As the writer of Hebrews is concluding his letter to the Hebrew Christians, he made this statement to them: “We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle” (Hebrews 13:10). The writer has made a very informative and compelling contrast between the Law of Moses and the gospel of Christ in this letter, showing in every comparison between the two covenants that Christ “is better.” It is this statement of chapter 13 which shows the contrast between the altar of Christ and the altar of the tabernacle upon which was shed the blood of animals and the other, the blood of God’s own Son. Among the differences was this most important one: the altar of the tabernacle offered no permanent forgiveness; the blood of Christ offers eternal forgiveness of the sins that blood removes.
The “altar” of which Paul wrote is not that which many identify it to be: the supper Jesus asked His disciples to keep in His memory (Luke 22:14-20). That supper is a memorial, something gratefully and humbly observed in remembrance of our Savior’s great love and sacrifice for man. We are urged not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together and on each week’s first day that memorial supper is observed (Hebrews 10:25; Acts 20:7). The supper is identified by various terms. It is called, “the supper of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:20); “the table of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 10:21); “communion” (1 Corinthians 10:16); and, “breaking bread” (Acts 20:7). While that observance of that supper is a soul-searching experience, it is not the altar of Hebrews 13:10.
The altar was the offering of the blood of the living thing slain. In Revelation 6:9 when Jesus opened the seven seals which “sealed the book in the Father’s hand,” the fifth seal revealed the “souls of those who were under the altar.” They were martyrs to the Lord Jesus Christ, accepting death rather to deny Him who had died for them, and whose blood gave them forgiveness and the promise of eternal life. The blood of the tabernacle was that of bulls and goats which could not take away sin (Hebrews 10:4).
On the other hand, the blood of Jesus can remove sins permanently and does for those who serve Him unreservedly. Appropriating to ourselves the blood of Christ is first secured when the penitent sinner is buried with Christ in baptism, which means being baptized into His death or His blood (Romans 6:3-4). When man sins after he is joined to Christ in baptism, he secures remission of his sins from the same source — Christ’s blood, but which is applied to his sins when he, through prayer, penitently asks his Father for forgiveness. When His disciples asked their teacher to “teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples,” Jesus gave them the “model prayer” in which they were taught “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Matthew 6:9-12). Disciples today follow the same avenue when we fall into sin.
Those who served the tabernacle “had no right” to partake of the altar of Christ. Those who see Christ’s sacrifice with which He purchased His church as just an appendage of the law, err (Acts 20:28). Those who serve the tabernacle relied on blood which could not take away sin rather than trusting in the blood of Christ which can remove all sin. The concept that Jews today are the chosen people of God is false. God’s chosen people today are those who trust and obey His Son. Christians, not Jews, are the Israel of God (Galatians 6:15-16).
Jews, like Gentiles, are loved by God, and for them, as for us, Christ died. Gentiles had to renounce their allegiance to other gods, and Jews have to embrace Jesus as their “altar” and reject any other sacrifice, including that of the tabernacle. Paul put it this way: “For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us therefore go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach” (Hebrews 13:11-13). Then Paul spoke prophetically saying, “For we have not here an abiding city, but we seek after the city which is to come” (Hebrews 13:14). It is generally believed that this letter was written about A.D. 63 and Jerusalem was not an “abiding city.” In just seven years the Romans would utterly destroy both the city and the temple. The temple service with its sacrifices have long since ceased from being practiced. The worship of Jesus and the approaching of the Father through “our altar” is offered by millions today.
Jim McDonald