Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions

Today’s devotion comes from Hebrews 13:10-14.

 

“¹⁰ 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.”  Hebrews 13:10-14.

 

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The Law provided its priests with the right to eat some of their specific offerings brought to the altar.  “You shall take the ram of ordination and boil its flesh in a holy place.  Aaron and his sons shall eat the flesh of the ram and the bread that is in the basket, at the doorway of the tent of meeting.  Thus they shall eat those things by which atonement was made at their ordination and consecration;  but a layman shall not eat them, because they are holy.”  Exodus 29:31-33. 

 

“We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat.”  Verse 10.  Grace does not allow those priests of the Law to eat at its altar.  Although the priests of Law may bring an offering to the altar of the Law with right to eat according to the Law, they have not brought an offering to the altar of Grace according to Grace.  Only Christ has brought such a satisfactory offering according to Grace which offering is His blood.  

 

“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.”  Verse 11.  The Law provided for the sin offering:  “But the flesh of the bull and its hide and its refuse, you shall burn with fire outside the camp;  it is a sin offering.”  Exodus 29:14. 

 

We see in today’s Scripture that Jesus, as a sin offering also suffered outside the camp, thus fulfilling this requirement of the Law.  “Therefore Jesus also (as a sin offering of Grace), that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate.”  Verse 12.

 

“So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.”  Verse 13.  That is, let us go outside the camp of the Law with all of its “fleshly” beauty, comfort, prestige, and security to be with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 

 

The people of the Law ridicule and persecute those people of Grace.  “And you brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise.  But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.”  Galatians 4:28-29. 

 

And so, as children of promise, as children who rely on Grace alone, we stay outside the camp of the Law to be with Christ alone, and we bear Christ’s reproach.

 

But, there is hope outside the Law.  “Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.  But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.  For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”  Galatians 3:24-26.  “Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.”  Romans 7:4.   

 

“For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.”   Verse 14.

 

There is the Law, and all of it comforting routine appealing to self-righteousness and admiration of those in the city, the Law.   

 

“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.”  Hebrews 12:23-24.  

 

^“For through the Law I died to the Law, so that I might live to God.  I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me;  and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.  I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”  Galatians 2:19-21.