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.

1999. That 'Abram fell on his face' ¹ means adoration is clear without explanation. Falling on one's face' was the reverent way in which the Most Ancient Church, and as a consequence the ancients, expressed adoration. The reason they expressed it in this way was that 'the face' meant the inward parts, and 'falling on one's face' ¹ represented a state of humiliation of those inward parts; and from this it became in the Jewish representative Church an act of reverence. True adoration or humility of heart entails prostration before the Lord face-downwards on the ground as the natural action resulting from it. Indeed humiliation of heart entails the acknowledgement of oneself as being nothing but uncleanness, and at the same time the acknowledgement of the Lord's infinite mercy towards such. When these acknowledgements are fixed in the mind, the mind itself casts itself down towards hell and prostrates the body. Nor does it raise itself until raised up by the Lord, as happens in all true humiliation, accompanied by a perception that such raising up is of the Lord's mercy. Such was the humiliation of members of the Most Ancient Church. It is different however with adoration which does not flow from humiliation of heart, see 1153.

[2] It is well known from the Word, in the Gospels, that the Lord adored and prayed to Jehovah, His Father, and that He did so as though to Someone other than Himself, even though Jehovah was within Him. But the state that the Lord experienced at such times was the state of His humiliation, the nature of which has been discussed in Volume One, namely this, that at such times as these He was in the infirm human derived from the mother. But to the extent He cast this off and took on the Divine His state was different, which state is called the state of His glorification. In the first state He adored Jehovah as Someone other than Himself, even though He was within Him, for, as has been stated, His Internal was Jehovah. In the latter state however, that is to say, the state of glorification, He spoke to Jehovah as to Himself, since He was Jehovah Himself.

[3] The truth of all this however cannot be grasped unless one knows what the internal is and how the internal operates into the external, and furthermore how the internal and external are distinct and separate and yet joined together. The matter may be illustrated however by means of something similar, namely by means of the internal with man and of its influx and operation into the external with him. For the fact that man has an internal, an interior or rational, and an external, see what has appeared already in 1889, 1940. Man's internal is that which makes him human and distinguishes him from animals. It is by means of this internal that man lives on after death and for ever, and by means of it the Lord can raise him up among angels. It is the prior or primary form from which anyone becomes and is a human being, and it is by means of this internal that the Lord is united to man. The heaven itself that is nearest to the Lord consists of these human internals, but being above even the inmost angelic heaven these internals therefore belong to the Lord Himself. In this way the entire human race is directly present beneath the eyes of the Lord. Distance, a visible feature of this sublunary world, does not exist in heaven, still less above heaven - see what has been mentioned from experience in 1275, 1277.

[4] These inward aspects of men possess no life in themselves but are recipient forms of the Lord's life. To the extent then that anyone is under the influence of evil, both that of his own doing and that which is hereditary, he has been so to speak separated from this internal which is the Lord's and resides with the Lord, and so has been separated from the Lord. For although that human internal is joined to the person and cannot be separated from him, yet to the extent he moves away from the Lord he does in a way separate himself from it, see 1594. But such separation is not a complete severance from that human internal - for if it were, man would no longer be able to live after death; but it is a lack of harmony and agreement with it on the part of his capacities which are beneath it, that is, of his rational and external man. Insofar as disharmony and disagreement are present there is no conjunction, but insofar as they are absent man is joined to the Lord by means of the internal, which is achieved in the measure that he is moved by love and charity, for love and charity effect conjunction. Such is the situation with man.

[5] But the Lord's Internal was Jehovah Himself, since He was conceived from Jehovah, who cannot be divided or become the relative of another, like a son who has been conceived from a human father. For unlike the human, the Divine is not capable of being divided but is and remains one and the same. To this Internal the Lord united the Human Essence. Moreover because the Lord's Internal was Jehovah it was not, like man's internal, a recipient form of life, but life itself. Through that union His Human Essence as well became life itself. Hence the Lord's frequent declaration that He is Life, as in John,

As the Father has Life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have Life in Himself. John 5:26.

And elsewhere besides this in the same gospel, 1:4; 5:21; 6:33, 35, 48; 11:25. 'The Son' is used to mean the Lord's Human Essence. To the extent therefore that the Lord was in the human which He received by heredity from the mother, He appeared to be distinct and separate from Jehovah, and worshipped Jehovah as Someone other than Himself. But to the extent He cast off this human, the Lord was not distinct and separate from Jehovah but one with Him. The first state, as has been mentioned, was the state of the Lord's humiliation, but the second the state of His glorification.

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