thankful confession of faith. Here that circle is extended by the teacher to include himself and the congregation in the same bold confession of faith which they now make together with Jesus, their victorious King. The confession comes in three parts: a confession of faith in the Lord as their “helper,” their powerful ally who has given them the victory; a declaration of fearlessness in the face of opposition; and a triumphant boast in the form of a defiant rhetorical question (“what can any human being do to me?”) that expects an emphatic “nothing” as its answer. In this final OT quotation in the book of Hebrews, the words of Jesus to God the Father (2:12; 10:5–7) and about himself and his disciples (2:13; 8:8–12) culminate in a word which he speaks together with the congregation and all God’s people to the world at large, a word which displays their bold “freedom of speech” before God and the world. They confess him by saying exactly what he says.
13:7–8 The sixth instruction is for the congregation to emulate their past “leaders,” the former pastors of the congregation. This follows from the previous verse, because their former leaders exemplify that confession of faith (13:6). It comes in two parts. The congregation is instructed to “remember” their former leaders because they spoke “the Word of God” to them. That was how they led the congregation. They did not establish the congregation as a holy brotherhood by themselves apart from God; it was not founded on what they said but on what God said. They were his spokesmen. They were the local link in the chain of speaking that came from God through the prophets and Jesus to the apostles, from the apostles to their leaders, and from their leaders to the congregation (see 2:3). The congregation therefore remembers them best by remembering the Word of God that they taught and enacted. The church is also instructed to “imitate their faith by reviewing the outcome of their conduct” (13:7). They are to imitate their leaders by believing what they believed as well as by believing as they did. That kind of imitation does not come just from considering what they believed and taught; it comes from viewing their life as a whole, how they lived the life of faith and how they died as men of faith, for they embodied what they proclaimed and modeled it for the congregation. So just as the congregation reviewed the saints of old who lived by faith (chapter 11) and was encouraged to look up to Jesus, the author and finisher of their faith (12:2), so it is told to contemplate the lives of their leaders as examples of faith. These leaders may have now left this world, but what they believed still remains, because “Jesus Christ is the Same One—yesterday and today and forever” (13:8). The congregation imitates them by having the same faith in the same Jesus as the Christ, God’s anointed King and High Priest. Leaders may change, but Jesus Christ remains “the Same One” “today” for the present generation as he was “yesterday” for previous generations87 and will be “forever” in all future generations and for all eternity (1:12). That was what their previous leaders taught and believed. That is what the congregation is to retain as their confession of faith.
13:9 The seventh instruction warns the congregation against being “carried away by diverse and strange teachings.” The greatest threat to the peace of the congregation as a liturgical community is the propagation of unprofitable teachings that destabilize the congregation by shifting it away from its reliance on Jesus Christ, who is always the same across all generations (13:8). Just as he remains the same, so the teaching of him remains the same. While these constant things were taught and modeled by its former pastors, the new teachings are described as “diverse” and “strange.” They are “diverse” because they appeal to the bored imagination by their colorful novelty, showy variety, and superficial glitter, and “strange” because they are alien to the tradition of the congregation and unauthorized by Christ and those whom he had appointed to teach God’s Word. So the congregation is warned not to be carried off its course and away from Christ by these flamboyant propositions. The exact contents of these “strange teachings” is left unexplained, probably because they were matters of common knowledge and possibly due to the author’s pastoral tact.
13:10 The explanation of how God establishes “the heart” “by grace” begins with a congregational confession of faith. With it comes a complex argument by ritual analogy that assumes familiarity with the regular public services in the OT. The focus in this verse is on only one function of the altar for burnt offering in the tabernacle. It provided most holy food for the priests who served at it in the daily service. Since that altar was most holy, it sanctified the foodstuff that was offered to God on it (Ex 29:37). While the meat and the bread from the daily peace offerings and grain offerings of the Israelites provided holy food for them and their families to eat as well as for the priests and their families, the meat from their sin offerings and guilt offerings and the bread from the daily public grain offering was the most holy food from God for the priests on duty, the food that sanctified them. Only those priests who served at the altar had the right to eat that most holy sanctifying food from the Lord’s table. The altar belonged to the priests, and the priests to the altar. That was their priestly inheritance! Yet even though they ate the meat from the sin offerings of the people, they had no right to eat the meat from their own sin offerings. That was burnt outside the camp (Lev 6:30 [MT 6:23]).
Like those priests, the congregation possesses “an Altar” (Heb 13:10), since they serve as co-priests with Christ in the heavenly tent. It is not the same altar that was located in the tabernacle and the temple, but a different altar, an altar that the congregation has as part of its eschatological inheritance from God. That inheritance is not a legal right but a privilege, a gift of grace from God. Well, what is that altar, and how does it function for the congregation? That is, without doubt, the most controversial question in the interpretation of Hebrews, an issue on which there is little or no agreement, because any consensus is hampered not just by the lack of decisive data in Hebrews but also by the theological and historical presuppositions of its interpreters.
13:11 The fact that the priests were debarred from eating the meat from the sin offerings for themselves and the people on the Day of Atonement set a ritual precedent for the new covenant. The precedent was the regulation for the priests who “serve at the tent” (Heb 13:10), the term in Hebrews for the tabernacle and the temple in Jerusalem. On the Day of Atonement the high priest made atonement for the whole tent and its altar. He “brought” the “blood” from the “sin offering” into the Holy of Holies, so that he could use it to purify “the holy places” (Heb 13:11), the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place, and to sanctify the altar for burnt offering (Lev 16:11–19). But on that day neither the high priest nor his fellow priests were allowed to eat the meat from the sin offering for the people, as was their usual right, let alone eat any meat from their own sin offering, which they were never allowed to eat. Instead, “the bodies of those animals” were taken “outside the camp” and “burnt up” there. So, just as the priests of the old covenant had no right to eat the meat from those sin offerings, they too have no right to eat any part of the sin offering in the new covenant, that is, to eat from Christ’s Altar. That right belongs to those who are “outside the camp,” those who are outside the earthly city of Jerusalem. This marks the most striking innovation in the new covenant, for if all the people who belong to it have the right to eat the food from Christ’s offering for sin, they must be priests who are ritually clean and have no need for any further sacrifice for atonement.
13:12 Now comes the main part of this argument by ritual precedent, an argument that compares and contrasts the offerings of animals on the Day of Atonement with Christ’s death as his self-offering. Both are sin offerings that involve blood brought into a holy place. Yet they differ in three significant respects: the identity of the high priest who offers the sacrifice, the location for the death of the victim, and the beneficiaries who are sanctified by the blood. First, Jesus is the High Priest who does not serve in the order of Levi at the temple in Jerusalem. As the eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek, he serves in a different tent, the true tent that has been set up by God himself, and unlike the high priests, he had no need to offer any sacrifice for himself, because he himself was without sin.
Second, he “suffered” by being put to death “outside the gate” of the holy city (13:12). In the old covenant the animals that were to be offered on the altar were ritually slaughtered within the precincts of the sanctuary. They died in that holy place to keep it holy. But Jesus was put to death “outside the gate” of the temple and of the holy city. Both the temple and the city of Jerusalem are holy places, the temple as God’s holy house, his earthly residence, and the city as a holy camp, the home for God’s holy priests and people. The area “outside the gate” of the camp, beyond the gate of the city, is common ground. It belongs to those who are outside the congregation of Israel. That includes those who are not the people of God, the Gentiles. Thus Jesus died for them and for all.
Third, while the blood from the sin offerings that were offered by the high priest on the Day of Atonement purified the sanctuary, the priests, and the people, it sanctified nothing except the altar for burnt offering (Lev 16:19). In contrast with that, Jesus died as a victim “outside the gate” for “the people” who were “outside the gate” (Heb 13:12). They are the beneficiaries of his sin offering. What’s more, as High Priest he now ministers before God in order “to sanctify” them with “his own blood”; he consecrates them to serve as co-priests together with him outside the gate, outside the temple and the city of Jerusalem. That’s where the body of Jesus, which was not destroyed by fire, is given to them to eat in his Holy Meal. That’s where they now serve the living God as they celebrate the Lord’s Supper. His sanctification of them as his co-priests fulfills the prophecies in Is 4:3 and Is 62:12 that all those who took refuge in heavenly Zion would be holy.
13:13 The conclusion of the argument is given by an appeal that builds on the two previous exhortations in 12:28. The teacher invites the congregation to join him and all the saints as they “go out” to Jesus “outside the camp.” This location is the Divine Service. It is not the temple in the earthly city of Jerusalem but in a place “outside” the former “camp.” It is the place where Jesus sanctifies them with his blood, the place of assembly where his blood gives them access to the heavenly realm. It is not just the place where he was put to death to bring purity and holiness to the whole world. It’s the place where he now serves as their High Priest, the place where he sanctifies them as priests, the place where they now serve together with him. His presence and his blood make them and that place holy.
13:14 In the face of the temptation to play it safe by assimilation with their pagan environment, they are reminded that they have gone out to join Jesus outside the city of Jerusalem because they are citizens of the heavenly “city”, the place where he reigns as King at God’s right hand. They may not yet reside there securely, but, like the patriarchs, they “seek” to settle down in that city rather than in any other place “here” on earth. Paradoxically, they are pilgrims on earth who seek the heavenly city and yet already now visit it regularly in the Divine Service. The congregation is, as it were, an earthly colony of that great heavenly city. Unlike the city of Rome, which foolishly claimed to be eternal, and unlike the earthly city of Jerusalem, which some mistakenly claimed would one day become an eternal city here on earth, this city which is “to come” is eternal. It is a “city that remains.”
13:15 Now the writer encourages the congregation to join together in serving the living God in four ways, the first being a “sacrifice of praise.” As Jeremiah had foreseen, all the Old Testament sacrifices for atonement would be replaced by a service of thanksgiving in the age to come (Jer 33:10–11). So we now have a Holy Meal, a Eucharist, in which the sanctifying body and blood of Jesus are received with thanksgiving. The celebration of that meal is marked by thanksgiving and praise, thanksgiving to God for what he gives his people as a gracious gift in it and praise which tells what God has accomplished for them through his Son (1 Cor 11:26). Second, the sacrifice of praise is offered up to God “through” Jesus. Third, the sacrifice of praise is offered to God “regularly.” This may be understood in two ways. On the one hand, the congregation offers it “regularly” whenever it gathers together to participate in the Divine Service. On the other hand, it is also a song that never ends because it is offered “continually” by Jesus together with the angels in the heavenly assembly. Fourth, the sacrifice of praise is “the fruit of lips that confess the name” of Jesus, God’s Son. It is the fruit of that confession in three complementary ways—its product, its content, and the Meal from it. Knowing and confessing who Christ is produces praise. As the product of that confession it is also its content, for the sacrifice of praise recounts what the congregation believes about Jesus and why. The Lord’s Supper is also the fruit from it, the Meal that they are privileged to enjoy because they confess that Jesus is God’s Son, their great High Priest.;
13:16 Their sacrifice of praise is closely connected with the “common offering” that is presented to God in the Divine Service, an offering that consists of foodstuff and money, the offering from which bread and wine were most likely taken for consecration in the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood. So the exhortation to offer up the sacrifice of praise leads immediately to the eighth instruction to the congregation: they should not “forget” that offering. The OT gives us the background to this charitable aspect of the sacrifices that God had ordained for his people in the promised land. The meals from the peace offerings, with their meat and bread and wine, were to be shared not just with the members of the family but also with those who had no firstfruits or firstborn animals or tithes to offer: servants, the Levites, resident foreigners, orphans, and widows (Deut 12:11–12, 17–19; 14:22–27; 16:9–11, 13–14). As well as that, the Israelites were to give the whole tithe to them as alms every third year (Deut 14:28–29; 26:12–13). This was also the practice in the early church. A common offering was collected in the Divine Service to support their leaders, the needy members of the congregation, and others in want. Yet unlike the practice at the temple, that contribution was not offered individually but by the whole congregation as its common offering to God. It was sanctified by its presentation to God. That made it a holy offering.
13:17 The ninth instruction encourages the members of the congregation to “heed” their present “leaders” and to “defer” to them. This recalls the previous instruction in 13:7 for them to “remember” their former “leaders.” Their leaders are the congregation’s pastors, those who speak God’s Word to them when they gather for worship. So the call to heed them is a call to heed God’s Word as it is spoken to them. By trusting in their pastors they trust God’s Word. They “defer” to them by going along with what they say and do in accord with God’s Word, as well as by accepting them and their authority as the leaders of the congregation.
13:18-19 The last instruction is a request for congregational prayer. By speaking of “us”, the teacher does not just make this request for himself but for other pastors too. The congregation is told to pray for the teacher and his associates because they “have a good conscience” and desire to “conduct” themselves “well in everything”. Their conscience has been cleansed by the blood of Jesus. That qualifies them to “come near” to God, to approach him in prayer, since they may in all confidence expect good things from God as his holy people. What’s more, since they “have a good conscience,” they are also “desiring” to conduct themselves “well in everything” in accordance with God’s will. Their good conduct flows from their good conscience. That request for prayer concludes the chain of instructions in this chapter. It is the last, very specific instruction on “brotherly love” (13:1) in the Christian community, a love that extends beyond the congregation to Christians elsewhere.
13:20-21 The key to the interpretation of 13:20–21 is to understand how the benediction and the doxology function in their liturgical context as speech acts, verbal enactments that are meant to accomplish something. Thus the benediction is not, as is commonly claimed, a prayer wish, but a performative utterance. It actually conveys God’s blessing to the congregation as it is spoken in his name. It does what it says; it gives what it proclaims. It equips the congregation “with every good thing” that it needs to “do” God’s “will” (See Numbers 6:22-27).
God is the source and giver of peace. He “brought back” Jesus from the realm of “the dead” to exalt him as “Lord” and to make peace between himself and the world through Him. He is also the Lord of God’s flock, the people of God. Since he has been raised from the dead, he is now “the great Shepherd of the sheep”, the King who gathers God’s flock, takes care of it, and brings it back to life with God, just as God had promised to do in Ezek 34:20–24; 37:24–27. Yet he is a Shepherd with a difference. In the ancient world and in the OT, the image of a shepherd was commonly used as a royal title. It was a term with imperial connotations. So “the great Shepherd” could be understood as a royal title for the supreme emperor, the great King over all kings. But our King does not rule by shedding the blood of His enemies, but by shedding His own blood.
By the performance of the benediction, God “equip[s]” the congregation “with every good thing” that they need from him in order to “do his will”. The verb “equip” evokes the picture of the congregation as a human body that needs to be fitted out in the right way for it to work properly. God therefore gives his people his heavenly gifts to work with him on earth, for that is their vocation. They do God’s will by working with him as his holy people.
13:22 After that benediction the teacher adds two personal notes. In the first one he makes an “appeal” in which he once again addresses the congregation as “brothers”, “holy brothers” in God’s family, members of God’s household. He asks that they “bear with” him by heeding his brief “word of encouragement”. That refers to two things. First, it describes the whole letter as his message of encouragement to them in the Divine Service. That is, indeed, an apt description of its nature and purpose. Throughout the whole sermon, the teacher delivers a word of encouragement to the congregation, the encouragement that was prophesied by Isaiah, the encouragement that comes from the revelation of God’s glory in Jesus. This teaching of encouragement ends with an act of encouragement. The teacher encourages his hearers by blessing them.
13:23 The second personal note is to tell them that since Timothy has been released from prison, he may also accompany the teacher on his projected visit to the congregation. While the visit does not depend on Timothy’s arrival from wherever he has been imprisoned, they will both come together to see the congregation if he turns up soon enough for them to travel together. The description of him as “our brother” indicates that both the author and Timothy were pastors in the congregation
13:24–25 The letter ends with the exchange of greetings. This assumes that the letter would be read out aloud to the whole congregation as a sermon in the Divine Service. The greetings are from the author to the congregation. This exchange also presupposes that any preacher would normally end his sermon by greeting the congregation and asking them to share that greeting with one another. These are therefore not just conventional greetings at the conclusion of a letter, greetings that serve a social purpose, but they are liturgical greetings that function liturgically in the congregation that is assembled for the Divine Service. The liturgical nature of the greetings is shown by the designation of the congregational members as “saints”, people with holy status who can approach God together with the angels because they have been sanctified, and by the bestowal of “grace” in the closing greeting.