WHAT THE CROSS MEANT TO THE TEMPLE: DEMOLITION & ADMISSION ---

Mark 15:37-38

Someone has said you can see a large field through a small hole in a fence. These two verses in Mark provide a small hole through which we can see a great deal that will help us understand what the cross meant to the Temple, God’s Old Testament house of worship.

“And Jesus cried with aloud voice, and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top of the bottom.”

Jesus did not die because His bodily organ failed. He died when He surrendered His spirit to God the Father. I have been in the presence of people when they died and most of them struggle for a last breath. No so with Jesus for He dismissed His spirit. Jesus has said before, “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again,” John 10:17-18.

In all of the Old Testament there was only two houses of witness, the only houses of worship God had commissioned. There was first a portable house, the Tabernacle, overseen by Moses. The other was a permanent house, the Temple, financed by King David and built by King Solomon.

While there was only the Tabernacle, there were actually three Temples. The original Temple built by Solomon n 957 BC was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 AD. A second Temple was begun by Zerubbabel in 538 BC and dedicated in 515 BC. King Herod, in order to gain popularity with the Jews, began a forty-six year (John 2:20) refurbishing and expansion of the Temple in 20 BC. That Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Only part of the Western Wall of the Temple remains standing 2,000 years later. An Islamic shrine, the Dome of the Rock, has stood on the temple site since the 7th century AD.

The heart of worship for God’s ancient people was the Temple. It was the place. “There was no place like that place any other place so it was the place!” While the Jews had local synagogues in their towns where people met for informal instruction, there was only one Temple and that Temple was in Israel’s capital, Jerusalem. It was the heart of Jewish life and the heart of Jerusalem itself.

Marcus L. Loane, says, “Babylonian, Greece, and Rome had all in turn sacked and desecrated the courts of the temple. But the temple had been rebuilt; the veil had been replaced; and the symbolism had been restored. It was still in its place on the day of the cross, and who would have thought that it could have the remotest connection with the Crucified Nazarene,” The Place Called Calvary, Zondervan, p. 147.

The history of the veil. The Temple mount which included courtyards and the building was the size of twenty (2) football fields. The Temple itself was divided into two rooms. The outer room, called the Holy Place, was divided by a huge, beautiful fabric wall called the veil. It was suspended by hooks from four pillars covered with gold. It measured sixty(60) feet high by thirty (30) feet wide, worked in seventy-two (72) squares, and was reputed to be as thick as the palm of a man’s hand. It was so heavy it the priests claimed it took three hundred men to handle it. Joseph, the Jewish historian of the first century, reported that the veil of the temple was renewed every year, and that horses tied to each side could not pull it apart. Cherubim were embroidered on it, to symbolize the immediate presence of God.

For New Testament believers in Messiah, our Savior and Lord, our symbol is the cross. But for those Old Testament believers their symbol was a curtain.

A huge curtain hung as a barrier into God’s presence.

1. The Veil was Required.

Why was there a curtain hanging in the temple in the first place? Why was it there? What was its purpose? What was the message? There were at least two very clear statements.

God rebuked the sinfulness of man. Did any man think he had the right to approach God? Did any man think He had the right to fellowship with God? This veil spoke a loud and clear message, “Stay Out! No Entry!” Isaiah 59:2 declared, “Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, that He will not hear.”

God required the sacrifice of blood. The veil was not always closed. Once a year it was pushed open to allow one man, the High Priest, to enter—although even he dared not go alone as he was. He went bearing a blood atonement. It happened once a year on the great Day of Atonement. The sins of the nations had been confessed over the heads of two animals, the hands of the High Priest had been laid upon them in identification and confession. Then the one goat was slain and with its blood the High Priest entered through the veil, sprinkling the blood on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. The tables of God’s law were inside the Ark, reminding them again that they had been broken.

2. The Veil was Rent.

“And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top of the bottom,” Mark 15:38.

The veil was torn in two. As Jesus hung on the cross that afternoon, this thick curtain was suddenly ripped apart. It wasn’t just partially torn–the word used is “schizo” from which we get our word “schism,” indicating the curtain was ripped completely into two parts., “in twain” as the gospel plainly says.

The divine hand by which the veil was torn. How as the veil rent? From which direction? From top to bottom. This means the hand of God did it. No human hand could have reached that high. No human hand could have torn that huge curtain in two. So, this was a miraculous, supernatural event.

It was as though an unseen hand severed it. Torn from top to bottom, not bottom to top. Some have suggested that it was the earthquake that tore the veil, but if so, why did it not also demolish the building as well? Nothing else was recorded to have been disturbed. And the veil was rent by a single action. It was not as though it fell in tatters, nor was it torn to shreds. It was rent in twain, split in two, without human interference, by a stroke from heaven.

A professor once said to his class of this passage, “Gentlemen, here we have intermingled historic fact and poetic fancy,” stating that the cry of Jesus was the historic fact and the curtain torn was poetic fancy. A student stood up, got his books and proceeded to leave. “Why are you leaving?’ asked the professor. “Sir, you have just kicked to pieces something I hold inexpressibly dear.”

God was doing something marvelous, something mighty, something miraculous.

The declared hour at which the veil was torn. Look at God’s precise timing. The three hours of darkness, from noon until three in the afternoon, ended when God’s Son died on the cross. Jesus had made all of His seven statements from His cross. And at the very hour Jesus died the veil was torn by God. And what was the hour? It was “the ninth hour.” This was the time of the beginning of the evening sacrifices and the priests were in the Holy Place, in front of the veil, actually engaged in their duties. The priest would have been trimming the lamps and seeing to the incense altar. God picked His moment to declare an end to the sacrificial system and the Levitic priesthood. The priesthood which had held center state in Jewish life had come to an end!

3. The Veil was Replaced.

The rent curtain has been long gone, and in its place there is the risen Christ. Turn to Hebrews 10:19-22. “Having therefore, brethren, 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: And having an high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water,” Hebrews 10:19-22.

The entrance through which we must pass. We come to God through Christ, and through Him alone. This is the Christ who is called “the friend of sinners,” the Christ who said, “him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out,” John 6:37.

The writer of Hebrews sees so much in Christ. Look back to Hebrews 9:22-28. “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood: and without shedding of blood is no remission. It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true: but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: Not yet that He should offering Himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; For them must He often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation.”

· No more physical or spiritual barriers….Jesus is the torn and rent veil. The temple had all kinds of barriers. If you were not a Jew, you could only have access to the court of the Gentiles. If you were a Jewish woman, you could only enjoy the temple from the court of the women. Only Jewish men could go beyond the court of the women, but then they were met with a barrier. Only Jewish priests could go beyond the outer curtain into the holy place of the temple as they carried out their appointed holy service maintaining the lamp, the table of showbread and the table of incense. Only the Jewish High Priest was allowed to go behind the Veil into the Holy of Holies, and that only on the Day of Atonement, and only with the offering of blood on the mercy seat.

· No more animal sacrifices….Jesus is the sacrifice that atones. The Jewish priests had slain thousands of bulls and lambs in the Temple area. The temple was built on Mt. Moriah, where centuries before Abraham prepared to kill his only son Isaac. Instead, God provided a ram as a substitute. On this very mountain, a virtual river of blood had flown down the slopes to seek forgiveness of sins. Jesus died as the Lamb of God so there would be no need for anymore animal sacrifices. Those sacrifices were reminders until “The Sacrifice” of all sacrifices that would come a take away sins forever.

· No more human mediators...Jesus is the High Priest on enters within the veil. The average Jewish person could never enter the Holy of Holies. They needed a priest to enter in for them. But when the curtain was torn God was telling us we don’t need anyone as a mediator between us except for the Lord Jesus Christ. The curtain was torn open so we can approach God on our own. You don’t need to confess your sins to anyone except Jesus. He is our high priest, and through Him we have access to the Creator of the Universe. The Bible says, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5) “Let us come boldly to the throne of grace.” (Hebrews 4:16)

Jesus Christ is all that God demands and He is all that man requires.

“It was like God’s might ‘Amen’ to the finished nature of the sacrifice and atonement wrought by the death of His Son once and for all on the cross,” Marcus L. Loane, p. 146.

The cross which leads me to the curtain leads me to Christ—and Christ will lead me to God! The veil which said, “Stay out” was replaced by Christ was says, “Come in!”

For fifteen hundred years there had been a barrier to God’s presence. Now there was a gateway! Every sinner who turns is now invited to enter the Holiest of All by virtue of the blood of Jesus!

The presence in which we may live. “Having therefore, brethren, 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,” Hebrews 10:19-20. We are not to just visit this place. This is where we are meant to live. It was sin that drove man out of God’s presence. Now it is the death of Christ that brings us back.

We are not only free to approach the veil, we are now to abide within the veil.

God was hanging two signs on the temple.

· On one hand, God was hanging a “closed” sign. They were going out of business. The “demolition” was just a matter of time. 70 A.D., to be precise.

· On the other hand, God was hanging an “open” sign on the temple. God wanted everyone to see what He had done through His Son. Now there is “admission” into the very presence of God through Jesus Christ.

What effect did this event have? What it done and over in a few minutes without any lasting results? Turn to Acts 6:7 and see for yourself. “And a great company of the priest were obedient to the faith.”

In the fall of 2009 my wife and I were privileged to visit Scotland’s premier castle, Edinburgh. It was home to Mary Queen of Scots. The imposing castle is situation on a huge rock hill, overlooking what is now downtown Edinburgh. At one time only people of highest honor and dignity were privileged to enter the Queen’s castle. It is the birth place of the famed King James.

What was once closed to commoners is now open for all …. well, almost, there is an admission fee.

But my point is that what had been closed to us by the law, the very presence of God, is open, wide open, always open ...and the admission fee has already been paid by Jesus Christ. His flesh is the veil, so if we come by His sacrifice, we may enter boldly into God’s presence, as often as we like.

· Sometimes we come just to worship.

· Other times we come to intercede in behalf off others.

· Yet others time, we come to petition for our own needs.

Come anytime. Come all the time. Day or night. Early or late. This King is our Lord, so show respect. But this King is also our Brother and our Friend. - Major Source: George B. Duncan, A Preacher’s Life of Jesus, pp, 202-212.