Without the camp

For the Little Flock, leaving apostate Israel and its religion (the ceremonies and rites they inherited from Moses) and going on unto Christ, means they have to go “outside of the camp.” In other words, they have to literally abandon all of the structure that looks like the nation and go to Christ who is the true vine, the true nation, and be found in Him.

Hebrews 13:10-11 says, ‘We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle.
[11] For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp.’

Jordan says, “Unfortunately this passage, over and over, is misunderstood. People get all teary-eyed and sentimental and the song writers go berserk and the poets have a great time misinterpreting verse 10.

“When he says we have an altar, the writer’s not talking about an altar in a church that you go to. You go down to the mission—I used to work in a mission in Mobile—and they have what they call an ‘altar call.’ I was raised in a church that had a big altar—a communion rail, the thing in the front of the church there that went all the way across--and you came down and you knelt down and they call that an altar. That’s not an altar; that’s a kneeling rail or a prayer rail. An altar is a place you go make a sacrifice.

“The altar here is not a place in a church building. Some people say, ‘Well, the altar is the Lord’s Supper.’ No it’s not. It says ‘we have an altar whereof they have no right to eat.’ Everybody eats at the Lord’s Supper if you’re saved. Everybody’s got a right to come and eat there. This is an altar nobody eats of.

“This is not the Eucharist. It’s not some altar where you ring a bell and God shows up, you know, and the hooch turns to blood and the wafer turns to flesh and all that kind of business.

“It’s not the Cross either, by the way. Sometime people tell you, ‘Well, you know, Israel had an altar on a hill over there and we have an altar. The Cross of Jesus Christ in your Bible is never called an altar. When Jesus Christ died at Calvary He was the sacrifice, and if you want to DO something, He’s the sacrifice on the altar.

“He’s the victim being slain. He’s not the altar. He’s the propitiation, but He’s not the altar. He’s the victim. It’s an entirely different kind of thing. He IS and the Cross represents the sacrifice. He’s the sacrifice being made.

“What you’ve got in verse 10 is talking about ‘we Hebrews.’ By the way, the Book of Hebrews is written to Hebrews. I mean, it isn’t hard to understand who ‘we’ is. ‘We have an altar.’ Well, he’s not talking about Calvary; he’s talking about an altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. This is an altar in the tabernacle. This is a Jewish altar at the tabernacle where the sin offering is made.

“He’s talking to you about the altar in the tabernacle, or in the temple, about the sin offering. Go back in Leviticus 4 and read about the sin offering. When they have the sin offering the priest takes the blood and takes it in to the holy place in here and then the animal’s body is burned without the camp.

“It’s burned so that the whole thing is consecrated unto God. Normally, when they offered a sacrifice, the animal was given to the priest and the priest ate it. That’s how the priest supported himself.

“Listen, if you’re going to teach people to tithe like an Israelite, then you ought to live like a Levite. And the way a Levite lives, folks, is off the offering and the things that were given. And the storehouse that he stored up was a literal storehouse, out back of the tabernacle there in the temple, where they stored the grain and the meal that was brought, and where they took the animals they brought, and where they had a shambles back there where they kept the stuff, and that’s where they got their provisions to eat out of, because that Levite didn’t have an inheritance in the land, and Israel had to tithe to that tabernacle and when you get to thinking about it, the Levite had all the blessings of the land.

“What he’s talking about in verse 10 is the temple, and he said, ‘Look, we got an altar over here that we don’t have any access to and when they make a sin offering, we can’t go over there and partake of it. Even the priest can’t.’

“That’s because the high priest takes that blood in the sanctuary in there on the day of atonement; takes that blood and takes it in to the Holy of Holies and sprinkles it on the ‘mercy seat’ and then they take the other things that go on and so forth, and he says, ‘Look, we don’t even have access to that!’

“But that body of that animal that’s burnt in that sin offering is burned ‘without the camp.’ He’s taken out there outside the camp and is burned. Now that’s the illustration.

“We Hebrews have in the Levitical system, on the day of atonement, an altar in the tabernacle. That’s what he’s talking about. He’s talking about, ‘Here’s the meat and the drink. Here’s the physical thing. here’s the old system.’

“What did Jesus do? He came and fulfilled the type. The type was that the thing was burned ‘without the camp.’ The sin offering is put ‘without the camp’ so when Jesus Christ comes and He dies, He dies without the camp.

“By the way, that helps you know what the camp is. John 19:17: ‘And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha.’ When Jesus dies on the Cross, He’s outside the camp, it says.

“Where’s He crucified? He’s crucified OUT SIDE of Jerusalem, the headquarters for the nation, the place where the temple was located, where the religion that God had put in the earth had its headquarters. He’s crucified on the outside of the thing. He’s crucified ‘without the camp.’

“So where’s the reality? The reality isn’t up there at the tabernacle and the types and the tabernacle tell you where to go find the reality. They tell you that the reality is going to be outside the camp, so what’d Jesus Christ do? When Jesus Christ’s crucified He goes OUTSIDE the camp and that’s where He dies; that’s where he suffers.

“Now the application, the exhortation: ‘Let us go forth therefore unto Him.’ That’s the issue. Where’s Christ? Is He over there in the Levitical system or is He out? He’s outside.

“So what should the Hebrews do? Hey, folks, their place was with Christ! Their place wasn’t in Judaism; their place wasn’t in the Jews’ religion. Their place was with Him. ‘Let’s leave the old system and let’s go unto him, he’ saying to them.

“Hebrews 13:13 says, ‘Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach.’

“That takes you back to Hebrews 11 and all of the things we saw there about walking by faith in spite of all the obstacles put in your way. The reproach psalm is Psalm 69. You ought to spend some time reading that.

“He at Calvary took your place, and all of the shame, and all of the reproach, and all the humiliation, and all of the anger, and all of the outcast that ought to be poured on YOU, He took. Wonderful, you know that. It’s a blessing.”