When Jesus died on the cross, there was an earthquake. Rocks were split. The centurion and his soldiers who had carried out the crucifixion orders were afraid.

In the heart of the temple, in the "holy of holies", in the very heart of Jerusalem, the sacred veil tore, from top to bottom.

The veil, "rent in twain"...

The veils in the tabernacle and later in the temple were important. They're described in great detail in Exodus and in 1 Kings. In Arcana Coelestia 2576, it says that, "Rational truths are a kind of veil or clothing to spiritual truths.... The veil represented the nearest and inmost appearances of rational good and truth....

And now, as Jesus dies on the cross, the veil tears. What does this mean?

Here's how Swedenborg describes the symbolism of this:

"...that once all appearances had been dispelled, the Lord entered into the Divine Itself, and at the same time He opened a means of access to the Divine Itself through His Human that had been made Divine." (Arcana Coelestia 2576)

Think about four watershed spiritual events:

1) The creation of the physical universe. (Current best guess: 13.8 billion years ago). Genesis 1:1-10

2) The beginning of life. (On earth, between 3.5 and 4.5 billion years ago.) Genesis 1:11-25

3) The beginning of spiritually conscious human beings. (Reasonable guess: 100,000 years ago). Genesis 1:26-31

4) The incarnation and resurrection of the Lord God Jesus Christ (2000 years ago).

God's love and wisdom have been flowing into the universe for a long time. Where you might expect entropy, instead we see a universe that seems to favor life and intelligence. Think what a fulfilling moment it must have been when God could tell that human minds were now responding to Him, after all that outpouring.

But the free response-ability has tragedy baked in, because we can also choose not to respond, and to go the opposite way.

As we humans grew more "sophisticated", God used new channels to reach us, notably prophets and spiritual leaders, and later the written word. And in those channels, from the earliest times, there are already prophecies that the Lord would one day come into the world in human form.

Why did He need to do that? He must have foreseen that people would need to have that human level of connection, in order for enough good and truth to exist for us to make the decisions that open us to salvation.

Let's go back to Swedenborg's description:

"... once all appearances had been dispelled the Lord entered into the Divine Itself..."

Throughout the Lord's life on earth, there was the appearance that he was a man, like us. He had a human body. He could be tired and hungry. He could be tempted (though unlike us, he always won). In his spiritual life, there were times when he felt keenly the appearance of his human separate from his Divine essence. At other times, that appearance thinned, and he felt his divinity more powerfully. As he grew up, and was baptized, and began his ministry, he must have been growing more and more fully aware of what was going on inside him -- the glorification of the human part of him. With the death of his body on the cross, the bodily human-ness was no longer in the way. That appearance was dispelled. A new connection was fully forged between the Divine and the human.

And then, there's the second part of Swedenborg's statement:

"at the same time He opened a means of access to the Divine Itself through His Human that had been made Divine."

The veil was torn. The old religion, which had placed ritual above real good, and where God was invisible, separated from human knowledge by a veil -- was torn. New light could reach people, through the new teachings of the Lord. We could respond to a God who, in His Divine Human, we now could understand and approach and love more deeply.

10598. Exodus 34

1. And Jehovah said to Moses, Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke.

2. And be ready by the morning; and you shall come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and you shall stand with Me there on the top of the mountain.

3. And no one shall come up with you, and also no one shall be seen on all the mountain; also no flock or herd shall feed before this mountain.

4. And he hewed two tablets of stone like the first ones; and Moses rose early in the morning, and went up to Mount Sinai, as Jehovah had commanded him, and took the two tablets of stone in his hand.

5. And Jehovah descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah.

6. And Jehovah passed through above his face, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah, God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering with regard to anger ¹ , and great in goodness and truth,

7. Keeping goodness for thousands, bearing iniquity and transgression and sin; and He does not at all absolve ² , visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the sons and on the sons of sons, on the third and on the fourth [generations].

8. And Moses made haste and bowed to the earth, and adored.

9. And he said, If now I have found grace in Your eyes, O Lord, let [my] Lord, I beg You, go in our midst, for they are a stiff-necked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin ³ , and make us Your inheritance.

10. And He said, Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels which have not been created in all the earth nor in all nations; and all the people in whose midst you are will see the work of Jehovah, because this is a marvel which I am doing with you.

11. Observe that which I command you this day. Behold, I am driving out from [before] your face the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

12. Take care, lest by chance you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land onto which you come, lest by chance it become a snare in your midst.

13. Therefore you shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and tear down their groves.

14. Therefore you shall not bow down to any other god, for Jehovah the Jealous One is His name, God the Jealous One is He.

15. Lest by chance you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go whoring after their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and they call you and you eat of their sacrifice,

16. And you take their daughters for your sons, and their daughters go whoring after their gods, and they cause your sons to go whoring after their gods.

17. You shall not make gods of cast metal for yourself.

18. You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread. Seven days you shall eat the unleavened bread that I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib, because in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt.

19. All that opens the womb ⁴ is Mine, and of all your cattle you are to give the male, whatever opens [the womb] among oxen and small cattle ⁵ ,

20. And whatever opens [the womb] among asses ⁶ you shall redeem with one of the small cattle; and if you will not redeem it you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem. And My face shall not be seen empty-handed ⁷ .

21. Six days you shall work, and on the seventh day you shall rest; in ploughing and in harvesting you shall rest ⁸ .

22. And you shall keep the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of the wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the end ⁹ of the year.

23. Three times in the year all your males shall be seen at the face of the Lord, Jehovah, the God of Israel.

24. For I will drive out the nations from [before] your face and cause your borders to be enlarged; and no one will covet your land when you go up to see the face of ¹⁰ Jehovah your God three times in the year.

25. You shall not offer ¹¹ the blood of My sacrifice with anything made from yeast; and the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover shall not remain through the night until morning.

26. The firstfruits of the first things of your ground you are to bring to the house of Jehovah your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk.

27. And Jehovah said to Moses, Write these words; for in accordance with ¹² these words I make a covenant with you and with Israel.

28. And he was there with Jehovah forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread and he did not drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten words.

29. And so it was, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses' hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face gleamed while he talked to Him.

30. And Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, and behold, the skin of his face gleamed; and they were afraid to approach him.

31. And Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the princes in the assembly turned back to him, and Moses talked to them.

32. And afterwards all the children of Israel approached, and he commanded them all the things that Jehovah had told him on Mount Sinai.

33. And Moses finished talking to them, and he put a veil over his face.

34. And whenever Moses went in before Jehovah to talk to Him he took the veil off until he was going to come out; and he came out and told the children of Israel what had been commanded.

35. And the children of Israel saw Moses' face, that the skin of Moses' face was gleaming, and Moses drew the veil back over his face, until he went in to talk to Him.

CONTENTS

The subject in the internal sense of this chapter is the Church to be established among the Israelite nation. But since the character of that nation was such that they were incapable of receiving what was Divine from an interior level they were accepted in order that what was representative of a Church might exist among them, though not an actual Church. This matter is dealt with in verses 1-9.

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