Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 130:520 (Oct 1973)
Article: The Blood of Jesus and His Heavenly Priesthood in Hebrews Part III: The Meaning of “The True Tent” and “The Greater and More Perfect Tent”
Author: Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

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BSac 130:520 (Oct 73) p. 305

The Blood of Jesus and His Heavenly Priesthood in Hebrews
Part III:
The Meaning of “The True Tent” and
“The Greater and More Perfect Tent”

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes

[Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Visiting Professor of New Testament, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.]

[Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of articles entitled “The Blood of Jesus and His Heavenly Priesthood in the Epistle to the Hebrews,” which were the W. H. Griffith Thomas Memorial Lectures given by Dr. Philip Edgcumbe Hughes at Dallas Theological Seminary on November 14–17, 1972.]

The Tent as the Incarnate Body of Christ

A number of commentators have interpreted these two expressions as signifying the body or humanity of Christ. Owen, for example, expounds “the true tent” of Hebrews 8:2 as meaning “the human nature of the Lord Christ himself,”1 explaining that “he is the only way and means of our approach unto God in holy worship, as the tabernacle was of old,”2 that “the human nature of Christ is the only true tabernacle wherein God would dwell personally and substantially,”3 and that “we are to look for the gracious presence of God in Christ only.”4 Bengel is among those who are of a similar mind. The rather long and involved sentence which comprises Hebrews 9:11–12 may be paraphrased as follows:

After coming (to earth) as high priest of the good things fulfilled by his coming, Christ achieved our eternal redemption and then entered once and for all into the sanctuary, through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands, that is not of this creation, and (he did so) not through the blood of goats and bullocks but through his own blood.

BSac 130:520 (Oct 73) p. 306

Chrysostom and some later patristic authors, including Tbeodoret, Primasius, and Ecumenius, understood this “greater and more perfect tent” to denote the body which the Son assumed in the incarnation, and this understanding has had distinguished advocates ever since.

The justification for this interpretation is sought in the symbolical usage of the term “tent” elsewhere in the New Testament. Christ Himself spoke of His body as “this temple” (ναός) which He would raise up in three days (John 2:19–22; cf. Mark 14:58;

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