Lesson 17: Therefore, Let Us Draw Near!
Hebrews 10:19-25
Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Because we have a great high priest, we confidently enter God’s heavenly sanctuary through Jesus the Messiah. Therefore, let us (1) draw near to God, (2) hold fast our confession of hope, and (3) stir each other up to love and good works as we meet together more frequently for mutual encouragement.
The preacher has just finished a detailed exposition of Israel’s Day of Atonement where the high priest entered the Holy of Holies every year for his own sins and the sins of the people. He would then exit the Holy of Holies where the waiting congregation celebrated his reappearance and the accomplishment of his ministry. In the same way, our high priest has passed through the heavens and entered God’s most holy place to offer himself for the people. Our high priest remains at the right hand of God to intercede for us, and we wait for his reappearance. As we wait, we live confidently through faith in Jesus the Messiah, and we gather regularly to enter the sanctuary and for mutual encouragement.
Perhaps it is important to remember that our Messianic high priest entered God’s sanctuary to present himself in God’s heavenly assembly as part of the great congregation. The preacher quotes Psalm 40:6-8 in Hebrews 10:5-7, and the Psalm describes how the presentation of the obedient believer happens in “the great congregation” (Hebrew, qahal; Greek ekklesia in Psalm 40:9 and sunagoges in Psalm 40:10). Jesus, in other words, entered the great assembly around the throne of God to present himself as an offering before God for the salvation of the people of God.
The basic structure and message of the text is something like this:
Since we have access to the heavenly sanctuary through our high priest (19-21),
let us draw near to God (22)—enter his presence,
let us hold fast our profession of hope (23)—eschatological promise
let us care for another (24)—mutual encouragement,
not discontinuing meeting together but encouraging each other (25)
Hebrews 10:19-25, in Greek, is one sentence. We have a gift from God, and therefore, we draw near to God, hold fast to our hope, and care for each other. Hebrews 10:25—not abandoning our assembling together—modifies the whole sentence. In other words, entering the sanctuary, drawing near to God in faith, professing our hope, and caring for each other in love is something the preacher envisions as happening in an assembly of believers. The preacher is describing what happens when believers assemble.
The “therefore” reminds us that what the preacher says here is based upon and grounded in the work of Jesus described in his lengthy didactic section in Hebrews 5:1-10 and Hebrews 7:1-10:19. What he is about to say is the fruit of that lengthy argument about the nature and work of the Messianic high priest. As a consequence, we have two wonderful blessings: (1) we have confidence to enter the heavenly sanctuary, and (2) we have a great high priest over the house of God.
We have confidence. Despite the dire struggle to persevere in faith, we claim the promise through faith that we enter the heavenly sanctuary when we gather together. To what does the sanctuary (ton agion, the holies) refer in Hebrews 10:19? Earlier Hebrews 9:1-2 makes a distinction between the agia (holy place) and the agia agion (holy of holies). At the same time, Hebrews 9:24-25 describes the place Jesus entered upon his resurrection as ta agia (the holies). One might suggest that we may enter the holy place (the outer tent) by the blood of Jesus, but we are waiting for the one who has entered the holy of holies (the inner tent) to reappear for the deliverance of the people (as in Hebrews 9:28). Perhaps we, by the Spirit, enter the most holy place even though we are not yet permanently there. Perhaps when we gather, we enter that space as a community, but we leave it to bear witness to the glory of God in the world where we struggle to persevere in faith. Whichever is the case, there is a sense in which we enter God’s heavenly sanctuary when we assemble, and there is a sense in which we are yet waiting for the full experience of that entrance.
We also have a great high priest over the house of God. This is the point of the middle section of the preacher’s sermon (Hebrews 8:1). The house of God refers to Israel, the people of God, as Hebrews 3:1-6 tells us. The high priestly Messiah is “over” God’s house (Hebrews 3:6; 10:21). He has been exalted above the heavens to the right hand of God as both king and priest. Christ reigns over the same house of God in which Moses himself served faithfully. This highlights the continuity between the people of God in Israel and the renewal of Israel under the Messianic reign of our high priest.
Because of these two great blessings (entrance into the sanctuary and a great high priest in God’s heavenly temple), the preacher invites his hearers to participate. We have, he says, and therefore, we participate. The preacher exhorts the congregation to (1) draw near to God in faith, (2) hold fast to the hope they profess, and (3) care for each other in love. The preacher urges them to continue the habit of assembling together for these purposes as the present tense of the subjunctives (“let us”) indicates. The participle “not discontinuing our meeting together” modifies all three of the subjunctives and thus identifies the purposes of assembling—to draw near to God, to profess our hope,and to care for each other.
The first exhortation is, “let us approach (draw near).” Drawing near to God means to enter his sanctuary. It is liturgical language in Hebrews (4:16; 7:25; 10:1, 22; 11:6; 12:18, 22). It describes a believer’s approach to the throne of God in prayer and worship. Consequently, when the gathered people of God draw near to God, they enter the heavenly sanctuary to worship and become a worshipping assembly.
Those who come near have already had their hearts cleansed from an evil conscience by the sprinkled blood of Jesus (which the Levitical order could not accomplish), and they have already had their bodies washed (bathed like the high priest on the Day of Atonement) with pure water. In other words, they enter (draw near) with clean consciences and bodies; they enter as embodied persons sanctified in soul and body. They are baptized people whose consciences have been sanctified by the blood of Jesus. As baptized and cleansed people, we approach in “full assurance of faith” with a “true heart.” In other words, it is through faith that we enter God’s sanctuary. The fullness of the promise is yet to come, but through faith there is an authentic encounter with God when we assemble together.
The second exhortation is, “let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.” We hang on because God is faithful. This is the function of faith—we persevere in our pilgrimage because we believe God’s promises. That promise is the hope of our perfection when we will be fully and finally liberated from our enslavement to death. When we gather we bear witness to this hope, cling to it together, and stand together without wavering upon that hope.
The third exhortation is, “let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.” When we gather, we stir each other up or provoke each other to agape and good works. In other words, the assembly ought to be the place where we generate an energy for ministry, for service through love and good works. We do not assemble only for ourselves but for others whom we might serve. We participate in the assembly of the heavenlies, and we re-enter the world to serve as God’s witnesses.
These exhortations are specifically located in the context of the assembly (literally, “the assembly of themselves”). The actual term used for assembling is significant. The normal word for gathering is synagoge and is used in early Christianity to describe the Christian assembly (cf. James 2:2; Ignatius, Trallians, 3 and Polycarp 4:2). But the term here is episynagoge—the combination of epi (upon, at a place) and synagoge (assembly, synagogue). The use of this term is important (Koester, Hebrews, 446). First, epi denotes a specific location—a gathering in a particular place. If Hebrews is addressed to the Roman church, this church certainly met in several different homes in the city (Romans 16:5, 23). These gatherings would not have been very large—perhaps 40 to 60 in a wealthy Roman home. Second, the noun and verb forms of episynagoge are used to describe “the eschatological ingathering of Israel” (cf. 2 Mac 2:7; 2 Thessalonians 2:1; Matthew 27:37; 24:31; Mark 13:27; Luke 13:34). Since the “Day of the Lord” is mentioned and the preacher has already declared that believers participate in the age to come (Hebrews 6:5), he “understood their gathering to anticipate the final ingathering of God’s people. The assembly is the earthly counterpart to the heavenly ‘congregation’ (ekklesia) of God’s people” (Hebrews 12:23; cf. Hebrews 2:12). Third, the term carries the “social connotations” of “continuity with Israel’s heritage.” They are the newly gathered eschatological community that enters the heavenly sanctuary through the blood of Jesus—they are renewed Israel.
This assembly is not specifically any particular day, though many have assumed it is Sunday or the first day the week. The point is not the timing but the reality—it is an eschatological reality. It is “the assembling.” The preacher encourages his people to assemble more frequently, that is, to participate in “the assembly” more often. The preacher expects an intensifying urgency for assembling as “the Day” approaches. Most likely this refers to the eschatological shaking that the preacher will describe in Hebrews 12:26-29, the day when all God’s people will “be made perfect” (Hebrews 11:40).
The problem among his readers was not an occasional missing of an assembly, or even a banal neglect of the assembly, but it is the abandonment of the assembling itself. The problem is the habit or custom of forsaking or rejecting the assembly. He warns his readers to not become people who give up assembling together altogether. In other words, don’t reject this assembly, the eschatological assembly of the people of God. If one rejects this assembly–which is an entrance into the sanctuary of God, there is no other assembly where this is possible. There is no other access to the sanctuary except through Jesus the Messiah whose disciples gather to draw near to God, confess their hope, and stir each up in love.
When we assemble, we participate in the eschatological assembly gathered around the throne of God. We participate through the Spirit, and, in the Spirit, we are actually and authentically present (Hebrews 12:22-24). Yet, we are not yet fully present since we have not yet been fully perfected. We assemble to encourage each other to persevere, and we are encouraged through participation in the eschatological assembly. We assemble in faith (10:22), hope (10:23), and love (10:24), and we wait for the reappearance of our high priest to fully deliver us from death.