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.

920. And cast it into the great wine-press of the anger of God, signifies the falsification of the Word as to all spiritual truth, and consequent damnation, because there is no spiritual good, which is charity. This is evident from the signification of "wine-press" as being the bringing forth of truth from good; for "clusters" and "grapes," which were put into the wine-press, signify spiritual good, and "wine" which is produced, signifies truth from that good (See above, n. 220, 376). As "the wine-press" signifies the bringing forth of truth from spiritual good, so in the contrary sense it signifies the bringing forth of falsity from evil. For in like manner as good brings forth truth, so evil opposite to good, brings forth falsity. "Wine-press" signifies here the falsification of the Word as to all spiritual truth, because it is called "the great wine-press of the anger of God," and "the anger of God" signifies man's contempt for truth and good and his rejection of it, and the full rejection of it is the falsification of the sense of the letter of the Word even to the destruction of spiritual truth, that is, of the Divine truth which is in heaven. That this falsification closes heaven may be seen n. 888. Moreover, those who are in evil (and all are in evil who are not in the good of charity) cannot do otherwise than bring forth falsities; for as good brings forth truths so evil brings forth falsities. "The great wine-press of the anger of God" signifies also damnation, because this is a consequence, and because the terms "anger of God" and "great wine-press" are used. That this is what a "wine-press" signifies will be confirmed from the Word in the next article.

[2] Here a few words shall be said about the bringing forth of truth from good, and also of falsity from evil, which is signified by "wine-press" in the spiritual sense. The origin and cause of such bringing forth is that all good is from love, and that which is loved gives delight; and as delight is grateful and pleasing, that which is of the love man thinks about with delight and also confirms. And since love with its delight constitutes the life of man, when man thinks from love and its delight he thinks from self and from his life. That this is so can be clearly seen from men after death, when they have become spirits; for then, when they think from self, they can think in no other way than from their love, since their whole life is their love. Since, therefore, good is from love and truth is from thought, it is clear how truth is brought forth from good.

[3] The same that has been said of good and truth can be said of the will and understanding; for as all good is from the love it is from the will, and as all truth from good is from the thought it is from the understanding; for the will loves, and the understanding thinks. The same that has been said of good and truth can be said of heat and light; for spiritual heat is the love that enkindles the will, and the spiritual light is the truth that enlightens the understanding. For all love, which is from the will, presents an effigy of itself in the light of the understanding, where it recognizes itself and wishes to see itself, because it loves itself; and this is why man thinks what he loves.

[4] The same that has been said of the bringing forth of truth from good can be said of the bringing forth of falsity from evil. For all evil is from the love, and therefore it loves falsity; and evil is from the will, and falsity is from the thought from evil. This has been said because "wine-press" signifies in the spiritual sense the bringing forth of truth from good, also the bringing forth of falsity from evil. "The great wine-press of the anger of God" signifies also the falsification of the word, because the falsification of the Word is the bringing forth of falsity from evil; for evil is what falsifies, since evil loves the idea of itself in the thought, and the thought, that it may persuade, wishes to find confirmation of the evil in the Word.