We know how easy it is to remain silent when speaking up might cost us the approval of people we love. Yet Hebrews directs our attention to an unexpected place. Going outside the camp begins with Jesus himself, who suffered outside the city gate to make his people holy through his own blood (Hebrews 13:12). The place where he bore public disgrace became the place where he gave himself for us.

Behind this picture is the Day of Atonement. The blood of the offerings was brought into the sanctuary, while their remains were burned outside the camp (Leviticus 16:27). Hebrews recalls that detail and invites us to “go to him outside the camp” and bear his disgrace (13:13). What had been associated with removal and disgrace now becomes the setting in which God’s redeeming love is most fully disclosed. The words to him matter. Jesus gives himself for us first. We follow him because we belong to him, even when that means surrendering the comfort of fitting in.

Verse 14 explains why we can bear that cost. We have no lasting city here; we seek the one that is to come. Yet Hebrews has already declared that through Jesus we have come to the heavenly Jerusalem (12:22–24). We already belong to God’s coming city, even as we await its fullness. Revelation completes the picture: the New Jerusalem comes down from God, and God makes his home with humanity (Revelation 21:2–3). Our future belonging frees us from making present acceptance the measure of our worth.

The summons is communal: “Let us go to him.” Earlier, Hebrews commended believers who stood alongside those publicly mistreated, even when doing so cost them dearly (10:32–34). Going outside the camp was no mere metaphor. Hebrews also calls us to remember prisoners as though imprisoned with them and places praise to God alongside doing good and sharing what we have (13:3, 15–16).

For the church today, going outside the camp may begin with sitting beside someone our own community has treated unjustly, listening to their story, and refusing to abandon them when others keep their distance. Because our belonging is secured in Christ, we need not preserve our place in the circle at another person’s expense. We can stand with those left outside because Christ himself has met us there.

For Further Reading

• Hebrews 10:32–34 — Standing alongside those who suffer persecution, even at personal cost.
• Hebrews 11:13–16 — Living as strangers and pilgrims while looking toward the city God has prepared.
• Matthew 25:35–40 — Recognizing our responsibility toward the hungry, the stranger, the sick, and the imprisoned.
• Galatians 6:2 — Bearing one another’s burdens as an expression of the law of Christ.
• Revelation 21:1–4 — The New Jerusalem and God’s promise to dwell with his people in a renewed creation.
• deSilva, David A. “Despising Shame: A Cultural-Anthropological Investigation of the Epistle to the Hebrews.” Journal of Biblical Literature 113, no. 3 (1994): 439–461. https://doi.org/10.2307/3266781.

---