Veil Of The Temple (part 8 of 9)

Until Jesus’ Resurrection took place, and the power of the Resurrection that came to be understood as the point at which the Creator God had begun to renew and restore a corrupted creation was unleashed into the world, those that had been raised in their tombs at the time of Jesus’ death were not yet allowed to enter into the world in which the Christ was going to become King and in which the creation was going to be renewed. 

This has a number of implications.  Those that have been crucified with Christ, who are those that go down into the curse of death with Him as their representative by casting their allegiance with Him and confessing Him as King, and who were born into a world in which death is understood to have reigned victorious because of the contra-covenant actions of their first representative Adam, have also been raised with the Christ. 

Believing in Jesus, which, because of the crucifixion and the claim to Resurrection, is so improbable that it is generally acknowledged that such belief must come as a gift of God that is made operable by the Holy Spirit, makes the believers alive but waiting in their tombs, ready to enter into His new creation when the final Resurrection takes place and to assist in that project in an effort to show that the kingdom of the Creator God, through Christ, has been established on earth, making those efforts at bringing heaven to earth in conjunction with the ongoing hope for the final and ultimate consummation of the Christ’s kingdom on earth.

Now, one might wonder why it was that only “many saints who had died were raised.”  If the power of Christ’s death truly had the effect of shredding the veil of separation and moving the cherubim aside, signifying that the curse was broken and Eden was once again accessible to man as part of the Creator God’s plan, why only “many”?  Why not all?  This probably has to do with what was then-current burial practice, in which the dead were laid in a tomb until the flesh decomposed from the body. 

Once that decomposition had occurred, the bones of the deceased were then placed in an ossuary (a bone box).  What Matthew may desire to communicate, as He communicates the significance of Jesus’ death and the significance of the Resurrection that those that are familiar with the story know is coming, is that those that were raised at the death of Jesus, which coincided with the rending of the veil, were most likely those that had recently died, but had not decomposed.  They were not given a renewed body suitable for the new creation, as Jesus would receive.  They were not given a Resurrection body, but had been raised in much the same way that Lazarus had been raised, with a body still subject to death and corruption, in the midst of a creation that was still subject to death and corruption. 

So it is for believers in this day.  In another implication, believers can understand that even though they have been raised with Christ, and that they take part in the kingdom of heaven as they call Jesus Lord and King, believing in His Gospel, they are very much subject to death and corruption, still living in a world that is subject to the same, though this world is constantly being re-shaped by the power of the Creator God as He works through His covenant  people to accomplish His good.  They await their new bodies, their glorified bodies, which they hope to receive when Jesus returns, when death is given its final defeat, and when the curse of death is finally and completely removed from this world, which is that for which the entire creation groans.  They experience new life and fellowship with the Creator God through union with His Christ (belief in the Gospel that Jesus is Lord), with the curse broken.