Leviticus 4:12

without the camp

Cf. Exodus 29:14; Leviticus 16:27; Numbers 19:3; Hebrews 13:10-13. The last passage is the interpretative one. The "camp" was Judaism-- a religion of forms and ceremonies. "Jesus, also, that He might sanctify separate, or set apart for God] the people with or 'through' His own blood, suffered without the gate" temple gate, city gate, i.e. Judaism civil and religious]; Hebrews 13:12 but how does this sanctify, or set apart, a people? "Let us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp Judaism then, Judaized Christianity now--anything religious which denies Him as our sin-offering] bearing His reproach" Hebrews 13:13. The sin- offering, "burned without the camp," typifies this aspect of the death of Christ. The cross becomes a new altar, in a new place, where, without the smallest merit in themselves, the redeemed gather to offer, as believer-priests, spiritual sacrifices. ; Hebrews 13:15; 1 Peter 2:5. The bodies of the sin-offering beasts were not burned without the camp, as some have fancied, because "saturated with sin," and unfit for a holy camp. Rather, an unholy camp was an unfit place for a holy sin-offering. The dead body of our Lord was not "saturated with sin," though in it our sins had been borne 1 Peter 2:24.