HEBREWS 10:19-22

Here is a random New Testament passage to illustrate the range of opinions one might run into in attempted to understand it:

19 Therefore, my brethren, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us approach with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith.

The first question to answer is: Who was the intended audience of the Letter to the Hebrews? Some suggestions found in the literature are:

    1. Christians – Gentiles and Jews (almost all commentators)

    2. Christians in danger of apostasizing

    3. Jewish Christians in danger of apostasizing

    4. Ex-Jewish priests in danger of apostasizing 

    Acts 6:7 states that a great number of Jewish priests became believers, but it is pure guesswork to think that this was the target audience.

    5. All Jews – but mainly unbelievers (Precept Austin)

    This opinion is based on the use of “brethren” and two dubious assumptions: (1) Paul was the author and     (2) he would only address fellow Jews in that way. 

Answer #5 can probably be discarded as an outlier, and #4 is a possibility but by no means a certainty.

Here are some collected comments regarding Hebrews 10:19-22a. What are your thoughts regarding these? My own comments are given in italics.

Verse 19: What does it mean to approach God? 

    1. Heaven: Now access is available to the real “holy of holies,” namely heaven. (Barnes Notes)

    2. Worship: an “exhortation to worship” (Gerald F. Hawthorne, Wheaton College, also Barclay)

    3. Prayer: drawing near to God in prayer. (Forerunner Commentary)

    We have the confidence to approach God in prayer. (Matthew Poole's Commentary)

        a. No priest or minister stands between us and God since we are all priests. (Jamieson-Fausset-                Brown Commentary)

        b. We need to watch out that we are not contaminated by Satan's influence as we approach God in prayer. (The Berean, Church of the Great God – successor to Herbert W. Armstrong's Worldwide Church of God).  

This is a completely unwarranted addition to the idea of the text by someone who apparently has a Satan fixation.

    4. Judgment seat: prophecy of us standing before the Judgment Seat. (Ellen White – founder of the Seventh Day Adventists) 

Considering the source, it is not surprising that the emphasis is on future events rather than the here and now.

Answers 1-3a are all real possibilities representing what the author had in mind.

Verse 20:

    1. “Christ's life in the flesh stood between Him and His entrance before God, and His flesh had to be rent ere he could enter.” (Expositors Greek Testament)

    2. “That is, His flesh” is perhaps a later addition. If so, it might express the Gnostic thought that Jesus had to leave behind his fleshly body in order to be reunited with God. (New International Greek Testament Commentary) 

This commentary rightly points out that explanation #1 above is really a Gnostic thought, but he is perhaps unduly suspicious regarding the accuracy of the present text.

    3. The parenthetical phrase may refer to the “new and living way” or to “the veil.” (F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, p. 247) 

This is a very useful insight by a renowned evangelical scholar showing that we shouldn't go too far afield in our interpretations when the Greek itself is ambiguous.

    4. “Jesus' flesh is what veiled his godhead...It was when the flesh of Christ was rent upon the Cross that men really saw God...the full greatness of his love...” (William Barclay) 

This could possibly be true, but is really an unintended application of the text, which has more to do with our new status before God that it does with how men perceive God.

    5. The curtain (veil) around the Holy of Holies had no openings but was fastened to a frame on all four sides. But on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest was carrying the sacrificial blood with him, which caused the curtain to momentarily dissolve as he supernaturally passed through it. (John Oscar, Assembly of God preacher, Sermon Central) 

This is a prime example of adding to what is actually in the Bible. Another example is the earlier commentators such as Andrew Murray who are generally well respected, but go into great detail trying to show that everything associated with the Day of Atonement ceremony of Leviticus 16 is symbolic of Christ's atoning death: the coals from the altar symbolize God's wrath, the incense being beaten into small pieces typifies Christ's sufferings and sorrows, etc.

Verse 21: Justin Martyr said that therefore all Christians have become high priests. Andrew Murray argues that there is only one High Priest, Christ.

Verse 22a: “We must be at church of Sunday and Wednesday if we hope to grow.” (John Oscar, Assembly of God, Sermon Central) 

This is the second unreliable comment from this source. In this case, Oscar takes a passage showing the freedom we now have due to Christ's actions and turns it into a duty that must be performed by Christians instead – a typical legalistic approach to scripture.

There is a feature in our daily newspaper called Politifact in which researchers investigate the truth behind various statements made by prominent politicians to rank their credibility. That is really what each of us is called to do in weighing opinions and explanations regarding the Bible. Fortunately, we have help in doing this. In I Corinthians 1, Paul lists as one of the gifts of the Spirit, and probably the most neglected one, “discerning the spirits.” And one aspect of that gift is sorting out fact from fiction to determine the intended meaning in Scripture. Ultimately, sound Bible interpretation is not achieved by just following a set of rules but is a gift from God. However, it is a gift that can either be ignored or nurtured so I hope you choose to nurture it.