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Chapter Four
The True Veil
All man’s thoughts regarding
the true meaning of he veil have been set at rest by that brief parenthesis
of the Apostle Paul,—“the veil, that is to say, His flesh” (Heb 10:20). The
Holy Spirit has interpreted the symbol for us, and saved us a world of
speculation and uncertainty. We now know that the veil meant the body of
“Jesus." [1]
Thus Christ is seen in every
part of the tabernacle; and everywhere it is the riches of His grace that we
see. Here “Christ is all and in all.” The whole fabric is Christ. Each
separate part is Christ. The altar is Christ the sacrifice. The laver is
Christ filled with the Spirit for us. The curtains speak of Him. The
entrances all speak of Him. Candlestick, and table, and golden altar speak
of Him. The Ark of the Covenant, the mercy‑seat, the glory, all embody and
reveal Him. Everything here says, “Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away
the sin of the world.”
But the veil is “His flesh,”—His body, His humanity.
As the lamb was to be without blemish, and without spot, in order to set
forth His perfection; so the veil was perfect in all its parts, finely
wrought and beautiful to the eye, to exhibit the excellency of Him who is
fairer than the children of men. As the veil was composed of the things of
earth, so was His body; not only bone of our bone and flesh of His flesh,
but nourished in all its parts by the things of earth, fed by the things
which grew out of the soil, as we are fed. Christ’s flesh was perfect,
though earthly: without sin, though of the substance of a sinful woman;
unblemished in every part, yet sensitive to all our sinless infirmities.
Through the veil the glory shone, so through the body of Christ the Godhead
shone.
As in the holy of holies the shekinah or symbol of
Jehovah dwelt; so in the man Christ Jesus dwelt “all the fullness of the
Godhead BODILY” (Col. 2:9). He was “the Word made flesh” (John 1:14); “God
manifest in flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16); “Immanuel,” God with us; Jehovah in very
deed dwelling on earth, inhabiting a temple made with hands; and that temple
a human body such as ours. For God became man that He might dwell with man,
and that man might dwell with Him. In Jesus of Nazareth Jehovah was
manifested; so that he who saw Him saw the Father, and he who heard Him
heard the Father, and he who knew Him knew the Father.
In Jesus of Nazareth was seen the mighty God. In the
son of the carpenter was seen the Creator of heaven and earth. In the Man of
sorrows was seen the Son of the blessed. He who was born at Bethlehem was He
whose days are from eternity. He who died was the Prince of life, of whom it
is written, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Of these
things the mysterious veil of the temple was the fair symbol. He who could
read the meaning of that veil could read unutterable things concerning the
coming Messiah,‑the Redeemer of His Israel, the Deliverer of man; divine yet
human, heavenly yet earthly, clothed with divine majesty, yet wearing the
raiment of our poor humanity.
In Him was manifested divine strength, residing in and
working through a feeble human arm such as ours: divine wisdom, in its
perfection, speaking through the lips of a child of dust; divine majesty
seated on a human brow; divine benignity beaming from human eyes, and put
forth in the touch of a human hand; divine purposes working themselves out
through a human will; divine sovereignty embodied in each act and motion of
a human organism; divine grace coming forth in human compassions and
sympathies; and divine grief finding vent to itself in human tears.
The perfection of His holy and glorious, yet true
manhood is seen in that mysterious veil. Its materials, so choice, so fair,
yet still earthly, spoke of Him who, though fairer than the children of men,
is still bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Its well‑wrought texture
and exquisite workmanship, of purple, and scarlet, and fine‑twined linen,
spoke of His spotless yet thoroughly human body, prepared by the Holy Ghost;
while its embroidered or interwoven cherubim spoke of the Church in
Him,—part of Himself; one with Him as He is one with them; for “both He that
sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one.”
The “flesh of Christ” both revealed and hid the glory.
It veiled and it unveiled Godhead: it proclaimed the nearness of Jehovah to
His worshippers, and yet suggested some distance, some interposing medium,
which could only be taken out of the way by God Himself. For that which had
been placed there by God could not be removed by man. And yet man, in a
certain sense, had to do with the removal. In the type, indeed, it was not
so; but in the antitype it was. For no hand of man rent the veil; yet it was
man’s hand that nailed the Son of God to the cross; it was man that slew
Him. And yet again, on the other hand, it was God that smote Him,—just as it
was the hand of God that rent the veil from top to bottom. “It pleased the
Lord to bruise Him and to put Him to grief” (Isa. 53:10). The bruising of
His heel was the doing of the serpent and his seed, yet it was also the
doing of the Lord.
There was the unbroken body, and the broken
body of the Lord. The veil pointed to the former. It was the symbol of the
unbroken body, the unwounded flesh of the Surety. It was connected with
incarnation, not with crucifixion,—with life, not with death. We learn from
it that mere incarnation can do nothing for the sinner. He needs far more
than that,—something different from the mere assumption of our humanity. The
veil said, that body must be broken before the sinner can come as a
worshipper into the place where Jehovah dwells. The Christ of God must not
merely take flesh and blood; He must take mortal flesh and die. Sacrifice
alone can bring us nigh to God, and keep us secure and blessed in His
presence. We are saved by a dying Christ.
The veil was, as we have said before, to the holy of
holies what the sword of fire was to the garden of the Lord. Both of them
kept watch at the gate of the divine presence‑chamber. The flaming sword
turned every way; that is, it threw around the garden a girdle or belt of
divine fire from the shekinah glory, threatening death to all who should
seek entrance into the holiest, and yet (by leaving Paradise unscathed upon
the earth) revealing God’s gracious purpose of preserving it for the
re‑entrance of banished man, or rather of preparing for him a home more
glorious than the Paradise which he had lost.
Both the veil and the flame said, “We guard the palace
of the Great King, that no sinner may enter.” Yet they said also, the King
is within, He has not forsaken man or man’s world; you shall one day have
unhindered access to Him; but for wise and vast reasons, to be shown in due
time, you cannot enter yet. Something must be done to make your entrance a
safe thing for yourself and a righteous thing for God.
That veil then, unrent as it was, proclaimed
the glad tidings; though it could not, so long as it was unrent, reveal the
whole grace, or at least the way in which grace is to reach the sinner. That
grace can flow out only by means of death. It is death that opens the
pent-up fullness of love, and sends out the life contained in the “spring
shut up, the fountain sealed.” It is the rod of the substitute, the cross of
the sin‑bearer that smites the rock, that the waters may gush forth.
The antitype of the unrent veil might be said
to have been held before Israel’s eyes from the time that the Son of God
took our flesh. It is the unrent veil that we find at Bethlehem; it is the
unrent veil that we find at Nazareth, and all the life long of the Christ of
God. The miracles of grace wrought during His ministry were like the waving
of the folds of that veil before men’s eyes, and letting some of the rays of
the inner majesty shine through. So were His words of grace from day to day.
Men were compelled to look and to admire. “They wondered at the gracious
words proceeding out of His mouth” (Luke 4:22, literally, “at the words of
the grace proceeding out of His mouth”); “Never man spake like this man”
(John 7:46); “He hath done all things well” (Mark 7:37);
what were these things but the expressions of admiration at the unrent veil.
It was so beautiful, so perfect! Men gazed at it and wondered. It was
marvelously attractive; and it was meant to be so.
Hence many were drawn to the person of Christ by His
attractive grace without fully understanding either His fullness or their
own great need. What they saw in a living Christ won their hearts;
they acknowledged Him as the Saviour without fully understanding how He was
to be such. The disciples would not admit any necessity for His dying. The
unrent veil seemed to them enough. “That be far from Thee, Lord,” were the
words of Peter, repudiating the very idea of His Lord’s death. He was
content with a living Saviour. Death seemed altogether inconsistent
with the character of Messiah.
Let us mark the scene just referred to, and
understand its meaning. “From that time forth began Jesus to show unto His
disciples, how that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the
elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised again the
third day” (Matthew 16:21). It was as if standing in front of the holy of
holies, and pointing to the veil, He was saying to them, That veil must
be rent! “Then Peter took Him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it
far from Thee, Lord; this shall not be unto Thee” (v. 22). What was this but
saying, Lord, that is impossible; that veil must not and cannot be rent!
“But He turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan; thou art an
offence unto me; for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those
that be of men” (v. 23). It was as if He had said, Peter, thou art speaking
like Satan, and for Satan; he knows that unless the heel of the woman’s seed
be bruised, his head cannot be bruised; he knows that unless that veil be
rent, thou canst not go in to God; and he speaks through thee, if it were
possible, to prevent the rending; the veil must be rent; if I die not, thou
canst not live; if I die not, I need not have come into the world at all.
[2]
If one might, by a figure, speak of the veil as living
and sentient, might we not say that it dreaded the rending. What was the
meaning of Christ’s words, “Now is my soul sorrowful”? Was it not the
expression of dread as to the rending? And still more, what was the meaning
of the Gethsemane cry, “Father, if it be Thy will, let this cup pass from
me”? Was it not the same? And yet there was the desire for its being rent,
the longing for the consummation. “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and
how am I straitened till it be accomplished” (Luke 12:50).
“A body hast thou prepared me” (Heb. 10:5). That body
was truly human as we have seen, and yet it was prepared by the Holy Ghost.
“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow thee; therefore also, [3], that holy thing which
shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). This
body, thus divinely prepared out of human materials, was altogether
wonderful. There had been none like it from the first: nor was there to be
any such after it,—so perfect, yet so thoroughly human; so stainless, yet so
sensitive to all the sinless infirmities of man. In this respect it differed
from the body of the first Adam, which was perfect, no doubt, but not in
sympathy with us. The kind of perfection in the first Adam
unfitted him to sympathize with us, or to be tempted like as we are.
The nature of Christ’s perfection fitted Him most fully for sympathizing
with us, and for being tempted, like as we are, yet without sin.
The colour and texture of the temple‑veil seem all to
have reference to the flesh or body; blue, and purple, and scarlet, and
fine‑twined linen. Jeremiah’s description of the Nazarites may help us to
see this: “Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk;
they were more ruddy in body than rubies; their polishing was of sapphire”
(Lam. 4:7, or “their veining was the sapphire’s,” as Blayney renders it).
The bride in the Song of Solomon thus also speaks of the bridegroom, “My
beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand” (Song 5:10).
All this corporeal perfection and beauty were produced
by the Holy Ghost. Never had His hand brought forth such material perfection
as in the body of the Christ of God. It was “without spot and blemish,”
worthy of Him out of whose eternal purpose it came forth; worthy of Him who
so cunningly had wrought it as the perfection of divine workmanship; worthy
of Him in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. [4]
ENDNOTES:
1. In the previous
verse he had spoken of the “blood of Jesus,”—so here we understand him to
say that the veil is the body of Him whose name is Jesus; that one
name at which every knee shall bow: that one name of which all prophecy is
the testimony (Rev. 19:10). In the above passage, in Philippians, it is very
noticeable that JESUS by itself should be so specially singled out; JESUS as
the special name for worship and for worshippers. “In the name of Jesus
every knee shall bow.” Of all His many names this is the one which the
Father delights to honour, and round which the eternal adoration of heaven
and earth is to gather. It is the name of names:—the name above every
name,—JESUS.
2. Christ’s calling
Peter by the name of Satan, and thus identifying him, in what he had just
been saying, with the old tempter, carries us back to the first promise, in
which that tempter heard his own doom and man’s deliverance predicted. If
Jesus did not die, if the heel of the woman’s seed were not bruised, the
first promise fell to the ground. Satan knew how much turned upon the
bruising of the heel of that seed, and how necessary it was to the
bruising of his own head. Nothing could have more identified Peter with
Satan than the position he took up here as to the non‑necessity for his
Master’s death. Nicodemus did not understand the person of the Lord; Peter
did not understand His work, nor see the necessity for His sacrificial
death.
3. “Therefore even
that which shall be born shall be holy; it shall be called the Son of
God.”
4. Dr. Owen dwells at
length upon this point, the forming of Christ’s body by the Holy Spirit.
“The framing, forming, and miraculous conception of the body of Christ, in
the womb of the blessed virgin, was the peculiar and special work of the
Holy Ghost . . . It was effected by an act of infinite creating power, yet
it was formed or made of the substance of the blessed virgin.”—On
the Holy Spirit, b. ii. chap. 3.
The Rent Veil
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