God (if such a thing could be) was his safety.
the habitation of God.
Before God had spoken or done aught in the way of separation, man betrayed his consciousness of his new standing, and of the necessity for a covering or screen. He fled from God into the thick trees of the garden, that their foliage might hide him from God and God from him. In so doing he showed that he felt two things,--
1. That there must be a veil between him and God;
2. That, now, in his altered position, distance from God (if such a thing could be) was his safety.
Even if God had said "draw near," man could not have responded "let us draw near," or felt "it is good for me to draw near to God." For sin had now come between, and until that should be dealt with in the way of pardon and removal, he could not approach God, nor expect God to approach him.
There was a sense of guilt upon his conscience, and he knew that there was displeasure on the part of God; so that fellowship, in such circumstances, was impossible. Any meeting, in this case, could only be that of the criminal and the Judge; the one to tremble, and the other to pronounce the righteous sentence.
God did come down to man; but not to converse as before; not to commune in love as if nothing had come in between them. He came to declare His righteousness; and yet to reveal His grace. He came to condemn, and He came to pardon. He came to show how utterly he abhorred the sin, and yet how graciously he was minded toward the sinner.
Something then had now come in between the Creator and the creature, which made it no longer possible for the same intercourse to be maintained as before. Man himself felt this, as soon as he had sinned; and God declared that it was so.
How was that "something" to be dealt with? It was of man's creation; yet man had no power to deal with it.
Shall it be removed, or shall it stand? If it
stands, then man is lost to God and to himself. For the sentence is explicit, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."[6] If it is to be removed, the barrier swept away, and the distance obliterated, God must do it, and He must do it immediately, before the criminal is handed over to final execution, and He must do it righteously, that there may be no uncertainty as to the thing done, and no possibility of any future reversal of the blessing or any replacement of the barrier.
God, in coming down to man, said, "Thou hast sinned, and there is not now the same relationship between us that there was: there is a barrier; but I mean to remove it; not all at once; and yet completely at last." Man was not to be lost to God, nor to himself. He was too precious a part of God's possessions to be thrown away. He was too dear to God to be destroyed. "God loved the world" (John 3:16).
Yet there must be a shutting out from God; and this was intimated from the beginning. God shuts Himself out from man; and He shuts man out from himself: for the way into the holiest for a sinner could not be prepared all at once. Not man only, but the universe, must be taught long lessons both in righteousness and in grace, before the new and living way can be opened.
Law had said "The soul that sinneth it shall die" (Eze 18:4); Grace had said "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked" (Eze 33:11); Righteousness had said "The wicked shall be turned into hell" (Psa 9:17); Mercy had said "How shall I deliver thee up?" (Hosea 11:8). In what way are these things to be reconciled? Condemnation is just: can pardon be also just? Exclusion from God's presence was righteous, can admission into that presence be no less so?
The solution of this question must be given on judicial grounds, and must recognise all the judicial or legal elements involved in the treatment of crime and criminals. For law is law, and grace is grace. The two things cannot be intermingled. What law demands it must have; and what grace craves can only be given in accordance with unchanging law. "The reign of grace" must be "the reign of law"; and the triumph of grace
must be the triumph of law. The grace which alone can reach the case of the sinner is the grace of the LAWGIVER, the grace of the JUDGE.
These were truths which man could not fully comprehend. They were new truths, or new ideas, which could only be thoroughly understood by long training, by ages of education. The method of instruction was peculiar, and such as suited man's special state of imperfect knowledge. It was twofold, consisting of a long line of revelations extending over four thousand years; and a long series of symbols increasing and becoming more expressive age after age.
That there was free love in God for the sinner was a new truth altogether, and needed to be fully revealed, "line upon line." Reasoning from God's treatment of the angels, man would conclude that there was no favour to be expected for the sinner; nothing but swift retribution, "everlasting chains." God's first words to man were those of grace; intimating that the divine treatment of man was to be very different from that of the fallen angels: that where sin had abounded grace was to abound much more. Forgiveness, not condemnation, was the essence of the early promise.
But this was only one-half of the great primal revelation. God having announced His purpose of grace, proceeds to show how this was to be carried out with full regard to the perfection of the law and the holiness of the Lawgiver.
The unfolding of this latter part of His purpose fills up the greater part of the Divine Word.
The announcement of God's free love was made on the spot where the sin had been committed and the transgressors arrested. But the unfolding of the plan, whereby that free love was to reach the sinner in righteousness, was commenced outside--at the gate of Paradise, where the first altar was built, the first sacrifice was offered, and the first sinner worshipped.
The blood-shedding was outside, and Paradise was closed against the sinner:--Paradise the type of that heavenly sanctuary from which man had shut himself out. No blood was shed within; for the place was
counted holy; and besides, man, the sinner, was excluded from it now, and blood was only needed in connection with him and his entrance to God.
To shut out man the sword of fire was placed at the gate: teaching him not only that he was prohibited from entering, but that it was death to attempt an entrance. Paradise was not swept away; nay, man was allowed to build his altar and to worship at its gate; but he must remain outside in the meantime, till the great process had been completed, by which his nearer approach was secured,--not only without the dread of death, but with the assurance that there was life within for him.
But the flaming sword said, "Not now; not yet." Much must be done before man can be allowed to go in. "The Holy Ghost this signified that the way into the holiest was not yet made manifest."
In after ages there was no flaming sword at the gate. But the veil of the tabernacle was substituted instead of it. That veil said also, "Not now, not yet." Wait a little longer, O man, and the gate shall be thrown wide open. These sacrifices of yours have much to do in connection with the opening of the gate. Without them it cannot be opened; but even with them, a long time must elapse before this can be done; man must be taught that only righteousness can open that gate, and that this righteousness can only be unfolded and carried out by the blood-shedding of a substitute.
Man had been driven out in one hour; but he must wait ages before he can re-enter. In that interval of patient waiting he must learn many a lesson, both regarding God and himself; both regarding sin and righteousness; both regarding the reason of his being excluded and the way of re-admission.
For man is slow to learn. He cannot all at once take in new ideas as to God and His character. He must be fully "educated" in these; and this education must be one not of years but of ages.
God then began to teach man by means of sacrifice. This method of teaching him concerning grace and righteousness widened and filled up age after age. For this fuller education the tabernacle was set up; and there God commenced His school. By
means of it He taught Israel, He taught man. The textbook was a symbolic one, though not without explanations and comments. It is contained in the Book of Leviticus. Not till man, the sinner, should master the profound and wondrous lessons contained in that book could the veil be removed and access granted. Not till He had come, who was to be the living personal exhibition or incarnation of all these lessons, could the sinner draw nigh to God.
It seemed a long time to wait, but it could not be otherwise. The lesson to be taught was a lesson not for Israel merely, but for the world; not for a few ages, but for eternity; not for earth only, but for heaven.
Every fresh sacrifice offered outside the veil was a new knock for admission, and a new cry, "How long, O Lord, how long." In patience the Old Testament saints waited on; assured that sooner or later the veil would rend or be swept away, and the way into the holiest be made manifest; the right of entrance to the mercy-seat seemed to the sinner for ever.
CHAPTER 3.
THE SYMBOLIC VEIL.
The veil of the tabernacle was hung between the holy place and the holiest of all. Inside of it were the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy-seat, and the cherubim; outside were the golden altar of incense, the golden candlestick, or lamp-stand, and the table of shewbread or "presence-bread," the twelve loaves that were placed before Jehovah.
Properly there were three veils or curtains for the tabernacle.
The outermost hung at the entrance of the tabernacle; and was always drawn aside, or might be so by any Israelite that wished to pass into the outer court, where the brazen altar and brazen laver were. That veil hindered no one, and concealed nothing. It was an ever-open door; at which any Israelite might come in with his sacrifice. It was at this door that
the priest met the comer and examined his sacrifice to see if it were without blemish; for no blemished offering could pass the threshold; and the bringer of a blemished sacrifice must go back unaccepted and unblest. The Priest rejected him and his victim. He must go and get another bullock, or else bear his own sin.[7]
The second veil hung at the entrance of the holy place. It allowed any one to look in; but it prohibited the entrance of all but Priests. "Now when these things were thus ordained (arranged or set up) the priests went always (were continually going) into the first tabernacle (what we usually call the second), accomplishing the service of God" (Heb 9:6). They fed at the royal table there; they kept the lamps burning; they put incense on the golden altar. But they could enter no farther. The way into the holiest was not yet opened; the time had not yet come when the three places should be made one; all veils removed; all exclusions cancelled; all sprinkled with one blood; open freely to each coming one: altar, laver, table, candlestick, incense-altar, ark, and mercy-seat no longer separated, but brought together as being but parts of one glorious whole; divided from each other for a season, for the sake of distinct teaching and for the exhibition of sacrificial truth in its different parts and aspects; but in the fulness of time brought together; as being but one perfect picture of the one perfect sacrifice, by means of which we have access to God and re-entrance into the Paradise which we had lost.
The third veil hung before the holy of holies: hiding, as it were, God from man and man from God, and intimating that the day of full meeting and fellowship had not yet come. It said to Israel, and it said to man (for all these things had a world-wide meaning), God is within; but you cannot enter now. The time is coming; but it is not yet.
In heathen temples there were veils hiding their holy places. But these pointed to no coming manifestation; no future unveiling of Him who was supposed to dwell within. These veils were but parts of the idolatry and darkness of the system; not
proclamations of truth or promises of light. It was not so in the tabernacle. The veil that hid the glory was a promise of the revelation of that glory. In pagan shrines it was a signal of distress and despair; man's declaration that there was no hope of light; that the unknown must always be the unknown; nay, that the unknown was also the unknowable; and that the unapproached was also the unapproachable. In Israel's shrine the veil was a thing of light, not of darkness; it was a covering, no doubt, but it was also a revelation. It told what God was; where God was, and how God could be approached.
That it was not a gate,--of iron or brass, of silver or of gold,--said much; that it was a veil of needlework, slight and moveable, said more. For it intimated that the hindrance in the way of the worshipper's nearer approach was slender and temporary. The nature of a tent intimated among other things its removeableness: "mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent" (Isa 38:12). The nature of a veil in a tent intimates still greater slightness and removeableness. It was a thing which could easily be drawn aside, nay, which was, at the needed season, to be taken away. It was no wall of obstruction, but simply of temporary separation and exclusion, to be done away with in due time.
But while it was slight it was very beautiful. It is thus described:-- "And thou shalt make a veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine-twined linen, of cunning work: with cherubims shall it be made: and thou shalt hang it upon four pillars of shittim wood, overlaid with gold: their hooks shall be of gold upon the four sockets of silver" (Exo 26:31,32). Of the veil made by Solomon for the temple on Moriah it is said, "He made the veil of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen, and wrought cherubims thereon" (2 Chron 3:14).
The temple-veil seems to have been thicker and of course larger every way, than that of the tabernacle. It is said to have been about twenty feet in height, and as much in width, strongly wrought and finely woven. It was never drawn, or at least only so much of it was moved aside once a-year as to admit the
High Priest, when he approached the mercy-seat with blood and incense. For ages it stretched across that awful entrance, a more immoveable barrier than brass or iron: no Priest, or Levite, or Israelite venturing within its folds. Torn down again and again in different centuries, by the Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman invader, it was often replaced, that it might hang there, to teach its wondrous lessons, till God's great purpose with it had been fulfilled.
To the Jew of old there must have seemed something mysterious about that veil. It was not hung up merely to conceal what was within, as if God grudged to man the full vision of His glory, or had no desire to be approached. Many things connected with its texture and place showed that this was not the case. The unspiritual Jew of course was very likely to misjudge its use and import; and the historian Josephus is a specimen of that class. He seems to have had not the most distant idea of its use.[8] But the Israelite who had discernment in the things of God would see something far higher and nobler than this, though he might not understand it fully in connection with Messiah. Still he would see in that veil something glorious; something which both attracted and repelled; something which hid and revealed; something which spoke of himself and of his Messiah; for he knew that every thing pertaining to that tabernacle, and specially these on which cherubim were wrought, had reference to Messiah the Deliver, the seed of the woman, the man with the bruised heel.
All the curtains of the tabernacle had more or less the same reference. For on all of them the same devices were wrought. "Thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine-twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them" (Exo 26:1, 36:8). The cherubimfigure was to be seen everywhere. That mysterious device which was first placed in Paradise, and which for ages had disappeared, was now reproduced in connection with the tabernacle. Since the garden of the Lord had been swept away (probably at the flood), the cherubim had not been seen; though doubtless
tradition had handed down the memory of their appearance, and to Israel they were not strangers. Moses is now commanded to restore them. From Noah to Moses the Church had been a wanderer, with no sanctuary, only an altar to worship at. Yet, doubtless, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew well about the cherubim; and when Moses was instructed to replace them he does not require to have their nature explained. They are now to be inwoven into the sanctuary,--that sanctuary which symbolised nothing less than Messiah Himself; teaching us that (whatever these cherubim might mean) the cherubim and Messiah were all "of one." The Church is represented in the tabernacle as one with Christ, "members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones." Israel was taught that "the Church in the wilderness" (Acts 7:38) was as truly the body of Christ as the Church at Pentecost.
But however vague might be the ideas of the old Jew regarding the veil, it could not but be viewed as very peculiar, something by itself; part of the tabernacle furniture no doubt, yet a singular and unique part of it; in texture, in position, and in use, quite peculiar: exquisite as a piece of workmanship,--every colour and thread of which it was composed being symbolic and vocal. But still it was the frailest part of the fabric,--a strange contrast, in after days when the temple was built, with the massive marble walls and cedar beams, with which it was surrounded. For the temple was in all respects magnificent,--even as a piece of architecture. Its enormous foundations were let in to the solid rock; its vast stones, each in itself a wall, rose tier above tier; its gates were of solid brass, so weighty, that one of them required twenty men to open and shut it. It thus presented a solid mass to view more like a part of the mountain than a mere building upon it.
But the veil was a thing which a child's hand could draw aside; and it was hung just where we should have expected a gate of brass or a wall of granite,-- at the entrance into the holiest of all,--to guard against the possibility of intrusion. Its frail texture in the midst of so much that was strong and massive, said that it was but a temporary barrier,--a
screen,--in due time to be removed. The worshipper in the outer court, as he looked towards it from the outer entrance of the holy place, would see something of its workmanship, and might perhaps get some glimpses of the glory within shining through its folds. He would learn this much, at least, that the way into the holiest was not fully opened; yet it was only stopped by a veil, no more. He would conclude within himself, that though shut out now he would one day be allowed to enter and worship at the mercy-seat, or at something better than that mercy-seat, at the heavenly throne, in the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man, when the High Priest of good things to come should arrive, and as his forerunner, lead him into the very presence of that Invisible Jehovah who was now by symbols showing how He was to be approached and worshipped.
The veil! It hid God from man; for till that should be done which would make "grace reign through righteousness" (Rom 5:21), man could not be allowed to see God face to face. It hid man from God; for till this "righteousness" was established by the substitution of the just for the unjust, God could not directly look upon man. It hid the glory of God from man; it hid the shame of man from God. It so veiled or shaded both the shame and the glory, that it was possible for God to be near man, and yet not to repel him; and it was possible for man to be near God and yet not to be consumed.
The veil! It was let down from above, it did not spring up from below. It originated in God, and not in man. It was not man hiding himself from God, but God hiding Himself from man, as His holiness required, until it should become a right for a holy God and unholy man to meet each other in peace and love.
And it was sprinkled with blood! For though the expression "before the veil" (Lev 4:6) does not necessarily mean that it was sprinkled on the veil, yet the likelihood is that this was done. "The seven times, (says a commentator on Leviticus), throughout all Scripture, intimates a complete and perfect action. The blood is to be thoroughly exhibited before the Lord; life openly exhibited as taken, to honour
the law that had been violated. It is not at this time taken within the veil; for that would require the priest to enter the holy of holies, a thing permitted only once a year. But it is taken very near the mercyseat; it is taken 'before the veil,' while the Lord that dwelt between the cherubim bent down to listen to the cry that came up from the sin-atoning blood. Was the blood sprinkled on the veil? Some say not; but only on the floor close to the veil. The floor of the holy place was dyed with blood; a threshold of blood was formed, over which the High Priest must pass into on the day of judgment, when he entered into the most holy, drawing aside the veil. It is blood that opens our way into the presence of God; it is the voice of atoning blood that prevails with Him who dwells within. Others, however, with more probability, think that the blood was sprinkled on the veil. It might intimate that atonement was yet to rend that veil; and as that beautiful veil represented our Saviour's holy humanity (Heb 10:20), oh, how expressive was the continual repetition of the 'blood-sprinkling' seven times. As often as the Priest offered a sin-offering, the veil was wet again with blood, which dropped on the floor. Is this Christ bathed in the blood of atonement? Yes, through that veil the veil was opened to us, through the flesh of Jesus, through the body that for us was drenched in the sweat of blood."[9]
We speak of the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat, and the blood-sprinkled floor, on which that mercy-seat stood; but let us not forget the blood-sprinkled pavement, the "new and living way" into the holiest, and the blood-sprinkled veil. For "almost all things under the law were purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission."
Nor let us forget Gethsemane, where "His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." At His circumcision, at Gethsemane, at the cross, we see the blood-sprinkled veil. And all this for us; that the blood which was thus required at His hands should not be required of us.
CHAPTER 4.
THE TRUE VEIL.
All man's thoughts regarding the true meaning of the 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."[10]
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 fulness 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 fulness 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 marvellously 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 fulness 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" (Matt 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.[11]
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,[12] 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 sympathise with us, or to be tempted like as we are. The nature of Christ's perfection fitted Him most fully for sympathising 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 of Sol 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 fulness of the Godhead bodily.[13]
CHAPTER 5.
THE RENDING OF THE VEIL.
The symbolic veil was rent: and at the same moment the true veil was also rent. It is this that we have now to consider.
The following are the words of the evangelist: "Behold the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom" (Matt 27:51). In considering them we must endeavour to realise the scene of which this is a part. The passage transports us to Jerusalem; it sets us down upon Moriah; it takes us into the old temple at the hour of evening sacrifice, when the sun, though far down the heavens, is still sending its rays right over turret and pinnacle, on to the grey slopes of Olivet, where thousands, gathered for the great Paschal Sacrifice, are wandering; it shows us the holy chambers with their varied furniture of marble and cedar and gold; it brings us into the midst of the ministering priests, all robed for service. Then suddenly, as through the opened sky, it lifts us up and carries us from the earthly into the heavenly places, from the mortal into the immortal Jerusalem, of which it is written by one who had gazed upon them both, "I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it."
For we must take the earthly and the heavenly together, as body and soul. The terrestrial sun and the sun of righteousness must mingle their radiance, and each unfold the other. The waters of the nether and the upper springs must flow together. The Church must be seen in Israel, and Israel in the Church; Christ in the altar, and the altar in Christ; Christ in the lamb, and the lamb in Christ; Christ in the mercy-seat, and the mercy-seat in Christ; Christ in the shekinah-glory, and the shekinah-glory in Him, who is the brightness of Jehovah's glory. We must not separate the shadow from the substance, the material from the spiritual, the visible form the invisible