The tabernacle and Christ

The Veil

In the tabernacle of Moses · Exodus 25 to 40 · The barrier removed

The veil was the heavy embroidered curtain that hung between the holy place and the most holy place, shutting off the presence of God from all but the high priest, and only once a year. When Jesus died, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the New Testament explains why: the veil was his flesh, and through his death a new and living way into God's presence has been opened for all who believe.

And thou shalt make a vail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen of cunning work: with cherubims shall it be made:Exodus 26:31 (KJV)

What the veil was

And thou shalt make a vail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen of cunning work: with cherubims shall it be made. It was a thick, richly woven curtain, embroidered with cherubim, the guardian angels of God's holiness, hung on four gold-covered pillars. Its purpose was to divide: And the vail shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy. Behind it, in the innermost room, stood the ark and the mercy seat, and there the glory of God dwelt.

The cherubim woven into the veil recalled the cherubim set at the gate of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life after Adam was cast out. The veil said the same thing in cloth: the way to the immediate presence of God is barred to sinners. Beautiful as it was, it was a shut door.

What it meant for Israel

The veil governed the whole rhythm of Israel's worship by what it forbade. The priests served daily in the holy place, but none of them passed the veil. Only the high priest went beyond it, and only on one day in the year, the Day of Atonement, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the errors of the people. Any other entrance meant death.

So the veil taught, more sternly than anything else in the tent, that access to God was not yet open. The book of Hebrews reads the arrangement exactly this way: the Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing. The glory was near, just beyond the curtain, and yet shut away. The veil was a standing sign that something greater was still needed before God and sinners could dwell freely together.

How it is fulfilled in Christ

This is among the most explicit types in all of Scripture, for the New Testament tells us both what happened and what it meant. At the moment Jesus died, Matthew records, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent. Torn from the top down, by no human hand, at the instant of his death, the veil that had shut off the presence of God was opened.

Hebrews then gives the meaning without leaving it to guess. Believers now have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. The veil was his flesh; when his body was broken on the cross, the way to God was opened. What the high priest could do only once a year, trembling and by blood, every believer may now do freely and always, drawing near with boldness because Christ has gone in before.

So the torn veil is the gospel in a single image. The barrier is down. The cherubim no longer guard a shut door. The invitation of Hebrews follows at once: Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. The tabernacle spent centuries teaching Israel that they could not yet come in; the cross announced, on the day the curtain tore, that now, in Christ, they may.

Torn from the top, by no human hand

Two details of the tearing carry the whole meaning. First, the veil was rent from the top to the bottom. No priest reached up with a knife to cut it; the tear began at the top, out of human reach, and came down. It was God who opened the way, not man who forced it. The access we now enjoy is not something we achieved by climbing up to God; it is something he flung open by coming down to us and giving his Son.

Second, it tore at the very moment Jesus died. The Gospels tie the two events together in the same breath: he cried with a loud voice and yielded up the ghost, and behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain. The death of Christ and the opening of the way are one event. The instant the sacrifice was complete, the barrier came down, because the barrier had always been standing until sin was finally answered. When he said, It is finished, the curtain agreed.

So the torn veil forbids two mistakes. It forbids us to think the way to God is still shut, that we must keep our distance and hope from afar, for the curtain is down and the invitation is to draw near with boldness. And it forbids us to think we opened the way ourselves, that our prayers or efforts tore it, for it was rent from above by the hand of God at the cost of his Son. The most solemn barrier in Israel's worship became, in a single moment, the most joyful open door in the world.

A hope anchored within the veil

The writer of Hebrews draws one more comfort from the opened way: it is not only a door but a settled certainty. Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, he writes, and which entereth into that within the veil; whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus. The believer's hope is anchored not in himself but in a place, the innermost sanctuary, and in a person already there. Christ has gone within the veil ahead of us and holds the line fast.

This changes how a Christian lives with fear and failure. The way to God does not open and close with our moods or our stumbles; it was opened once, from the top, by the death of Christ, and it stays open because he stays within. We do not earn our welcome afresh each morning and lose it again each night. The veil is torn, the anchor holds, and the invitation stands: having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near, and keep drawing near, all our days.

This is explicit New Testament teaching. Matthew 27:51 records the veil torn at the moment of Jesus' death, and Hebrews 10:19-20 states directly that the new and living way into God's presence is through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. The fulfillment is named in Scripture itself.

Related: The most holy place · The mercy seat · Get the app · The whole tabernacle