Heaven as the True House of God:
Intertextual Soundings in Hebrews
SBL Intertextuality in the New
Testament Consultation (2008)
Ken
Schenck
Introduction
Before I engage the
subject at hand, I might express a slight regret that I did not fully understand
the topic for this session when I made the proposal. The predominant use of the Greek word oi]koj
in Hebrews is in reference to the household of God’s people, which Hebrews
redefines in terms of those who confess Jesus as the Son of God and who endure
to the end (e.g., 3:6). By inference,
the author seems now to include Gentiles in this house without mentioning or
feeling the need to defend such an inclusion, simply calling all members of
Christ’s household the “seed of Abraham” (2:16).[1] Moses was also faithful in his house, the
house of
But we
must instead turn to the use of the word oi]koj in Hebrews 10:19-22:
Therefore, brothers, since we have
boldness to enter the Holies with the blood of Jesus, a new and living way that
he made for us through the veil, that is, his flesh, and [since we have] a
great high priest over the house of God,
let us enter with a true heart in the fullness of faith, having sprinkled our
hearts from an evil conscience and having washed our body with pure water.
Given the
background in Hebrews 3 we mentioned earlier, it seems more than likely that
the author of Hebrews intends a double entendre here in 10:21. Jesus is indeed a great high priest over the household of God, the people of God, the
“seed of Abraham.” At the same time, the
“starting sense” of the statement is surely a reference to the heavenly
sanctuary, to which the author has been referring in the previous chapters.[2]
It is
quite clear that Hebrews does not understand the earthly sanctuary of the
Jewish Scriptures in the same way ancient
The Reconfiguration of the Tent
One of the first
things we notice when we look at Hebrews’ interaction with the houses of God in
the Jewish Scriptures is Hebrews’ complete lack of reference to the
In the
end, we believe that the omission of reference to the temple fits the period
not long after Jerusalem’s destruction, when some believers no doubt had some
reason to reflect on—and perhaps be troubled by—the destruction of the
temple. A theoretical consideration of
the wilderness tabernacle held the potential to deflect concern over recent events
by getting at the fundamental significance of the Levitical system, which for
the author was the fact that Christ’s death was the sacrifice to end all
sacrifices (e.g., 10:14). Certainly we
could offer other explanations of the exclusive focus on the wilderness tent,
and many have.[5] For the moment we only note that Hebrews’
consideration of the wilderness tabernacle carried implications of obsolescence
for any standing temple as well and, thus, a significant reconfiguration of the
significance of those Scriptural texts relating to it.
The
primary way in which Hebrews has reconfigured the significance of the
wilderness tabernacle is to relegate it to the mere role of a “shadowy
illustration” of the reality of atonement that took place with Christ. For the author of Hebrews, none of the
sacrifices under the Levitical system were actually able to take away sins
(10:2-4). The Law only involved a
“shadow” of good things coming (8:1).
None of the examples of faith in the Jewish Scriptures were perfected prior
to Christ’s atonement (11:40). The scope
of this reinterpretation of the Levitical cultus is astounding! If Hebrews were written prior to the temple’s
destruction, such statements would be highly polemical and, indeed, offensive
to most Jews. On the other hand, they
might very well be consoling in the aftermath of 70CE.
So
Hebrews says that the earthly priests served the heavenly holies “by shadowy
illustration” (u9podei/gmati kai\ skia|=; 8:5).
Interpreters have often taken this statement as a reflection of Platonic
or Philonic influence on Hebrews and thus as an indication that the author of
Hebrews saw the earthly sanctuary as a somewhat straightforward copy of a
heavenly prototype (e.g., 8:5). Several
decades ago, however, Lincoln Hurst made the counter claim that “[t]here is no instance in known Greek literature where
u9po/deigma can be demonstrated to mean ‘copy.’”[6] Harold
Attridge thereafter did find some instances where the word means something like
“likeness.”[7] Nevertheless, we find no extant instance in
the entire corpus of ancient Greek literature where the word
u9po/deigma is used of a Platonic copy. The closest parallels rather point toward a
u9po/deigma as an example from Scripture (so also Heb. 4:11; Cf. Philo, Her. 256).
Hebrews
has thus relegated the wilderness tabernacle to the status of an example or
illustration of the true tent of Christ, the heavenly high priest. The earthly sanctuary had no intrinsic
significance other than as a pointer toward the true reality that was to come. Moses was, when properly understood, a
witness of things that were “going to be spoken” (3:5). His significance related more to Christ than
to the things he instituted in his own time.
The Law included a shadow of good things “to come,” but it was not even
an exact image (ei0kw/n) of these things (10:1). Even as an illustration, the Levitical system
was only a shadowy one. The Levitical system and its sanctuary were
not an exact representation of the reality that was Jesus’ atonement.
On the
one hand, the author makes a statement or two that might lead one to conclude
that all the parts of the earthly tabernacle had heavenly significance. Hebrews 8:5 combines Exodus 25:9 and 25:40 to
speak of Moses making “everything
according to the type that was shown you on the mountain.” The bulk of the citation comes from 25:40,
except that the author seems to derive the word pa/nta from 25:9. One might argue, therefore, that everything
in the earthly tabernacle had some correspondent in the heavenly tabernacle. The fact that the author takes the time to
enumerate the elements of the tabernacle in 9:2-5 might support this fact.[8]
However,
a number of careful observations ultimately militate against this line of
interpretation. First, we find no reason
in Hebrews’ argument to think that the heavenly sanctuary has any kind of outer
room as the wilderness tabernacle and Jewish temples did. One is certainly never mentioned. In Hebrews 9, the author strangely speaks of
the two chambers in the earthly tabernacle in terms of two tents rather than two rooms (e.g., 9:2-3, 6-7). The reason becomes apparent when we get to
9:7-8. The author is interpreting the
two “tents” of the earthly tabernacle allegorically in terms of the two ages of
salvation history.[9] The outer room represents “the present time
in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered that are not able to perfect the
worshipper in conscience” (9:9). In
other words, the outer room represents imperfection and the prevention of
access to God: “the way tw=n a9gi/wn” is not apparent while the first tent has
sta/sij” (9:8).[10] The author thus gives us significant reason
to disassociate the outer room of the earthly sanctuary from the heavenly
tabernacle. In the author’s imagery, the
outer room stands as an obstacle to divine access. In keeping with his comments elsewhere about
direct access to God (e.g., 4:16; 10:19), an outer room for the heavenly tent
would stand in conflict with his imagery elsewhere.
A close
examination of the author’s train of thought in this passage pushes us more and
more to the conclusion that he does not likely envisage an outer room to the
heavenly tent. For example, we notice
that while 9:2-8 divide the earthly tabernacle into two tents, the two sparse
references to a heavenly tent are both singular (e.g., 8:2; 9:11). Secondly, while the author refers to the
outer room of the earthly tabernacle as a3gia in 9:2, his other neuter plural
references to ta\ a3gia seem more likely to refer to the inner sanctum. The phrase, “the way of the Holies,” in 9:8
must refer to the inner room given the author’s Day of Atonement imagery. And despite the immense debate over the
meaning of 9:11, almost all agree that the phrase “into the Holies” in 9:12
must refer either literally or metaphorically to the Holy of Holies. Hebrews 9:24 must again refer to the Holy of
Holies when it uses the neuter plural Holies again, which is noticeably in
parallel to heaven itself. Given such
consistent use of the neuter plural a3gia in these ways, particularly in its
articular form, the most likely conclusion is that 8:2 also is thinking of the
heavenly Holy of Holies when it says that Christ is a minister tw=n
a9gi/wn. The full expression here is
that Christ is a “minister of the Holies and of the true tent.” While it is possible that we have a mention
of a part and then a mention of the whole, the phrase reads very neatly if both
are one and the same, the heavenly Holies are in fact the whole of the heavenly
tent.
We have
thus adduced three significant reasons for thinking that whatever the heavenly
tent might be, it does not consist of an outer and inner chamber. These reasons are 1) the fact that the author
reflects some antipathy toward the outer room in 9:8 and allegorizes it in
terms of imperfection and hindrance to God’s presence, 2) the fact that the
author consistently refers to the heavenly tent by the imagery of the inner
sanctum of the earthly tabernacle, and 3) the fact that while he refers to the
earthly tabernacle as plural tents,
he refers to the heavenly tent only twice and both times in the singular. On the whole, we find only two passages from
which one might argue for an outer part of the heavenly tent. The first is 8:5 we mentioned above, where
Moses is told to make everything according
to the type shown him in the mountain, which might imply that the outer room of
the earthly tabernacle corresponded to an element in the heavenly type. The other passage is 9:11-12, where Christ,
“through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands” entered the
Holies. One way to make sense of this
seemingly tautological statement is to see the first part in reference to the
outer tent of the heavenly sacrifice one the way to the inner tent of the
latter part.
Time
does not permit a thorough response to these objections, which I have made
elsewhere.[11] For now I will simply note that the author of
Hebrews did not likely invent the particular combination of the pa/nta of
Exodus 25:9 with Exodus 25:40, since the same form of citation is also found in
Philo.[12] Indeed, the author may have a more extensive
allegorical interpretation of the parts of the tabernacle. It just does not appear in the argument of
Hebrews. 9:11-12 is a chiastic sentence
of some length, and the phrase “through the greater and more perfect tent” is
at far enough remove from the main verb “he entered in” that it is possible
that they do not relate to each other in a crisp progression of thought. As we will see in a moment, the author flows
so easily from one figurative sense of the earthly sanctuary to another, that
we probably should not push too literal a logic on a statement like this
one. In the end, a modal sense to the
first phrase, Christ entered the Holies by
way of the greater and more perfect tent, perhaps best accounts for the
train of thought.
So one
aspect of the author’s shadowy re-appropriation of the Pentateuchal sanctuary
is his relegation of its outer chamber as strictly a symbol of this age. A second reconfiguration is to combine all
the diverse sacrificial operations of the Levitical cultus into one shadowy
correspondent to the one, truly effective sacrifice of Christ. The imagery of Hebrews 9 amalgamates a number
of different sacrifices from the Jewish Scriptures and contrasts them en masse to the one sacrifice of Christ,
thereby implying that Christ has now rendered all the different kinds of
sacrifices found throughout the Pentateuch obsolete. Whether it is the sacrifice on the Day of
Atonement (9:7), or the red heifer (9:13) or hyssop ceremonies for cleanness
(9:19), or Moses’ inaugural cleansing of the wilderness tabernacle (9:19),
Christ’s one sacrifice has not only made any further sacrifice
unnecessary. Christ’s sacrifice is the
only one of these sacrifices that actually has worked in cleansing a consciousness
of sin (cp., 10:1-3; 9:14).
Further,
it seems likely that for the author, the earthly sanctuary itself does not
ultimately even point to a structure in heaven.
If we are looking for a literal correspondent to the heavenly
tabernacle, heaven itself would seem to come closest, as Hebrews 9:24 hints:
“Christ did not enter into handmade Holies, antitypes of the true Holies, but into heaven itself, now to appear before
the face of God on our behalf.” We can
see how this might be the case, not only given that the heavenly sanctuary has
no outer room, but also since both Philo and Josephus attest to the idea of the
cosmos as the truest temple of God.[13] The reconfiguration of the wilderness
tabernacle as a pointer toward the truer temple of the cosmos was thus a
pattern of thought ready at hand for the author to use.
In the
end, however, the author of Hebrews pushes us to see his heavenly tabernacle as
something even more subtle than a metaphor for heaven itself where God’s throne
is located. Hebrews 9:23, for example,
speaks of a need for the heavenly tabernacle to be cleansed with better
sacrifices than those used to cleanse the earthly one. This statement is odd in the least. Since the heavenly tent is not of this
creation (9:11) and is something the Lord pitched rather than mortals (8:2),
how is it that it needs cleansed? The
observation that the author is thinking in parallel to the inauguration of the
earthly sanctuary alleviates some of the tension (9:18-22), but it does not
resolve the issue completely.[14] Indeed, this image seems incredibly damning
to any literal interpretation of the heavenly tabernacle. If the heavenly tabernacle is some literal,
apocalyptic temple, surely the author is at least being metaphorical when he
speaks of its cleansing!
This
passage more than any other pushes us to see the heavenly tabernacle in Hebrews
most fundamentally as a metaphorical construct rather than a literal structure
or place. Even if heaven itself is the
most literal correspondent to what the author had in mind, the heavenly
tabernacle ultimately is not simply some heavenly version of the earthly
tent. The heavenly tabernacle is part of
a broader metaphor of Christ’s high priesthood that is meant to contrast as a whole with the “many and various”
components of the Levitical cultus. What
generates the concept of a heavenly tabernacle in the thought of Hebrews is not
some precedent in Platonism, apocalypticism, or Hellenism, although the author
may draw from one or more of these. What
really drives the heavenly tabernacle concept is the need to have a new
covenant “space” in which Christ can offer his superior sacrifice.
In the
overall metaphor of Christ’s high priesthood, the heavenly tabernacle
represents the space where true atonement takes place in contrast to the
superficial cleansings of the Pentateuchal tabernacle. From a slightly different metaphorical
perspective, Christ’s ascension into heaven is understood to be his entrance
into such a heavenly Holy of Holies. But
these are distinct metaphors built on slightly different precedents, and the
author creatively integrates the two.
For example, the author seems careful not to say that Christ took blood
into the heavenly tabernacle in 9:14.
These two metaphors clash significantly when the author speaks of the
inaugural cleansing of the heavenly tabernacle.
From the perspective of the one metaphor, it makes perfect sense to
speak of inaugurating the heavenly tabernacle with better sacrifices than those
Moses used. But considered from the
perspective of the other metaphor, the idea of heaven itself needing cleansing
seems highly problematic if we push the concept very far at all.
Hebrews
10:20, which we mentioned at the beginning of our study, confirms the author’s
metaphorical penchant with regard to the heavenly tabernacle.[15] In the context of this verse, the author
encourages the audience to approach God’s throne of grace because they have
boldness to enter into the Holy of Holies “with” the blood of Jesus. Then comes the verse in question: this entrance
is something “that [Jesus] has inaugurated for us as a new and living way
through the veil, that is, his flesh.”
The most obvious way to take the grammar of this verse equates Christ’s
flesh with the veil. Not only is
katape/tasma the closest potential antecedent, but sa/rc is in the genitive
case in agreement with it. While it
would be more theologically convenient to see Christ’s flesh as the way rather
than the veil, o9do/j is in the accusative case and thus is not the likely
antecedent.
The
idea of Christ’s flesh as a veil through which brothers may pass into the Holy
of Holies is clearly metaphorical. It
would be inappropriate either to press the imagery too far or to try to use
this particular metaphor as the key to the heavenly tabernacle argument in the
previous chapters. The verse simply
reminds us that the author is swimming around a key concept and that these
metaphors are not ends in themselves.
The author’s ultimate purpose with regard to these images is to bolster
the confidence of the audience in the atonement provided by Christ vis-à-vis
the Levitical cultic system. The images
themselves are somewhat fluid and are ultimately means to an end.
We
find, therefore, that the author has reconfigured the sanctuary houses of God
in several radical ways. He does not
even mention the two temples of the Jewish Scriptures, the Solomonic and the
second temple built by Zerubbabel. The
wilderness tabernacle serves as a surrogate for any such earthly structure,
including the Herodian temple of the author’s day. The significance of that wilderness tent
moreover becomes entirely symbolic. Its
sacrifices are ineffectual and serve only as shadowy illustrations of the reality
that is Christ’s death for sins. Even
the heavenly tent, for which the earthly tent serves as an antitype, is not a
literal structure in heaven for the author.
Its most literal correspondent is the highest heaven itself, where God
is. Yet at times we must push beyond
even heaven itself to see the heavenly sanctuary as a part of an even broader
high priestly metaphor, in which it serves somewhat abstractly as that “space”
in which the death of Jesus on the cross is offered for sins. It is no wonder, then, that the reference to
the “house of God” in Hebrews 10:21 can blur into a double entendre for the
people of God. The entire
re-appropriation of the Pentateuchal house is metaphorical in nature.
Echoes of Destruction
One of the
arguments often made against a post-70 date for Hebrews is the idea that the
author surely would have mentioned the destruction of the temple to reinforce
his argument.[16] Luke Timothy Johnson puts it this way: “one
would think that some reference would naturally be made, not to a covenant
growing obsolescent and a cult being ineffective, but rather to a cult proven
to be broken and a cult demonstrated by God’s action as a thing of the past.”[17] It would go well beyond the scope of this
paper to mount a full argument for such a date.
We will merely mention in response to Johnson that his comment assumes
that the destruction of the temple would be an argument for some further point
that the old covenant is no longer in force.
We would argue the opposite, namely, that the author argues that the
“old covenant” is no longer in force to help the audience cope with the more
fundamental datum, God’s allowance of Jerusalem and its temple to be
destroyed. Mention of the temple’s
destruction would not be an argument the author fails to mention but the
fundamental exigence of the sermon, known to all.
It is possible,
however, that the author does allude to the destruction of
The
author thus uses the story of Abraham’s sojourning in a foreign land as an
allegory for the current existence of the audience in this world. The heavenly city that God has prepared shows
up in Hebrews 12:22-23, where the author now draws on the Sinai story of Exodus
(12:18-21) as an antitype of the new covenant assembly to which the audience
belongs. “You have come to
It is
harder to find clear echoes of
However,
deSilva’s reading is not at all necessary and is in our opinion
anachronistic. Several authors after
70CE did speak of the sacrificial
system in the present tense, which negates our common sense on how the author might
word things after the temple’s destruction.[20] We also recognize in this particular case
that the author was not so much addressing the time of the audience as the fact
that sacrifices never stopped throughout “biblical history” as found in the
Jewish Scriptures. Would the sacrifices
throughout the time of the old covenant not have stopped a long time ago if any
of them had actually taken away sins?
No, God instead prepared a body for Christ (10:5). The setting of the comment is thus the time before Christ far more than the time of
Hebrews’ writing.
If
Hebrews were written not long after the temple’s destruction, a number of
comments and uses of Scripture would likely echo various aspects of this
event. For example, Hebrews 12:4-13
urges the audience to “endure leading to discipline” and quotes Proverbs
3:11-12. If Hebrews were written after
the temple’s destruction, we can imagine that the audience might hear these
words as thinly veiled admonition in light of the disgrace and discouragement
that not only non-Christian but Christian Jews as well must have endured in its
wake. “Although Jesus was a son, he
learned obedience through the things he suffered” (5:8). So ought the audience to endure the Lord’s
discipline as training.[21]
The
potential metaleptic carry over would be even more ominous in the light of the
author’s citation of Deuteronomy 32, the Song of Moses. We already encounter the author’s use of one
Greek version of this text in 1:6, where it may very well carry with it the
overtones of coming judgment and vindication from Deuteronomy 32:43 (LXX). Intriguingly, the author draws on this
passage twice again in Hebrews 10:30 and 31: “‘Vengeance is for me, I will
repay,’ and again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’” The first is from Deuteronomy 32:35; the
second from 32:36. What is interesting
about these citations is that the author applies them to believers who turn
away from the living God (3:12), who “fall away” (6:6), who thus “continue to
sin after receiving a knowledge of the truth” (10:26) and sell their birthright
(12:16). The author thus turns a passage
in Deuteronomy about the vindication of God’s people and the judgment of their
enemies into the potential judgment of failed believers and, just perhaps, a
thinly veiled explanation for the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple (cf.
Matt. 22:7).
We find
a similar series of quotations from the same passage in Hebrews 2:13: “‘I will
put my trust in him’ and ‘Behold I and the children God gave me.’” The first is based in Isaiah 8:17 (LXX) and
the second in 8:18. In Isaiah, the
context leading up to these verses speaks of the disobedience and hardness of
God’s people (8:11-12; LXX). 8:14-17
speaks of the house of Jacob in Jerusalem lying in a trap, many falling, and
God having turned his face from the house of Jacob. It is at this point that we hear the words
Hebrews quotes, now put on the lips of Christ.
If Hebrews were written after the destruction of
Conclusion
In the preceding
minutes we have tried to do two things.
First, we have tried to show how Hebrews has reinterpreted various
Pentateuchal Scriptures relating to the wilderness tabernacle in the light of
its author’s theology. What in the
Jewish Scriptures are literal depictions of literal structures that were
actually thought to effect good relations and reconciliation with YHWH are now
reconfigured as symbolic and allegorical pointers toward a new reality. That reality is of course the definitive
atonement provided by Jesus Christ. The
earthly house of God is now understood as a shadowy illustration of the true
house of God, the heavenly one. This
heavenly tent corresponds most literally to heaven itself, where God’s throne
is and to which Christ ascended through the heavens. But in many respects the author’s
metaphorical appropriation of the wilderness tent uses language that makes it a
somewhat abstract “space” where Christ’s death on the cross truly atones for
sins.
The
final part of our presentation then looked for possible echoes of the destruction
of
[1] I have argued elsewhere that this fact pushes the date at least a little later than Paul and fits better with a predominantly Gentile rather than Jewish audience, especially since Psalm 8 in Hebrews 2 is applied universally (especially Cosmology and Eschatology in Hebrews: The Settings of the Sacrifice [Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2007), *. Of course we would not base these conclusions solely on 2:16.
[2] Interpreters who take the heavenly sanctuary to be the people of God**
[3] Famously, Manson***
[4] Cosmology and Eschatology, ***.
[5] name some***Gelardini, code language, simply theological
[6] The Epistle to the Hebrews: Its Background of Thought (SNTSMS 65; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1990), 13.
[7] The Epistle to the Hebrews
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), 219 n.41: Ezekiel 42:15 (LXX) and
[8] Interestingly, the author locates the altar of incense in the Holy of Holies as opposed to the outer room as in **.
[9]
[10] There is some debate over what it might mean for the first tent to “have standing,” ranging from those who see an allusion to the destruction of the cosmos to those who argue that it is an idiom about the status of this present age.
[11] ***
[12] ***
[13] E.g.,
Philo: Somn. 1.215; Spec. 1.66; Mos. 2.88; QEx.
2.91; Josephus:
[14] Cf. Hurst, Background, 38-40.
[15] William G. Johnsson suggested this verse was a clear indication of the author’s “spiritualizing” intent (“The Cultus of Hebrews in Twentieth-Century Scholarship,” ExpTim 89 [1977-78]: 104-8, esp. 107). I would prefer to say a tendency to take it metaphorically.
[16] I am assuming that the author of Hebrews is male given the masculine, singular participle in 11:32 by which the author self-identifies.
[17] Hebrews: A Commentary (
[18] As
Richard Hays argues in a forthcoming piece originally presented to the 2006
Hebrews and Theology conference at
[19] Perseverance in Gratitude: A
Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Epistle “to the Hebrews” (
[20] E.g.,
Josephus, Ap. 2.77. See also Ap.
2.193-98;
[21] Going with both possible connotations the word paidei/a could have.