The writer began with a three-fold admonition, which is all one sentence in the Greek text. The long sentence intensifies the writer's appeal.306
"In view of all that has been accomplished for us by Christ, he says, let us confidently approach God in worship, let us maintain our Christian confession and hope, let us help one another by meeting together regularly for mutual encouragement, because the day which we await will soon be here."307
"A loyal response to Christ is the logical correlate of the magnitude of Christ's redemptive accomplishment [cf. Rom. 12:1-2]."308
10:19-20 "Therefore"sums up the entire argument to this point but especially the affirmation of 8:1-2 and its exposition in 9:1-10:18. "Brethren"recalls the writer's address of his audience of believers in the earlier parenetic units (cf. 3:1, 12; 6:9).
There are two reasons we can and should approach God (v. 22). First, we can have confidence to enter God's presence now and in the future because of what Jesus Christ has done for us.
"It is striking that whenever the writer makes his most emphatic assertions concerning the saving work of Christ, he makes an explicit reference to the blood of Jesus (9:12, 14; 10:19, 29; 12:24; 13:12, 20). This fact is indicative of the importance of the cultic argument developed in 9:1-10:18, where the blood of Jesus is a graphic expression for Jesus' death viewed in its sacrificial aspect. That cultic argument is clearly presupposed here."309
We can enter God's presence through Jesus' crucified flesh as though we entered the holy of holies through the torn temple veil (Matt. 27:51). His sacrifice provided a new and living way compared with the old dead way of the Old Covenant.
"The way to God is both new' and living.' It is new' because what Jesus has done has created a completely new situation, living' because that way is indissolubly bound up with the Lord Jesus himself.
"The author is saying in his own way what the Synoptists said when they spoke of the curtain of the temple as being torn when Christ died (Matt 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45)."310
10:21-22 Second, we can have confidence to enter God's presence because we have a great High Priest (cf. 7:1-10:18).
We should draw near with freedom from guilt and with holy conduct (cf. 4:16). "Sincere"means true, dependable. We should approach God with the assurance that Jesus Christ's death has removed our guilt for sin and has made us acceptable to God (9:13-14; Num. 8:7; Rom. 5:1; 8:1; cf. 1 John 1:9).
". . . the specific imagery of the sprinkling of the heart from a burdened conscience' has been anticipated in 9:18-22. There the writer reminded the community of the action of Moses, who sprinkled the people with blood during the ratification of the old covenant at Sinai. The thought that Christians have been made participants in the new covenant by the blood of Christ is forcefully expressed in the immediate context (v 19). This suggests that the sprinkling with respect to the heart' in v 22b is to be associated with Jesus' inauguration of the new covenant through his death . . ."311
The reference to the washed body (v. 22) probably is to water baptism as the outward sign of inward cleansing (cf. 1 Pet. 3:21).312
10:23-25 We should not only exercise faith (v. 22) but also hope (v. 23) and love (v. 24). The admonition to hold fast to our hope is the one the writer emphasized most strongly in this epistle. The basis of our steadfastness is the fact that God is faithful to His promises concerning our future.
The third admonition (v. 24) moves from the vertical to the horizontal dimension of Christian living. This admonition to love one another was also necessary since some were abandoning the faith. The readers needed to stimulate one another to remain faithful to the Lord. This type of love is the product of communal activity; we cannot practice it in isolation from other believers. Regular attendance at church meetings facilitates this because there we receive reminders and exhortation to persevere. It is only natural for one who has abandoned his faith to absent himself or herself from the meetings of his or her church. However this is the very thing such a person should not do. We need each other.
"Whatever the motivation, the writer regarded the desertion of the communal meetings as utterly serious. It threatened the corporate life of the congregation and almost certainly was a prelude to apostasy on the part of those who were separating themselves from the assembly . . ."313
The writer was urging mutual accountability since we will have to give an account of ourselves to God. The "day"that is approaching is the day we will give an account of ourselves to God (cf. v. 37). This may have been an allusion to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 for the original readers.314
