1. Introduction
The heavenly sanctuary dominates the symbolic landscape of the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is the setting of the Son's exaltation and enthronement (1.5–13; 2.9–13), as well as his sacrificial self-offering (1.3; 4.14; 6.19–20; 7.26; 8.1–2; 9.11–14, 23–28; 10.12–14, 19–21; 12.2–3, 24). It also occupies a prominent place in the author's hortatory agenda, as his assertions of the addressed community's ability to access God in the heavenly sanctuary (2.10–13; 6.18–20; 7.25) are on two occasions met with exhortations to confidently enter that heavenly locale (4.14–16; 10.19–23). And in one remarkable text, 12.22–24, the community's presence in the heavenly sanctuary is presented as a fait accompli.
As might be expected, the author of Hebrews populates his heavenly ‘symbolic landscape’ with a number of components common to ancient Jewish accounts of the heavenly throne room, including the throne of God (1.3; 4.16; 8.1; 10.12; 12.2), the temple veil (6.18–20; 9.8–12; 10.19–22), the glory of God (1.3; 2.7–10), and participation in angelic worship (12.22–24).Footnote 1 These features, however, are often portrayed in ancient Jewish texts, and particularly in mystical visionary literature, as presenting nearly insurmountable barriers to the presence of a holy and sometimes fearsome God. The divine throne is awesome and majestic, the temple veil stands as a formidable physical barrier, God's glory is overwhelming in its radiant power, and the presence of ontologically and sacrally superior angels is an intimidating reminder of human inadequacy.
This present discussion focuses upon the unexpected and novel manner in which Hebrews transforms these common conceptions, and instead depicts them as encouraging, facilitating, and even ensuring access to a welcoming God. Quite tellingly, they figure prominently in passages promoting the author's hortatory goal: the community's entry into the heavenly sanctuary (2.9–13; 4.14–16; 6.18–20; 10.19–23; 12.22–24). And while some scholars have recognized the strategic importance of these themes of access and entry within the author's overarching hortatory program, a dedicated treatment has yet to be offered, and perhaps as a result the vast majority of Hebrews studies either fail to accord them an appropriate degree of attention or ignore them altogether.Footnote 2 A recent and sizeable collection of essays, The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology, is fairly representative, as the themes of access and entry are mentioned briefly in only eight of the volume's twenty-five essays, and never once are they integrated into a significant discussion of Hebrews' hortatory purpose.Footnote 3 From this recent case of neglect we can infer that these two themes are still not sufficiently appreciated. Therefore this analysis of Hebrews' deliberate reshaping of the aforementioned ancient Jewish mystical motifs in relation to his ‘theology of access’ and entry exhortations attempts to extend understanding of the extraordinary nature and function of these themes of access and entry within his hortatory effort and hopefully forestall any such future oversights.Footnote 4
2. The Throne of God
The throne of God is mentioned explicitly in Heb 1.8; 4.16; 8.1; 12.2 and is implied in 1.3, 13; 10.12. It is in almost every instance associated with Jesus' exaltation and enthronement: he has ‘sat down at the right hand’ of the ‘throne of God’ (1.3, 13; 8.1; 10.12; 12.2).Footnote 5 The most influential throne-visions in the Hebrew Bible are undoubtedly Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1.Footnote 6 Particularly relevant to our discussion are their characterizations of God and his heavenly throne room, as well as the psychological and emotional responses of the visionaries. Though Ezekiel's vision of the throne, which was ‘something like a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was something that seemed like a human form’, concludes with the observation that he fell on his face (1.26, 28; see also 10.1), Isaiah's vision of Yhwh in his throne room evokes an even more awe-struck response from the visionary. Yhwh is described as ‘seated on a throne, lofty and exalted’, surrounded by six-winged angelic beings, and inhabiting a smoke-filled temple that quakes at his voice (Isa 6.1–4). This vision causes Isaiah to exclaim, ‘Woe is me, for I am silenced!’Footnote 7 He immediately locates the source of his anxiety and inability to express himself in his cultic impurity: ‘For I am a human with unclean lips’ (6.5).
These two throne-visions constitute a sort of fons et origo of a substantial tradition, wherein a vision of the formidable and frightful presence (and near presence) of the enthroned God elicits a response of terror from the visionary (Dan 7.9–28; 2 En. 20–22; 39; 4 Ezra 8.21; Ezek. Trag. 68–82; 4Q405 20–23; 11Q17 7).Footnote 8 Perhaps the most significant, and certainly the most developed of these throne-vision accounts is found in 1 En. 14.13–14, 18. The visionary Enoch recounts what he saw ‘in a vision in my dream’, after the ‘winds in my vision made me fly up and lifted me upward and brought me to heaven’ (14.8). Enoch first entered a ‘great house’ that was ‘hot as fire and cold as snow, and devoid of the pleasure of life’ (14.10, 13). He reports that ‘fear enveloped me and trembling seized me’ (14.13).Footnote 9 After falling upon his face he saw a ‘vision’ of a ‘second house…built with tongues of fire’ (14.14–15). Inside this second house Enoch saw the ‘lofty throne’ of the ‘Great Glory’ (14.18). This throne's ‘appearance was like ice and its wheels were like the shining sun … and from beneath the throne issued streams of flaming fire’ (14.18–19). However, this dazzlingly radiant throne incapacitated Enoch's sight (14.19; cf. 14.16, 21).Footnote 10 In fact, Enoch admits, through the whole experience ‘I was on my face, prostrate, and trembling’ (14.24). After being commanded to ‘draw near’, he was ‘lifted up’, by either God or ‘one of the holy ones’, and carried to the door of the divine throne room (14.25). Since this door represented a boundary for angels, we can assume that it also marked Enoch's final destination (14.21–22).Footnote 11 Though this throne-vision is remarkable for its purported achievement, it ultimately projects an image of an enthroned God ‘who is totally transcendent, overpowering in his glory’, and ‘unapproachable to humans and most angels’.Footnote 12
These visionary portrayals of the divine throne, and the responses of visceral terror it evokes, stand in stark contrast to Hebrews' depiction of the divine seat as a ‘throne of grace’ (τῷ θρόνῳ τῆς χάριτος, 4.16), and the bold and confident approach to that throne which constitutes the heart of the author's hortatory effort. That Jesus, the sympathetic elder brother of the community (see esp. 2.11–18) is seated on the heavenly throne (1.3, 8, 13; 8.1; 10.12; 12.2), would further increase the likelihood that the community obeyed the author's exhortation to ‘approach’ that throne ‘with boldness’ (προσερχώμεθα … μετὰ παρρησίας, 4.16).Footnote 13 And in contrast to Isaiah's awareness of his inability to vocalize a fit response in the presence of the enthroned deity, Hebrews' commendation of ‘boldness’ involves not only a confident approach but also a commensurately open manner of speech before the heavenly throne.Footnote 14 In response to their forthright and fearless requests, the community will ‘find’ God compassionately granting them ‘grace’ and ‘mercy’ in ‘their time of need’ (4.16).
3. The Temple Veil
The second motif, the temple veil, is also portrayed by Hebrews in a manner that significantly departs from Jewish traditions, wherein the veil constitutes an almost impenetrable barrier to the divine presence. The two veils in the wilderness tabernacle, especially the one separating ‘the holy place’ from ‘the holy of holies’, constitute the primary source for this imagery (Exod 26.33; 40.3), and mortal danger attends the earliest texts and traditions of this innermost veil. Following the deaths of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, who breached this barrier, offered an illicit offering, and were killed when fire came ‘from the presence of Yhwh and consumed them’ (Lev 10.1–3), Yhwh commanded Moses to warn Aaron ‘not to come just at any time into the sanctuary inside the veil … or he will die’ (16.2; see also 16.7; Exod 30.10; Num 1.51; 18.7).
The two veils are prominently featured in the account of the Yom Kippur ritual in m. Yoma 5.1. With great care, the author explains that the curtains were hung so their openings were not directly opposite one another, ensuring the holy of holies remained concealed to all except the high priest. An element of fear is apparent: the text reports that upon exiting the holy of holies, the high priest ‘offered a short prayer, not prolonging it lest he put Israel in terror’. Perhaps as a result of the Nadab and Abihu incident, or because they suspected God would not accept their atonement offering, the people feared God would communicate his displeasure with Israel by killing the high priest on Yom Kippur. The high priest himself apparently shared this belief, as he celebrated his ‘safe passage’ through the holy of holies by ‘making a feast for his friends’ (7.4).
An indication of the veil's importance to the ancient Jewish religious imagination is evident in two Second Temple authors, Philo of Alexandria and Sirach. On at least two occasions Philo allegorically interprets the veil: in Gig. 53 it represents an inner, psychological impediment that must be passed through in order to ‘come to God’, while in QE 2.94 it denotes the metaphysical/cosmological boundary that divides the material and noetic realms. The author of Sirach, in his praise of Simon the High Priest, refers to the temple almost metonymically, as ‘the house of the curtain’ (50.5).Footnote 15
Later texts and traditions exhibit an increasing sense of the sanctity and dangers associated with the holy of holies. In b. Yoma 77a, only the ‘Prince of the Divine Presence’ is authorized to pass within the curtain. And in the fifth–sixth century text, 3 Enoch (17.3; 45.1), the veil ‘shields the angels from the destructive glare of the divine glory’, and it also ‘symbolizes the ultimate inscrutability of God’.Footnote 16
In Heb 9.6–10, the author recounts the high priest's yearly entry ‘through the second veil’ (δεύτερον καταπέτασμα), into the holy of holies, during the Day of Atonement, and adversely juxtaposes this tentative and limited access with Jesus' triumphant and conclusive entry into the heavenly holy of holies (9.11–14). Most significantly, as a consequence of Jesus' entry and occupation of the heavenly holy place, in 6.18–20 the community (‘those who have taken refuge’) is ‘strongly encouraged (ἰσχυρὰν παράκλησιν) to seize the hope set before us’, which is ‘a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul’, and which ‘enters the inner shrine behind the veil (καταπέτασμα), where Jesus, the forerunner on our behalf, has entered’.Footnote 17 The imagery of this passage is complicated, fusing together metaphors drawn from three distinct conceptual domains: (1) 6.18: the city of refuge, to which those who have unintentionally killed someone may ‘flee’ (Num 35), and ‘seize’ the horns of the altar (1 Kings 1.50; 2.28); (2) 6.19: nautical imagery of a ‘sure and steadfast anchor’; (3) 6.19–20: cultic imagery of the high priest's entry into the ‘inner shrine behind the veil’ (εἰσερχομένην εἰς τὸ ἐσώτερον τοῦ καταπετάσματος). Piecing together these disparate imageries, we find the community depicted as fleeing from precarious circumstances, and seizing hold of a rope that becomes ‘anchored’ in their innermost being (ψυχή). This rope represents their ‘hope’, as it is connected to Jesus and his priestly ministry in the heavenly holy of holies. Most importantly, it is by this hope they are presently passing through the veil of the heavenly sanctuary, and ‘entering’ (εἰσερχομένην; present ptc.) its ‘innermost’ reaches.
An even more forceful exhortation is offered in 10.19–23, an entry exhortation, which, together with 4.14–16, stands at the center of the author's hortatory strategy. At the outset of the former passage, the community is urged to ‘confidently enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the veil (that is, through his flesh)’ (διὰ τοῦ καταπετάσματος, τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ, 10.19–20). The equation of the veil with Jesus' ‘flesh’ might appear somewhat puzzling; however, 10.19 similarly attributes the ability to enter the heavenly sanctuary to Jesus' ‘blood’. Thus, both texts locate the community's ability to access the heavenly sanctuary in some aspect of Jesus' earthly existence. An examination of Hebrews' portrayal of the ‘historical Jesus’ reveals an almost single-minded focus on his obedient suffering and death. ‘Suffering’, in fact, is a recurring cipher for Jesus' death on the cross, highlighting its visceral nature (πάσχω, 2.18; 5.8; 9.26; 13.12; πάθημα, 2.9–10). Certainly Hebrews depicts those sufferings in more detail than any other NT epistolary document.Footnote 18 Furthermore, in the first two contexts emphasizing his suffering, 2.5–18 and 5.7–10, the author twice mentions Jesus' ‘flesh’ (σάρξ, 2.14; 5.7). The latter context, which constitutes the longest epistolary consideration of Jesus' earthly existence, is an extended reflection on all these themes. Thus, the ‘days of Jesus’ flesh' are characterized by complete devotion and obedience to God, which was proven in the course of his sufferings. And a ‘new and living way’ through the heavenly sanctuary's previously impenetrable veil has been made by means of those obedient sufferings, endured ‘in the flesh’.Footnote 19
4. The Glory of God
The third motif, the glory of God, is pervasive in ancient Jewish texts, where it represents the perceptible display of God's majesty, frequently manifested in a luminous, fiery, and fearsome barrier, one that often bars the visionary from acquiring visual apprehension of God's form. While the theophany of Isaiah 6 is again an early and influential source, the vision of divine glory in Ezek 1.26–28 is unsurpassed in the Hebrew Bible.Footnote 20 Luminosity and radiance characterize almost every aspect of the account: God sits on ‘something like the appearance of’ (כמראה … דמות) a radiant, ‘sapphire-like throne’, and from his hips there radiated ‘something like gleaming amber, something like the appearance of fire enclosed all around’. Below God's hips there also appeared ‘something that looked like fire’. Furthermore, ‘there was a splendor all around. Like the rainbow in a cloud on a rainy day, such was the appearance of the splendor all around’.Footnote 21 This overwhelmingly radiant and fiery vision of ‘the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yhwh’ (כבוד־יהוה) evoked a visceral response of awestruck fear, causing the prophet to fall on his face (1.28).Footnote 22 Other biblical accounts associated God's theophanic glory with a ‘devouring fire’ (Exod 24.17), as hiding God's face from Moses (Exod 33.18–23), as creating an almost oppressive protective barrier separating God from humans in the tabernacle (Exod 40.34–35), as both presaging and manifesting God's appearance in judgment (Lev 9.23–10.3; Num 16.19, 42; Isa 2.10, 19, 21), and as incapacitating humans, causing them to fall on their faces (Num 20.6; 1 Kings 8.11; 2 Chron 5.14; 7.1–3).Footnote 23
Second Temple literature represents God's glory similarly. As we have seen, the visionary of 1 Enoch describes God as the ‘Great Glory’, and this title, together with an abundance of terms denoting radiance (fire, lightning, shooting stars, shining sun), serve to ‘designate God in terms of the effulgent splendor that envelops him’ (1 En. 14.20–21).Footnote 24 Qumran's Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice frequently praise the ‘God of Glory’, and in 4Q405 18.4, the angels are described as ‘fleeing from the voice of glory’.Footnote 25 In 20.7 the ‘cherubs fall down before’ this glorious God. Throne, glory, and fear are closely coordinated in 4 Ezra 8.21: the Lord's ‘throne is beyond measure and his glory is beyond comprehension, and before him the hosts of angels stand trembling’.
Another notable visionary account of divine glory appears in T. Levi 2.5–5.7. While in a dream, Levi was led by an angel through a succession of increasingly luminous heavens, culminating in the third heaven: the ‘uppermost heaven of all’ (2.6–9; 3.4).Footnote 26 Though Levi was permitted to ‘stand near the Lord’ (2.10), the ‘Great Glory’ (ἡ μεγάλη δόξα, 3.4), this account fails to note any of the ascender's emotions, apart from his ‘amazement’ (3.9). Even though angels ‘tremble’ in the presence of the ‘Great Glory’, the visionary of T. Levi appears to be fearless and unbowed throughout the account. This is perhaps attributable to the ‘insensitivity’ of humans, as Levi's angelic guide infers (3.10), not due to a priestly–angelic transformation, as Martha Himmelfarb contends.Footnote 27
In his use of the glory motif, the author of Hebrews again deliberately modifies Jewish traditions. Though absent from the entry exhortations (4.14–16; 10.19–23), this theme plays an essential role in one of the most important passages in Hebrews, 2.5–10, where the implications of Jesus' triumphant entry into heaven (described at length in 1.5–13) are directly applied to the community's conditions of suffering, doubt, and waning commitment.Footnote 28 After first establishing in 1.3 that Jesus perfectly reflects and/or radiates God's own glory (ὃς ὢν ἀπαύγασμα τῆς δόξης),Footnote 29 the author declares that the human hope for, and divine promise of heavenly ‘glory’ (δόξα, 2.7; Ps 8.5) has been fulfilled in Jesus, whose obedient suffering of death has led to his representative ‘crowning with glory and honor’ (δόξῃ καὶ τιμῇ, 2.9). Moreover, the community's endurance of sufferings will imminently issue in a similar vindication, since they are being ‘led’ (ἄγω) as ‘sons and daughters’ by Jesus, their ‘leader/pioneer’ (ἀρχηγός), into the same heavenly δόξα he presently enjoys (2.10).Footnote 30 Thus, the function of divine glory in Jewish tradition—shielding God from view, incapacitating angels and humans, and even repelling them from his presence—is reversed in 1.3 and 2.7–10, where it performs both revelatory and attractive roles, revealing God in Christ and impelling the community towards their heavenly goal.
Perhaps more so than any other NT document, Hebrews demonstrates a near perfect integration of ‘doctrine’ and exhortation, and 1.1–2.10 is representative of this tendency.Footnote 31 Given the length of this passage, and its prioritization within the ‘word of exhortation’, we can assume it addresses a significant concern of the community. That concern can be safely deduced: the community's experience of suffering had challenged their assumptions about the power and commitment of the God they were worshipping, and those challenges were causing them to contemplate abandoning the community.Footnote 32 The author acknowledges the legitimacy of their doubts; indeed, in their earthly circumstances they are unable to perceive the effects of Jesus' exaltation to lordship (2.8). However, these perceptual limitations are met with a dramatized portrayal of Jesus' exaltation (1.5–13), and an exhortation to exercise mystical/eschatological visuality: the community can ‘now see Jesus (νῦν … βλέπομεν ᾽Ιησοῦν) crowned with glory and honor’ because of his obedient endurance in suffering (2.9).Footnote 33 The author wants them to ‘see’ into the heavenly future, past their nearly engulfing present experience of suffering, and an eschatological/mystical vision of Jesus' victory over suffering, his conquest of death, and glorious exaltation would confirm beyond all doubt that their suffering would also issue in glorification (2.10). Like Moses, they will ‘persevere by seeing him who is invisible’ (11.27). The final step in this hortatory agenda is reached in 2.12–13, as all the aforementioned themes find their fulfillment in a dramatized adoption ceremony. There the actor Jesus summons the community to ‘behold’ both him and themselves, as the family of God, the adopted siblings of the exalted and glorified Son.Footnote 34
5. Participation in Angelic Worship
As we have already seen in a number of texts, angels are ubiquitous in visionary accounts of the heavenly throne room. Isaiah 6 is yet again the possible fountainhead of this tradition. Isaiah's description of angels, as possessing six wings, capable of flight, and whose praise ‘shook the pivots on the thresholds’ (6.2–4), emphasizes their absolute ‘otherness’. The power of their praise would have certainly contributed to Isaiah's sense of inadequacy (6.5). However, Ezekiel's description of the ‘living beings’ surpasses Isaiah's in every respect: they possess four wings and four faces (human, lion, bull, and eagle), their legs and feet shone like bronze, and they ‘ran to and fro like bolts of lightning’ (1.5–14). They appear to have been transported by both elaborate ‘wheels’ and their wings, the latter creating a ‘sound of abundant waters as they flew, like the voice of the Almighty’, and the ‘sound of chaos’ comparable to an army (1.24). Like Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1, the presence of angels in a number of other ancient Jewish texts contributes to the overwhelming awesomeness of the scene and the ensuing response of terror on the part of the visionary (1 Kings 22.19–23; Dan 7.10; 1 En. 14; 39–40; 71; 2 En. 20–23; T. Levi 3; Jub. 2.2).
The most developed angelology is found in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q400–407; 11Q17). These remarkable texts bear witness to the Qumran community's belief that they enjoyed communion with angels, achieved either through a communal heavenly ascent or the descent of the angels into their midst. In them, the community repeatedly exhorts the angels to perform their sacral duties in the heavenly sanctuary so that they might join them in worshipping God.Footnote 35 Thus, according to Carol Newsom's influential analysis:
Both the highly descriptive content and the carefully crafted rhetoric direct the worshipper who hears the songs recited toward a particular kind of religious experience, a sense of being in the heavenly sanctuary and in the presence of angelic priests and worshippers. That this experience is intended as a communal experience of the human worshiping community is made clear by the first person plural forms which appear in 4Q400 2.6–8: ‘our priesthood’; ‘the offering of our mortal tongue’; ‘How shall we be considered among them?’; ‘let us exalt’.Footnote 36
The relatively large number of manuscripts that have been recovered, nine copies in all, and the fact that they originate over a 120-year span, indicates something of their enduring importance in the community's life.Footnote 37 Furthermore, these same convictions are present in both the Community Rule (1QS 11.7–8) and the Hodayot (1QH 11.21–23; 19.9–13), texts of unparalleled value to the community (see also 1QSa 2.8; 1QSb 3.25–26; 4.25–26; 4Q503 7–9). It is therefore fairly certain that these beliefs played a key role in the community's religious/mystical praxis, as well as the construction of their identity.Footnote 38
Despite the near routinization of this extraordinary mystical practice in the life of the community, a pessimistic sense of human inadequacy and sinfulness appears near the outset of the Songs. This is attributed to the presence of angels, who are considered ontologically and sacrally superior to humans. 4Q400 2.6–8 asks: ‘How shall we be considered [among] them? How shall our priesthood [be considered] in their dwellings? And [our] holiness their holiness? [What] is the offering of our tongues of dust [compared] with the knowledge of the go[ds]?’Footnote 39 1QH 11.21–23 and 19.9–13 seem to be fashioned as responses to these questions, as they ascribe the ability to commune liturgically with angels to God's gracious purification of their sins: ‘The depraved spirit you have cleansed from great offense so it can take its place with the host of the holy ones, and enter into communion with the congregation of the sons of heaven’ (11.21–23). 1QH 19.9–13 is effusive in its pessimism: God has shown ‘an abundance of forgiveness and compassion’ in ‘purifying from offence, …impure abominations, and the guilt of unfaithfulness’, those ‘depraved spirits’ who have now joined the ‘lot with your holy ones…the perpetual host and spirits’.
This pessimism, coupled with the fact that the content of the angelic liturgy is never disclosed, leads Esther G. Chazon to the conclusion that the Sabbath Songs
maintain a substantive and qualitative distinction between human praise and that of the angels. The human worshippers describe the angelic praise, and echo it in kind; but they never repeat the angels' words verbatim. Human inadequacy rather than angelic silence appears to be the reason for the omission of the angels' precise words.Footnote 40
Though nowhere near as fascinated with angels as the Sabbath Songs, Hebrews does contain more references and devote more time to the topic than any other epistolary document in the NT.Footnote 41 In a lengthy depiction of the Son's enthronement ceremony, 1.5–13, angels are represented as worshipping Jesus, the community's Lord, thus validating their Christological convictions. Immediately thereafter, angels are described as ‘ministering spirits’, serving the community (1.14). An ontological hierarchy is established in 2.5–10, with the purpose of ‘charting’ the community's temporal and existential location; their suffering is therefore appropriate to their temporary place ‘beneath angels’ (2.7). However, humans are destined to surpass angels, a destiny proleptically attained by Jesus (2.9).Footnote 42 The presence of angels among humans is asserted again in 13.2; there the community is exhorted to ‘extend hospitality to strangers’, for in so doing ‘some have unknowingly entertained angels’. Thus 1.14 and 13.2 would seem to be directed towards increasing the community's consciousness of the presence of angels in their everyday life; it would also presumably decrease any anxieties about such occurrences.Footnote 43
Perhaps the most significant reference to angels occurs in 12.22–24, an extraordinary passage in which the author places the community in the midst of a ‘joyous gathering’ (πανήγυρις) that includes ‘myriads of angels’ (μυριάσιν ἀγγέλων, 12.22).Footnote 44 This text, with its confident declaration that the community ‘has come’ (προσεληλύθατε; perfect tense) to ‘Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem’, strongly implies that the community is presently participating in the angelic worship of God and his Son.Footnote 45 Such an assertion is unmatched in the NT.
In addition to this apparent assertion of the community's liturgical communion with angels, Hebrews and Qumran's Sabbath Songs share at least two other convictions and concerns: (1) Hebrews' elaborate cultic soteriology, comprised of forgiveness of sins, cleansing from impurity, sanctification, and perfection, is entirely intended to facilitate the community's entry into the heavenly sanctuary.Footnote 46 This is of course comparable to the emphasis placed on forgiveness, purification, and renewal in affording the Qumran community an opportunity ‘to take its place’ in God's ‘presence with the perpetual host and spirits’ (1QH 11.21–23; 19.9–13). However, Hebrews' soteriological cleansing is deemed necessary for the community to ‘draw near’ to God, not angels (9.14; 10.19–23; 12.14). Nowhere in Hebrews do we find a sense of awe or fear concerning the immanence of angels. Instead, angels are almost viewed as peers, as fellow worshippers and servants of the Son.Footnote 47 (2) Both documents consider their vocalized praise and worship as ‘spiritual sacrifices’: Qumran's ‘offering of our tongues of dust’ (4Q400 2.7), is comparable to Hebrews' exhortation to ‘continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name’ (13.15). Finally, we should note that Hebrews, the Sabbath Songs, and Philo's account of the Therapeutae (Contempl. 11–12, 83–89) are the only surviving ancient Jewish accounts of communal mystical praxis of this caliber (involving a community's entry into the heavenly realm and participation in the heavenly liturgy).Footnote 48
6. Conclusion
As we have seen, the divine throne, temple veil, glory of God, and angels are commonly encountered in ancient Jewish texts that purport to describe the heavenly throne room. Furthermore, they are almost always characterized as presenting obstacles to the presence of God, and/or engendering fear and a sense of inadequacy on the part of the visionaries. A close examination of these motifs in Hebrews has revealed the innovative manner in which the author transforms them and their connotations, presenting them instead as encouraging, facilitating, and even ensuring access to a welcoming God.
The throne is a place where undeserved and unexpected divine blessings are dispensed, and upon which Jesus the elder brother of the community is seated. The veil no longer represents an impenetrable barrier to the presence of God: through Jesus' obedient suffering of death it has been pulled aside for the community. The glory of God has also been transformed from an overwhelmingly radiant and repelling manifestation of God's ‘otherness’, to the vindicating reward and status that has been conferred upon Jesus. And the Son who perfectly radiates and reflects his Father's brilliant majesty is leading the community into that same reward. Finally, the presence of angels in both the everyday and worshipping life of the community is presented almost ‘matter of factly’, and their presence is never seen as a cause for alarm. Instead they are depicted as ‘fellow worshippers’ of the community's Lord.
We can be certain that the author's transformation of these four motifs was deliberate, given their prominence in passages promoting his ultimate hortatory goal: the community's entry into the heavenly sanctuary (2.10–13; 4.14–16; 6.18–20; 10.19–23; 12.22–24). We may also speculate that this large-scale revision of the traditional contents and occupants of the heavenly throne room was necessitated by the author's awareness of the extraordinary nature of his ‘theology of access’ and entry exhortations. Undoubtedly the community would have shared this conviction; however, if they were sufficiently attentive to these particular details of Hebrews' hortatory effort they presumably would have experienced an appreciable diminishment of their doubts and fears. Similarly, our focus on the author's careful handling of these four ancient Jewish mystical motifs has hopefully helped expand our own understanding of this remarkable aspect of his hortatory effort and increase our awareness of its importance within the overall framework of his ‘word of exhortation’.
