Outside the Gate


In Hebrews 13:11-14, the Holy Spirit compares and contrasts the blood sacrifices of animals under the Old Law to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that sealed the new testament. In the Law of Moses, after the animals were sacrificed by the priests, their bodies were carried outside the gate of the city and cleanly disposed of by fire (Leviticus 16:27). Therefore Jesus also, showing Himself a sacrifice for sin, hung on a cross outside the gate of the city, at the “place of the skull,” where many animal sacrifices were burned under the old Law.

    After the text of Hebrews 13 explains these facts, it turns to the Christian for application: “Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come.”

    There are several different applications to redeem from this text. First, the text’s primary purpose is to encourage the Jewish converts to Christ that they need to leave (go outside) the old Law and the traditions of their fathers, and come to Christ and His cross. Not going back to the blood of animals under the old Law, but standing now and forever in the blood sacrifice of the Lord.

    Secondly, the text has rich application for most of us today. Like the Jewish converts, we today must leave our old lifestyle back within the city, and go outside the gate, away from the world and all its lusts, and come to Christ, come to His cross. Spend our life within His sacrifice. Spend our life from now on gazing upon our Lord, learning of Him. Taking up our cross by His example and by His lead. Bearing all shame and reproach. Forsaking our own will for the Father’s. We will never learn this way of life if we never go “outside the gate.” The only honorable, proper, and civilized place for a Christian is beside the cross of their Savior, “outside the gate.” Never to return inside the gate, where all the world remains in sin. But to linger next to the savior, learning more and more each day about His love, His sacrifice, and His meekness. If we haven’t already, today let’s all go “outside the gate,” For that’s where Jesus is.

“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ” –Philippians 3:8

-By Tanner Campbell