The Portal to Paradise

I grew up on St. Simons Island, GA––a small barrier island off the coast of Southeast Georgia. I well remember the first time my mother drove my sister and me across the causeway to the island for the very first time when moving there. Coming onto the island from the mainland was like entering paradise from the barren wilderness outside the garden. For the ten years I lived there, a toll booth stood in the middle of the causeway. No one could come onto the island without paying the toll to pass through. You can imagine how surprised I was many years later to realize that they had removed the toll booth. Whenever I visit, I still think about that toll booth and how it stood between the mainland and the island.

There is a remarkable biblical-theological development in Scripture with regard to the curtain that stood between the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place in the old covenant tabernacle and temple. This curtain separated the people from God. The curtain symbolized that man’s sin had separated him from the infinitely holy God. Horatius Bonar captured the essence of the symbolism of this veil, when he wrote, 

“The veil hid God from man; for till that should be done which would make ‘grace reign through righteousness’ (Rom 5:21), man could not be allowed to see God face to face. It hid man from God; for till this ‘righteousness’ was established by the substitution of the just for the unjust, God could not directly look upon man. It hid the glory of God from man; it hid the shame of man from God. It so veiled or shaded both the shame and the glory, that it was possible for God to be near man, and yet not to repel him; and it was possible for man to be near God and yet not to be consumed.”1

The impenetrability of the veil was also symbolized with the angels that were woven into it. This should carry our minds back to the garden of Eden, where, after Adam rebelled and was exiled from the presence of God and the tree of life, the Lord placed two cherubim with flaming swords to prevent the way back to the garden. The angels woven into the veil were reminding the people of God that “the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing” (Heb. 9:8). 

The only one who could enter into the Most Holy Place was the priest. He could do so only once a year, bringing with him the blood of the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16; Heb. 9:7). He needed the blood to cover him and represent the people. The priest would pass behind that veil carrying the blood. Year after year, he would perform this act of service. This recurrent act reminded the people that their sin had not yet been dealt with and the way into the presence of God was not yet made known to them (Heb. 10:1).

According to the author of Hebrews, everything about old covenant Israel’s cultic practices was typical in nature. Every single part of the tabernacle, the priesthood, and the sacrificial system pointed forward to the great antitype of the Lord Jesus––to some aspect of his person and redeeming work. The author of Hebrews went to great lengths to explain how Jesus is the better priest who offers himself as the better sacrifice to enact the better promises of a better covenant. In the new covenant, Christ fulfills in himself all the demands of the old covenant law together with all its types and shadows. Bonar again noted, 

“Christ is seen in every part of the tabernacle. . .The whole fabric is Christ. Each separate part is Christ. The altar is Christ the sacrifice. The laver is Christ filled with the Spirit for us. The curtains speak of Him. The entrances all speak of Him. Candlestick, and table, and golden altar speak of Him. The Ark of the Covenant, the mercy-seat, the glory, all embody and reveal Him. Everything here says, ‘Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.'”2

Jonathan Edwards also helpfully suggested the way in which the veil was a type of Christ’s flesh. He wrote,

“Christ’s human nature was a temple; it was the antitype of the temple. And his flesh, or the infirmity and imperfection of his human nature, was the veil that hid the glory of God, or the divinity that dwelt in him, and was in his person. So that the veil of the temple, in the third place, typified the literal flesh of Christ, that hid and veiled his glory, which it ceased to do when his state of humiliation was at an end.

Christ himself, our great High Priest, entered into the holy of holies through the veil of his own flesh. That day that Christ died was the great day of atonement, typified by the day of atonement of old, when the high priest entered into the holy of holies. Christ, as God-man, could enter into heaven no other way than by rending this veil. Christ offered his sacrifice in the outward court, in this world, and then in the conclusion of it, rent the veil, that his blood might be sprinkled within the veil.”

Edwards further explained the redemptive-historical meaning of the veil, the ark of the covenant, and the mercy seat––insomuch as they work together to symbolize the deep things of Christ. He suggested:

“This was the veil that hindered our access to the throne of grace, or the mercy seat, in the holy of holies. That hiding of the mercy seat, and hindering of our access to the mercy seat, signified a twofold hindrance of access to God. . .The ark itself was hidden by the veil of the temple, and the book of the covenant was hid by the cover of the ark; i.e. they were as it were hidden under Christ’s flesh. The carnal typical ordinances of the Old Testament are in Scripture represented as Christ’s flesh (Rom. 2:1–4; Col. 2:14). The veil signified the flesh of Christ (Heb. 10:20), and so does the cover of the ark, or the ark considered as distinct from what was contained in it. The covenant of grace was, and the glorious things of the gospel were, contained in that book that was laid up in the ark; but it was as it were shut up in a cabinet, hid under types and dark dispensations.”3

One of the most fascinating types in the New Testament is the tearing of the veil in the temple when Christ was crucified. Immediately after Jesus cried out on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me,” Matthew notes that “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Matt. 27:51). This symbolic act occurred during the time of Passover. The Lamb of God has been slain, his sacrifice accepted, God’s wrath has been propitiated, and His justice satisfied. The rending of the veil from top to bottom showed that this was the singular act of God, revealing the new and living way that was open to His presence through the sacrificial death of His Son on the cross. 

There is, however, even more to the mystery of the rent veil. The author of Hebrews tells us that the antitype of the typical veil in the tabernacle and temple was the flesh of the Son of God. When the eternal Son took to himself a “true body and reasonable soul,” he veiled with his human nature his eternal divine glory. The Son is God (John 1:1; 8:58; Rom. 9:5). The deity of the Son was temporarily veiled by his humanity. When Jesus took Peter, James, and John up on top of the mountain where he was transfigured, the divine glory broke through the veil of the humanity of Christ for a moment (Matt. 17:2; Luke 9:29-32). The Apostle Paul explained this mystery when he wrote, “In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Col. 1:19) and “Great. . .is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). Bonar explained, 

“But the veil is ‘His flesh,’–His body, His humanity. . .As in the holy of holies the shekinah or symbol of Jehovah dwelt; so in the man Christ Jesus dwelt ‘all the fulness of the Godhead BODILY’ (Col 2:9). He was ‘the Word made flesh’ (John 1:14); ‘God manifest in flesh’ (1 Tim 3:16); ‘Immanuel,’ God with us; Jehovah in very deed dwelling on earth, inhabiting a temple made with hands; and that temple a human body such as ours. For God became man that He might dwell with man, and that man might dwell with Him. In Jesus of Nazareth Jehovah was manifested; so that he who saw Him saw the Father, and he who heard Him heard the Father, and he who knew Him knew the Father.”4

The Apostle John intimated this when he said at the opening of the fourth gospel, “The word became flesh and dwelt (lit. tabernacled) among us.” Isaac Watts so famously summarized the veil aspect to the human nature of Christ when he wrote that beloved line in “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing:” 

Veiled in flesh, the godhead see; Hail, the incarnate deity.

When the body of the Lord Jesus was nailed to the tree, the way into the holiest of was being secured through the sacrifice of Christ. The rending of the flesh of Jesus corresponded with the tearing of the veil in the temple as he died. The sacrifice being accepted by God, the flesh of Jesus offered on the cross secures the sinner’s access to the presence of God. Bonar drew together the fulfillment of the type of the veil and the spiritual meaning of its symbolism, when he observed, 

“The rent was. . .made by some invisible hand; and the exact division into two parts might well figure the separation of Christ’s soul and body, while each part remained connected with the temple, as both body and soul remained in union with the Godhead; as well as resemble the throwing open of the great folding door between earth and heaven, and the complete restoration of the fellowship between God and man.” 

This is all tied to the priestly work of Christ in offering himself by the eternal Spirit without spot to God. In this act, Jesus is rending the veil by becoming the priestly offering to God. Geerhardus Vos explained, “the dissolution of the flesh of Jesus is represented as the dedication of a new and living way. This dedicating is a priestly act, which was performed on the cross.” In having his flesh torn apart in judgment, Jesus was tasting death for his people in order to deal with the guilt and consequences of Adam’s sin. By the rending of the body of Jesus on the cross God now makes known His glory to His people in the Son. Vos again explained, “The veil has been rent, and through it an unobstructed view is obtained of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ.”5 The Puritan Robert Traill summarized this mystery, when he wrote, 

“Our divided and our slain Lord Jesus is the great covenant–mean between the Lord and us; and all that seek their peace with God and entrance to the heavenly kingdom, must pass, if I may so speak, through the parts of this divided and slain Son of God. Christ’s flesh is called the veil, because it hides his glory; it is a veil, because the passage to heaven lies through it; though the veil of the temple covered the holiest of all from the eyes of all the people, yet through it a passage was for the High Priest at the appointed time.”6

What an astonishing symbol of the grace of God in the gospel! The infinitely holy God, against whom we have committed seemingly innumerable transgressions, has made a way back to His presence through the rent veil of the flesh of Christ. The flesh of Jesus torn apart under the judgment of God on the cross is the portal back to paradise. What was symbolized by the flaming swords in the hands of the angels placed by God at the entrance of the garden of Eden has been realized in Christ. He passed through the flaming sword of God’s justice (Zech. 13:7; Matt. 26:31) and has made a way through himself for the people of God to eat again of the tree of life. The curtain has been removed by God indicating that we now have access by faith in the Son through one Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:18).  

1. An except from Horatius Bonar’s The Rent Veil.

2. Ibid.

3. Jonathan Edwards, Notes on Scripture, ed. Harry S. Stout and Stephen J. Stein, vol. 15, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (London; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 246.

4. Bonar, Ibid.

5. Geerhardus Vos, The Teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ed. Johannes G. Vos (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1956), 110.

6. An excerpt from Robert Traill’s The Steadfast Adherence to the Profession of Faith