The tearing of the temple veil has long has been a source of joy for me.
It’s the veil that tore from top to bottom on Good Friday.
Breathtaking news–for all of us.
Women and men can now face God without anything in between.
What was the temple veil?
The original veil ordered by God was not in a temple.
It was in the desert Tabernacle.
Made of cloth and moveable, the Tabernacle was where the Levitical priests offered sacrifices to God.
(Wikimedia Commons)
There, under God’s directions to Moses, the Levitical priests set the Ark of the Covenant into an area called “the Holy of Holies” or “the Most Holy Place.”
The veil separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Tabernacle.
It hid a holy God, who dwelt above the mercy seat on the ark of the covenant, from sinful people on the outside.”
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Sacrifices went on every day before the Tabernacle, but no one could enter the Holy of Holies except the High Priest once a year on the Day of Atonement. (See Leviticus 16).
But this was the Temple Veil
When Solomon built his temple, he followed the same plan as the Tabernacle–only he built a building.
Ark of the Covenant by James Tissot
(Wikimedia Commons)
He used a thick curtain, called the temple veil, to separate that same Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple.
Sacrifices went on, just as at the Tabernacle, only in an elaborate stone building.
Solomon spared no expense in building the house of God, using enormous amounts of gold and Lebanese cedarwood.
It sat on the highest point in Jerusalem and its gleaming white walls could be seen for miles.
With the Ark of the Covenant in place, God settled in.
Unfortunately, He didn’t stay.
Owing to the Israelite’s apostasy as described in Ezekiel 10:18, God departed the temple.
The Babylonians destroyed that temple circa 586 BC.
Herod’s Temple
But in Jesus’ day, Herod’s Temple, the second temple, stood on the Temple Mount. Not as glorious as Solomon’s, but still a magnificent building.
Scholars debate the thickness of the veil in Herod’s Temple–some believe it was more like a carpet, the width of a man’s hand.
It must have been thick–no one would have been able to see inside the most Holy Place.
We know it was beautiful.
At Easter dinner, my family got into a discussion about the temple, the Holy of Holies, and the veil.
“The problem was,” one family member said, “there wasn’t anything in the Holy of Holies. God had never come back.”
The High Priest annually went through the veil to offer a sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, otherwise, the Holy of Holies sat empty.
(Wikimedia Commons, Aierly)
God hadn’t returned, despite their many prayers.
Before that temple veil, however, was the altar of incense. That’s where John the Baptist’s father Zacharias, a priest, made an offering when an angel arrived to bring him good news.
Only three priests a day were allowed into that section, and only one priest, alone, could offer the incense on an altar before the temple veil.
But, as my relative observed,
“The tragedy was they burnt incense every day as their prayers rising up to God. They were begging him to return to the temple–for hundreds of years.
“And when Jesus did come into the temple, first as a baby, then as a twelve-year-old to confound the priests, they didn’t recognize him.
“The very people who had been asking God to return, rejected Him when He did.”
A temple veil description
First-century Jewish historian Josephus described the Temple veil this way:
“The Temple had…golden doors of fifty-five cubits altitude and sixteen in breadth; but before these doors there was a veil of equal largeness with the doors.
It was a Babylonian curtain, embroidered with blue, and fine linen, and scarlet, and purple, and of a contexture that was truly wonderful.
Nor was this mixture of colors without its mystical interpretation, but was a kind of image of the universe; for by the scarlet there seemed to be enigmatically signified fire, by the fine flax the earth, by the blue the air, and by the purple the sea….
This curtain had also embroidered upon it all that was mystical in the heavens, excepting that of the twelve signs of the Zodiac, representing living creatures.”
Josephus.org
What happened on Good Friday?
The Gospel of Mark tells us that sometime after the ninth hour (about 3 o’clock in the afternoon),
Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.
And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.”
Mark 15:37-38
and College Press Publishing.
I don’t know where the Chief Priest was on that day, but imagine his horror when he learned the Temple Veil separating God from the rest of us was torn asunder.
And note the tear direction: from top to bottom.
The temple’s height was 60 feet.
Who do you think?
But what does it really mean?
Jesus was the lamb of God, the pascal lamb (it was Passover), the lamb who was slain for all.
He took all the sins of the world upon Himself when he willingly went to the cross that Friday.
As Charles Spurgeon explained many years ago (from Hebrews 6:19-20):
The rending of the veil chiefly meant that the way into the holiest, which was not before made manifest, was now laid open to all believers.
Once in the year the high priest solemnly lifted a corner of this veil with fear and trembling, and with blood and holy incense he passed into the immediate presence of Jehovah; but the tearing of the veil laid open the secret place.
The rent from top to bottom gives ample space for all to enter who are called of God’s grace, to approach the throne, and to commune with the Eternal One.
The Spurgeon Library, “The Rent Veil.”
The excitement of the Temple Veil torn in two, from top to bottom, in a way no mere mortal could do, means I can come to God and know Him.
We don’t need a priest to translate or serve as our go-between.
Jesus accomplished that task.
Jesus, the greatest High Priest, died on my behalf–and yours, too.
A blessed redemption to all.
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Great minds think alike…Barb did a presentation on the historical aspects of the Temple Veil for the Good Friday service at her church. I helped a bit with the research, and one interesting thing I found was that with a given unit weight of woven linen (about 37 lbs per cubic foot), and the dimensions given by Josephus and in the Mishnah (60 ft tall, 30 ft wide, and 4 in thick), the description of the veil as being handled by 300 priests was about right; each would have had to handle roughly 60-70 lbs, depending on the density of the weave.
Oh, right. the sonnet. Nearly forgot. Malignancies in the the bones now. A bit distracting.
Hope there’s not too much presumption in the poem. There’s a lot to consider, and things are kinda bad.
Somewhat like the Temple Veil,
my fabric’s torn in two,
and it’s making my heart quail
that I am seeing through
from temporal to what’s beyond,
from body into soul,
from Palm Sunday’s happy fronds
to transcendent now made whole.
To take the cup was not my choice,
but willingly, I drink,
for without dying there’s no voice;
no pain, no need to think
’bout glory of the paradigm shift
when the curtain of my life was ripped.
Amen, Andrew, and of course Barb would be wise on the subject! Brava. I hunted for the veil measurements as well, and we’ll go with Barb’s and Josephus’, though I did stumble into some controversy.
Most shocking to me was the realization the Ark of the Covent, long lost, wasn’t in the Holy of Holies like I thought. God had left the temple and when He returned, He wasn’t recognized.
So very sad, and yet what a blessing for those of us who DO know Him.
Thanks, Michelle, for the reminder of the torn veil—its miracle and it’s significance.
And thank you to Andrew for the very moving sonnet.