IT is impossible to exaggerate the significance of the veil as characterizing an order and system which was God’s, up to the moment when He, who alone could do so, entirely set it aside. It is of great importance to see that God, who had set up and appointed that veil, rends it from the top to the bottom. The meaning of the veil was, that God could not, in consistency with His own character, then come out, and man could not go in; the meaning of the rent veil is that now God can righteously come out, and man can righteously go in. But let us see how all this is brought about.
It was even on the ground of the death of His own Son; the cross is the meritorious ground on which God can act in the fullest grace, through righteousness, towards sinners; yea, more, could establish for all who believe, an entrance within the veil into His own immediate presence, as well as lay the foundation in His death of a peace with God, which nothing could disturb. Think of what a blessed and significant change was this to all that had gone before. Man had, to the utmost of his power, perpetrated his worst, and consummated his sin. Jesus, the Son of God, hanging on the cross between two robbers, and dead, was the great witness of this. Man’s wicked hands had been stained with the blood of the Holy One and the Just, the only true and faithful witness of God upon the earth.
It seemed as if it were beyond all, the moment for man, instigated by Satan, to show himself in his true character as a hater and rejecter of God. All this came out plainly at the cross. Man’s wish was there gratified, and Satan’s plan was there carried out; and the Lord Jesus, the Father’s only and beloved Son, consigned to a death of both agony and ignominy on man’s part, is the solemn witness of it. But man could go no further in the prosecution of his guilt and hatred towards the Son of God. Death closed the door to anything else on man’s part, save, indeed, it be the manifested hatred of the Jews, as evidenced by the sealed stone and watch set upon the tomb of Jesus, along with the plotted lie and bribe of the priests. If this be excepted, man’s little power, creature power, could go no further; having put forth all its strength, death is its terminus. Now here it is where God begins to work, His own special work. He rent the veil which His own word had erected; the moment had arrived for God to display both Himself and His power. It is not without significance that it is three times related in the Scripture that the veil was rent. Mark it well, not removed, not rolled up, but rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and the result as well as meaning of it, is thus described in the words of Scripture, “A new and living way.”
This rent veil is the evidence of the termination, by God Himself, of the Jewish system, and that which synchronized with it, even the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the righteous ground of the opening of this “new and living way.” Now a new and living way, in contrast with a veil, which barred all approach to God previously, is the death-knell of all that false order of things now becoming so widespread and popular. It is impossible for any true believer in the authority of God’s own word, as it is written in Hebrews 9 and 10, to be either Romanist or Ritualist; the attempt to either continue or reconstitute that system which the veil characterized, is rebellion against the truth of God, a solemn denial of the great truth of Christianity, and a degrading of the souls of those who become the slaves of the “doctrines and commandments of men.”
There is another great fact in connection with Christ’s death, which is of deep moment, and to which Scripture bears distinct witness. When we speak of the Jewish system, with its characteristic veil, it must not be forgotten that under it man, as under law, was on his trial, and in responsibility before God. But this needs a little fuller and more detailed unfolding.
At the beginning God made man upright; that is, he was created innocent, having neither malice, nor corruption, nor lust. Man was also bound to obey, and this was put to the proof by his being forbidden to eat of one tree alone, which was in the midst of the garden. Further, observe that the fruit of this tree was not itself evil, but the eating of it was evil, because it had been forbidden. Now we are met with the solemn fact that responsible man, when tempted, falls. He listens to the suggestions of the enemy; receives into his mind distrust of God; becomes thereby separated from God in his heart and affections; sets up his own will, and lust, in pride; and hence now it is the distinguishing feature of man fallen to exhibit all these, ―self-will, lust, and pride.
The end of innocence had thus arrived, and God drove out the man, and barred his access to the tree of life, as well as the possibility of his ever returning to innocence again. It is then from this we commence the trial of man, extending over a period of about four thousand years. During the first part of this period the trial of government followed upon innocence, until the time came when the world was entirely given up to idolatry. Then it was that God called out one man, and in him a nation, and in due time God separated this nation to Himself, through the redemption out of Egypt.
This people, at the first, stood on the ground of pure grace before God, but were tested by the law under which they elected to place themselves. This law represented the claim of God as well as His authority; their accepting it as the term of their blessing, and the condition of their relationship with God, manifested their entire blindness of heart, as well as ignorance as to themselves. Here then man was tried and tested in a new way, and on a new ground, and this runs on during the history of Israel until we reach the period known as the carrying captive into Babylon. During all that time God pleaded by His messengers in long-suffering goodness with a guilty nation, who refused, notwithstanding, to hear His voice. Then it was He removed His throne and government from the midst of Israel, and transferred the supreme power to Gentiles, of which the kingdom of Babylon was the commencement. (See Daniel 2:37,3837Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. 38And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold. (Daniel 2:37‑38).) Now we have come to man on his trial in the Gentile, as he had been previously in the Jew; and it is well to note the order of government found here, ―even the despotic, ―the very form which men think the best, as affording them the power to carry out all that is good and wise. What is the result of this fresh trial of man? The history of Nebuchadnezzar is a full answer to this question, and the records of Scripture are full as to it. It is very evident that Gentile power is corrupt, ambitious, and violent, ―that it cannot stay at home, which the Word of God means when it describes them as ravening beasts.
But there was another trial of man, very different from all that preceded it, both in its nature and consequences. Under the previous testing’s man’s failure had been amply and fully demonstrated, and that, too, in the manifold patience of God, yet the state of his heart in regard to God and good had not been exposed. But when Christ came, God manifest in flesh, manifesting in Himself as man, and amongst men, such blessed patience, grace, gentleness, and goodness, men hated and rejected Him. “Now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.” This blessed manifestation of God in grace was, in very truth, the revelation of God, and it had its own blessed character in this, that it was in contrast with the government of man, as in God’s previous dealings with him under law, as the expression of the claim of God upon man.
This revelation of God in grace brought out the utter darkness and alienation of heart in which man was as regards God. The manifestation of goodness and grace, in perfection in Christ, was met by hatred, violence, and death on the part of man, as far as he was concerned. So far as it depended upon man, he drove from the earth God revealed in perfect goodness and love. The history of man, morally, is now closed, and for faith the death of our Lord Jesus Christ is the end of man in the flesh. The doctrine of Christianity declares that the question of man’s responsibility is fully and entirely disposed of. It is not that responsibility on the part of man is in any way denied; it is, on the contrary, fully recognized; but man is declared lost, and the blessed announcement of grace now is, that “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” In the death, then, of our Lord Jesus Christ, faith recognizes the termination of the history of man responsible before God and in His glorious resurrection from among the dead, faith sees the history of man according to God, beginning anew. Thus it is that man, in the Person of the Saviour triumphant, has been set in an entirely new place, alike worthy of the victory which He, the blessed One, alone has won, and of God, who was therein glorified. Of this, too, His glorious resurrection is the manifestation and display. Further, therein faith sees death left behind a conquered foe, and the grave spoiled of its victory. How wondrous the glories that meet in His triumph and exaltation! It is not necessary, nor would it be possible, in a brief statement like this, to develop all the consequences and results of this blessed work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Suffice it to say, that as His death was for faith, the end of the first man, so it was the finish of all that connected itself with him in that position.
May the Lord give you, reader, to enter into these great realities which now surround the second Man and last Adam, for therein stands forth the essential difference between Christianity and all that went before. Promises, prophecies of the One who was to come, no access to God, as witnessed by the veil, responsible man under government and testing, no object without, or power within, all belong to that which went before. But now, since the cross, the heavenly things have been revealed, and faith and love find their delights and joys in them. Man, in the Person of the Christ, is glorified in heaven. The veil is rent. The Holy Ghost has come down here, and dwells in the Christian, and in the Church. W. T. T.