The Veil was Torn in Two
By New Christian Bible Study Staff
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.
Genesis 1
1
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5
And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first Day.
6
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
9
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
11
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
12
And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
13
And the evening and the morning were the third day.
14
And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15
And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18
And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
20
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21
And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
22
And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23
And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25
And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
29
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30
And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
31
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
