What Protestants Get Wrong About the Epistle to the Hebrews

The Epistle to the Hebrews proclaims the superiority of the new to the old, the second to the first. Israel had its luxuriant wilderness sanctuary, its venerable Aaronic priesthood, its complex of sacrifices and offerings, all features of a first covenant. That has now been surpassed by a second, new covenant. Christians no longer worship at an earthly tabernacle, but enter the original heavenly sanctuary. Our great high priest, disqualified from priestly office under the fleshly rules of Torah, holds the office by virtue of resurrection, what the epistle’s author calls “the power of an indestructible life.” The blood of bulls and goats was always impotent; what was needed was the human sacrifice of total obedience, fulfilled in the cross.

It’s not a conservative gospel, but a revolutionary one in which first things change place with last things. At its heart, the epistle announces the supremacy of Jesus, through whom the Father has spoken in the last days, who is himself sacrifice, priest, and sanctuary, the new covenant incarnate.

On some (mostly Protestant, mostly liberal) readings of the letter, the new covenant entirely transcends institutional forms and ritual habits. Once upon a time, Israel offered sacrificial worship at a sanctuary through the ministrations of priests, but Jesus opened the door to a post-religious world sans sacrifice, sans sanctuary, sans priest, sans everything. That’s a misreading. Augustine captures the actual thrust of the letter when he characterizes the transition as one from shadow to reality, symbol to truth. Christian liturgical practice is still sacrificial and priestly, but through Jesus we have access to the real, original, heavenly things. What Israel did in twilight, the church does in the full light of day. The new doesn’t inaugurate an a-liturgical form of life and worship, but radically rearranges liturgy itself.

That point becomes clear at the end of the letter. The author introduces one last contrast—between the first mountain, Sinai, and the second, Zion. Gloomy, storm-capped Sinai is outside the promised land, blazes with fire, cannot be touched on pain of death, and terrorizes all, including Moses. By contrast, “we have come” to the heavenly Zion, a mountain within the promised land at whose peak heaven and earth join as we rejoice together with myriads of angels and the perfected spirits of the righteous (Heb. 12:18–24). The church must offer God worship (latreuo) suitable to our new location, the liturgy of the better mountain.

The final chapter teaches the rubrics of Christian liturgy. Love the brethren. Show hospitality to strangers. Remember the persecuted who are in prison. Avoid sexual sin and keep marriage pure. Renounce the love of money. Cling to sound teaching. Offer the sacrifices of good deeds and sharing, which please God more than the fragrance of altar smoke. Follow Jesus outside the camp to endure the reproach of exclusion. Obey your leaders. Pray. Narrowly liturgical practices are part of the church’s life: We eat sacrifices of which the Aaronic priests had no share and offer a continuous sacrifice of praise. But the “service” described in Hebrews 13 clearly exceeds the Sunday liturgy. The sanctuary is now the community, and the liturgy is the day-to-day practice of ecclesial life. Protestant interpreters wave Hebrews 13: “Behold, the liturgy has been swallowed up by life.”

But Hebrews doesn’t abandon the specifically liturgical. At every point, the rubrics of the everyday liturgy correspond to elements of Sunday worship. Our gathered worship expresses love for our brothers. The Eucharist is the Lord’s, and our, hospitality to strangers. In our prayers, we remember prisoners before the Lord. The church’s worship is the nuptial communion of Christ and his bride, which exhibits an ideal of purity for married couples to emulate. The liturgy frees us from the anxieties of money as it assures us of God’s provision and care. Liturgical instruction inoculates us from strange teaching. At the Lord’s table, we eat from the altar, offer a continuous sacrifice of praise, and model the communal life of sharing and doing good. In the Sunday liturgy, the congregation honors leaders in liturgical response. Common worship, in sum, is a concentrated ritualization of common life.

When Moses ascended Sinai, Yahweh showed him the pattern (tabnit) of the tabernacle, a blueprint or model for the tent pitched at the foot of Sinai. Hebrews provides a tabnit for the second sanctuary. Now, though, the tabnit has come to earth as the liturgy itself. Because the second sanctuary is the people, the liturgical template sketches the life-wide liturgy of the community’s common practices. In the new order of things, Sunday and weekday mirror each other, forming a complex order that is both narrowly and expansively liturgical. The heart of the church is the systole and diastole of gathering and dispersion. Without that double movement, the lifeblood of the body cannot circulate.