Monday, March 22, 2010

Veil Of The Temple (part 4 of 5)

This now brings us to Jesus’ death. As we know, the death was accompanied by the tearing of the temple’s veil, from top to bottom. That veil, and all that it represented for God’s people, and which had been in place for so long, was destroyed. That veil, with its cherubim, that served as an ever-present, physical reminder of the blocking of the pathway to the source and giver of life, was taken out of the way. The veil, which spoke of man’s fall and God’s curse, and the death that entered into this world at man’s hands, was put aside. Of course, it is also significant that the tearing was from top to bottom, because, yes, God did the tearing.

God did the tearing because of what had been accomplished by the long-promised and expected Messiah. Because there is a clear and direct association between Jesus’ death and the tearing of the veil, and because the veil, as we have seen from the Garden of Eden through the second temple, was the reminder of cursing and separation, its tearing meant that the curse had been broken. This is what would have been understood by those that witnessed the event, and by those that would read about the event. It was yet another chapter in Israel’s long, narrative history, and in God’s single plan of redemption for all of mankind.

Adam had been placed in the Garden of Eden. He had been created in God’s image. He failed and fell and brought a curse upon himself and this world. He was expelled from Eden and God placed cherubim at the entrance to that Garden, veiling man’s access to God’s place and to man’s purpose for which He had been created. Because Adam was the father of all of mankind, all that would follow from him would share in the curse that descended upon him. Because Adam had been given dominion over all of creation, the curse extended to the whole of creation as well. From that point in Genesis, up to and through the eleventh chapter, we see a world in decay, with murder and corruption and a flood of judgment that would ultimately serve to produce the even greater rebellion of the tower of Babel and its defiance of God, rather than repentance.

In chapter twelve of Genesis, we are introduced to Abraham, and through a covenant with Abraham, all of which points to the singular seed of Abraham to come, as God begins to fulfill the promise of the seed to come that was given to Adam and Eve, God commences His providential working through history to deal with the evil that had been introduced into the world by the rebellion of those that He had created. That story progresses through Isaac and Jacob, on to as a whole Israel, is concentrated into the God’s dealings with Judah, and is consummated in Jesus, as the promised seed fulfills the promise of the Gospel that had been set forth in Genesis chapter three, crushing the serpent’s head while His own heel is bruised in the process.

Jesus, the One to Whom Paul refers as the second Adam, did not fail. He was faithful. By willingly going into death, He entered into the curse which Adam had wrought. His death, and the tearing of the veil in conjunction with that death, as it took the cherubim out of the way, re-opened mankind’s path to fellowship with God. The curse was broken. Death would no longer reign. New life was coming. Where the first Adam, and all that followed from him, were expelled from Eden, the second Adam, and all that follow Him through a unifying belief in Him as Lord and Savior and Redeemer, are now allowed to re-enter Eden. Where the first Adam had rejected and given up his rightful dominion of God’s perfect creation, the second Adam re-claimed that dominion, ushered in the long-expected kingdom of God on earth with the Messiah as its King, and introduced the renewal of creation through the power of the Resurrection. The veil had been torn.

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