As Jesus Did, So Must We

June 16th, 2026
by Lance Waldie

Hebrews 13:10-14 We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. 11 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 outside the camp. 12 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. 13 So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. 14 For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

On Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16), the Jewish high priest would offer to God a sin offering of blood (a bull and a goat) for both himself and Israel for annual atonement for sins committed in ignorance. After the blood from these animals was offered in the Holy of Holies, their carcasses were taken outside the city gate to be burned. This Jewish system of sacrifice was temporary and pointed to a superior sacrifice later fulfilled in Jesus Christ. So when the Hebrews author writes, “We have an altar…” in v. 10, he is speaking to fellow Jews who had such an altar in the Jerusalem tabernacle. Although the priests who served there regularly ate the meat they sacrificed as their God-given provision, they had “no right” to eat it on Yom Kippur, for the bodies of the animals were to be taken “outside the camp” and burned on that special day.

In v. 12, a comparison of Yom Kippur is made with Christ. As the high priest on Yom Kippur made blood atonement for the sins of Israel and then had the carcasses of the dead animals burned outside the gate, Jesus likewise “that He might sanctify the people through His blood, suffered outside the gate.” As the OT priest was to separate himself from the sins of the people on Yom Kippur, not eating the sacrificial meat, so also Christians must remain outside the camp of the worldly system of evil, no longer to take part in its customs, practices, and values. As Jesus, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), suffered outside the city gate to make believers holy, so too are believers to separate themselves from the world.

Of course the old system of animal sacrifices was abolished in Christ, and although it at one time pointed to something greater, the greater arrived: Jesus. His altar of worship speaks of the perfect sacrifice on the cross, done once-for-all, not once-per-year, year after year. Contrary to OT Israel, when Christians sin in thought, word, or deed, they do not take a lamb and seek out a priest; they seek Christ alone, whose blood paid for all their sins—past and future. Although there are similarities in the Yom Kippur sacrifices and Christ’s, they end here, for whereas Christ’s blood was offered to “sanctify the people” (make them holy), the OT animal blood offered in the tabernacle never removed sin and never made anyone holy (10:4). It merely “atoned” for sin, covering it until Jesus came and abolished it completely.

Now Christ, in dying outside the city gates like a common criminal and compared to a dead animal carcass, was “numbered with the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12), in spite of the fact that He was sinless. Being nailed to a tree, or cross, Jesus was cursed (Gal. 3:13), in spite of the fact that He is the Blessed One. Worse, He endured mockery and scorn while on the cross (Matt. 27:38-44), in spite of the fact that He deserved worship and adoration. Believers likewise are to “go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach” (v. 13). Since we are spiritually separate from the pagan world system in which we live, when we “go out” into it, we go to Christ who is also outside the pagan world system. There we suffer the same shame He did for teaching the same things He taught and for acting the same way He acted.

Now should we only expect gloom and doom in our faith? Not at all! For “we are seeking the city which is to come” (v. 14). Here we are temporary residents, spiritual aliens. This world is not our home! Like the men and women of faith in the past, we look to the future—to God’s promises of a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21:1), a kingdom ruled by our King, Jesus.

Food For Thought
We as Christians live in this godless world, but we certainly don’t have to be participants of it. Scripture tells us, “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?” (2 Cor. 6:14-15). We thus have nothing in common with the world system and should be separate from it (2 Tim. 2:4). How sad it is when Christians begin to look and act just like the wicked world around us!