"And thou shalt make a veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen of cunning work: with cherubim shall it be made. And thou shalt hang it upon four pillars of shittim wood overlaid with gold: their hooks shall be of gold, upon the four sockets of silver. And thou shalt hang up the veil under the taches, that thou mayest bring in thither within the veil the ark of the testimony: and the veil shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy." Exod. 26:31-33.
These are very precise directions about the veil; its substance, its colors, its place, and its use; all are described, leaving nothing to be supplied by the wit of Aholiab, the device of Bezaleel, or the wisdom of Moses. As God instructed Moses, so Solomon, four hundred years afterward, made a veil for the house which he built, of blue, and purple, and crimson, and fine linen, and put cherubim on it (2 Chron. 3:14). To divide between the holy place and the most holy was one great use of it; but also, while it hung there in its pristine completeness, it marked the limit of approach for the sons of Aaron to the presence chamber of the Lord God of Hosts. Before that veil in the sanctuary, and up to it, each priest, when in the holy place, could go; but behind it none could venture except the High Priest, once every year on the day of atonement. Within it was that chamber where, after the death of Moses, unbroken silence reigned except when the High Priest passed behind the veil. While Moses lived, at times, as we learn from Numb. 7:89, the silence which characterized that chamber was broken by the oral communications to the mediator from the Lord Jehovah. When he died, these communications stopped and, though the footsteps of the officiating priests accomplishing the service appointed them must have resounded daily through the holy place, no sound from within that curtain broke on the ears of those without. Yet God's throne upon earth was within that veil. He dwelt between the cherubim, and the bright cloud of glory-the Shechaniah-showed His presence in the sanctuary (Lev. 16:2). How solemn that stillness must have been to the priests as they went about in the holy place! They knew the character of the chamber within, but heard no sound of life coming from it, though the living Lord Himself made His earthly throne the mercy seat. He dwelt in thick darkness and in an atmosphere which was not to be disturbed by the presence of those who caused din and discord without; for when Aaron entered, he entered only as the type of the High Priest of the heavenly sanctuary, the Lord Jesus Christ.
God guarded the entrance into the holiest very jealously. Redeemed by blood, as the children of Israel were, they never could get beyond the brazen altar in the court of the tabernacle. Although the sons of Aaron had been consecrated, in accordance with a ritual of divine appointment, they could never get behind the veil within the holiest of all; and Aaron, though privileged by virtue of his office to enter that innermost sanctuary, could only pass within by blood, having first taken in a censer filled with sweet incense, but lighted with live coals from the altar that was before the Lord (Lev. 16:12), that the cloud of incense might cover the mercy seat, from which shone out in brightness the light of the holiest.
This condition of things continued for hundreds of years; that is, a nation in relationship with God, owned by Him as His people, yet never allowed access into His immediate presence; for the veil, stretched across the full width of the sanctuary, proclaimed that there was a spot on earth on which even the feet of God's priests could not tread. The message conveyed from God to man in this way was very clear. The way into the holiest had not been made manifest. The typical meaning of the veil itself, and the typical teaching as to its colors, were subjects as yet unrevealed. That a way would one day be opened, could be learned from Aaron's periodical entrance on the great day of atonement; but how that way would be opened out, and when, remained an insoluble mystery f or all those centuries.
At last the day and the hour arrived when that mystery was to receive its solution; and as by divine teaching Israel had understood that no child of Adam could remain in God's immediate presence, so by a divine act on the part of Him who directed the erection of the veil, the way and the ground of access to Him were disclosed in a moment of time.
But God's thoughts are not like our thoughts, nor His ways like our ways. That which in accordance with all human thought would have sealed man's doom forever, and taken away all hope of being before God without the fire of His judgment descending on him-that is, the death of God's Son on the cross-was the ground on which He could righteously act in the fullest grace to sinners, and permit the soul to enter with boldness into His very presence, and to be at rest before the throne. All that men could do to express their hatred of God and of all that savored of God, they had done. Jesus hanging on the cross, and there at that moment dead, showed what man must be. Man's hands were stained with the blood, not merely of a righteous man (for that was nothing new in this world's history), but of the Holy One, the first and the only, in the fullest sense, faithful and true witness for God upon earth. "Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom." Matt. 27:50, 51. Never before had men had such an opportunity for showing themselves to be unworthy of favor from God. For they had openly rejected Him who went about doing good (Acts 10:38), and though no charges worthy of death could be proved against Him, they had not paused for one hour in their restless activity till their wish had been gratified. The plans of Satan were carried out in the shameful and agonizing death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.
They could not do more. All that they could do against Him personally, they had done; but death, to which they had delivered Him, barred all further pursuit of the object of their hatred, and demonstrated that the outward actors in that scene were but creatures of very limited capacity. They could judge Him to be worthy of death; they could urge the governor, as permitted by God, to wield the sword of judgment against the Lord; but death, to which they delivered Him, shut them out from further ill-treatment of Him. Their power as men was limited, though they might, as they did, put forth all their strength.
But when they had done all that they could, having put out of the world by death the Prince of Life Himself, God began to work to manifest what He is and what He could do. He rent the veil-a fact told in a very few words-an act done in a moment of time, but an act of great and abiding importance; and, as such, repeated three times in the Word. Matthew, Mark, and Luke narrate it-the first two in its historic order in relation to the other events of that day; the last in a moral order, in accordance with the plan often to be traced in the Gospel which bears his name, bracketing together, as it were, supernatural events of the crucifixion, the great darkness over the land, and the rending of the veil in its midst. At the ninth hour, the hour for prayer, the Lord died; and at the same time the veil was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. God had commanded through all the changes of the tabernacle and the temple, that the veil should divide the holy place from the most holy. He had screened the ark and the mercy seat from the gaze of the priests, as morning and evening they burnt incense on the golden altar before it. God, by His own act, without the intervention of a single human creature, rent the veil-a testimony to the opening up of a new and living way into His presence. This divine act was one of immense significance. It spoke of a sacrifice offered which was perfectly acceptable to God. It told of the character and purpose of the death of God's Son on the cross, who gave Himself to die as the sin offering and to make atonement for sinners. It bore witness, likewise, that God could not allow men to enter into His presence, while He maintained at its full height, the standard of His
holiness.