Going Outside the Camp

Just as the bodies of the animals sacrificed on the Day of Atonement were burned outside the camp (Lev. 16; Heb. 13:11–12), Jesus suffered and died outside the camp—outside the city of Jerusalem, regarded by first-century Jews as the holiest place on earth. The death of Jesus and its correspondence to the Day of Atonement show that He fulfills that old covenant festival, revealing that there is no going back to the old covenant system (see also Heb. 10:18).

That, in turn, is a call to action, as today’s passage indicates. We are to go to Jesus “outside the camp and [to] bear the reproach he endured” (v. 13). Here the author of Hebrews calls us to identify with Christ no matter the cost. Remember that the original audience consisted of Jewish Christians who were being persecuted for their faith in Jesus. They were tempted to abandon Jesus and to go back to the old covenant so that they would be free from suffering and could reestablish all their past ties with family and friends that were severed when they came to believe in Jesus. The Jews who had rejected Christ would have considered the audience of Hebrews unclean for leaving old covenant Judaism behind, much as these same Jews regarded other non-Jews as unclean. Outside the camp, in the old covenant system, was the place of uncleanness, the place of the divine curse (Num. 5:1–4). To go outside the camp was to enter a state of accursedness and uncleanness according to the Jews. Thus, in the eyes of the Jews, Jesus was unclean and cursed, for He died outside the camp and on a tree, an accursed method of death (Deut. 21:22–23). The author of Hebrews is exhorting the original audience not to be afraid that the non-Christian Jews would view them as accursed. They were to go out; that is, they were to embrace Jesus boldly and definitively.

In going outside the camp, the original audience would be leaving everything behind. But they would get something far greater. In fact, they would not be leaving anything behind ultimately, for the Christian’s citizenship belongs not to this world but to the city to come (Heb. 13:14), the eternal city whose designer and maker is God (11:10, 13–16). The author of Hebrews issues a call for believers to go outside the camp and embrace their identity as wanderers who belong to the true kingdom of God. In leaving the old covenant behind, however, believers suffer no lasting loss. Outside the camp, they find the one true God in Christ, as Moses did when He met with God outside the camp of Israel during the wilderness wanderings (Ex. 33:7–11).