This leads us to revisit Hebrews 10.20, and this time to think about the end of the verse, which I omitted the first time round. The writer says that we now have the confidence, through Christ’s sacrifice for us, to enter into the ‘holy of holies’, God’s very presence, “by the new and living way which he has opened up for us through the veil, that is, through his flesh”. It is this last, supposedly explanatory phrase, that is so rich in suggestion, yet so hard to pin down. It was, presumably, this verse which led Wesley to write in his great Christmas hymn ‘Hark, the herald angels sing’ the line “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see”. Jesus’ human form in a sense veiled the full glory and awesome holiness of his deity, so that to look at he was a man like any other, and it needed the eye of faith to discern the Godhead within his manhood. When Peter made his great declaration of faith, “you are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, Jesus replied that it was “my Father in heaven who revealed it to you” – literally, ‘removed the veil for you’ (the verb is ‘apocalupto’, whence ‘apocalypse’ – Matt 16.16-7). If we see the veil in the Tabernacle, and then in the Temple, simply as a massive ‘No Entry’ sign on the road to God, then it seems a strange image to apply to Jesus’ humanity, since he came to reveal God to us, and claimed to be “the way --- no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14.6). But perhaps we should view the veil from the other side, and so see it more as a ‘safety curtain’ to shield the priests in the ‘first tent’ from the blinding brightness of God’s glory, the God who is “in light inaccessible hid from our eyes”, to quote another great hymn. Hebrews uses the word ‘veil’ (in Greek, ‘katapetasma’) on two other occasions. In 9.3 he is simply describing the Mosaic Tabernacle: after his description of the ‘first tent’ and its furnishings he says “behind the second veil is the tent called ‘Holy of Holies’. We have seen how ‘skene’ came to be used as a metaphor of the human body. If we link these two ideas, we might say that in Tabernacle terms the ‘first tent’ is the human body, and that the veil which separates us from God’s presence is our very humanity, fallen and failing and unfit for heaven. This black picture is relieved by the next (though earlier) reference to ‘katapetasma’, 6.19. which we have already looked at. Because of God’s promise we have hope, hope like an anchor which can hold us firm in all the storms of life. But to hold us securely, our anchor must be firmly embedded, and this verse tells us that our anchor “reaches inside the veil”, and that we can be doubly sure of it, not only because of God’s promise, but also because “Jesus has entered there, going on ahead of us on our behalf”. To change the image slightly, he is like an expert rock-climber with a group of beginners, going up the cliff-face ahead of them to show that the rope is secure. If we now combine this verse with the third reference to ‘katapetasma’ (10.20), our launch-pad for this line of thought, we see that to pass through the ‘first tent’ is to leave behind our earthly, physical humanity, just as a rock-climber must leave ‘terra firma’ beneath him. The veil, then, represents the barrier between earth and heaven, between man and God, and to pass through it is a picture of death, the death Jesus had to pass through on his way inside the veil into his Father’s presence. A curtain (the other common translation of ‘katapetasma’), like a door, can be thought of either as a barrier or as a gateway; likewise, death can be seen either as a dead end, or as a gateway to a new beginning. None of us knows exactly what lies behind this veil (that is what veils are for !), but Christians have the ‘sure and certain hope of the resurrection’ as their anchor, because Christ has gone before us. It is John who, perhaps, expresses both the uncertainty and the hope more vividly than anyone: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet revealed what we will be. We know that when Jesus is revealed we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3.2). What a ‘revelation’ that will be !
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- Cary Gilbart-Smith
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Wednesday, 14 December 2011
SKENE 16: 'veiled in flesh'
This leads us to revisit Hebrews 10.20, and this time to think about the end of the verse, which I omitted the first time round. The writer says that we now have the confidence, through Christ’s sacrifice for us, to enter into the ‘holy of holies’, God’s very presence, “by the new and living way which he has opened up for us through the veil, that is, through his flesh”. It is this last, supposedly explanatory phrase, that is so rich in suggestion, yet so hard to pin down. It was, presumably, this verse which led Wesley to write in his great Christmas hymn ‘Hark, the herald angels sing’ the line “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see”. Jesus’ human form in a sense veiled the full glory and awesome holiness of his deity, so that to look at he was a man like any other, and it needed the eye of faith to discern the Godhead within his manhood. When Peter made his great declaration of faith, “you are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, Jesus replied that it was “my Father in heaven who revealed it to you” – literally, ‘removed the veil for you’ (the verb is ‘apocalupto’, whence ‘apocalypse’ – Matt 16.16-7). If we see the veil in the Tabernacle, and then in the Temple, simply as a massive ‘No Entry’ sign on the road to God, then it seems a strange image to apply to Jesus’ humanity, since he came to reveal God to us, and claimed to be “the way --- no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14.6). But perhaps we should view the veil from the other side, and so see it more as a ‘safety curtain’ to shield the priests in the ‘first tent’ from the blinding brightness of God’s glory, the God who is “in light inaccessible hid from our eyes”, to quote another great hymn. Hebrews uses the word ‘veil’ (in Greek, ‘katapetasma’) on two other occasions. In 9.3 he is simply describing the Mosaic Tabernacle: after his description of the ‘first tent’ and its furnishings he says “behind the second veil is the tent called ‘Holy of Holies’. We have seen how ‘skene’ came to be used as a metaphor of the human body. If we link these two ideas, we might say that in Tabernacle terms the ‘first tent’ is the human body, and that the veil which separates us from God’s presence is our very humanity, fallen and failing and unfit for heaven. This black picture is relieved by the next (though earlier) reference to ‘katapetasma’, 6.19. which we have already looked at. Because of God’s promise we have hope, hope like an anchor which can hold us firm in all the storms of life. But to hold us securely, our anchor must be firmly embedded, and this verse tells us that our anchor “reaches inside the veil”, and that we can be doubly sure of it, not only because of God’s promise, but also because “Jesus has entered there, going on ahead of us on our behalf”. To change the image slightly, he is like an expert rock-climber with a group of beginners, going up the cliff-face ahead of them to show that the rope is secure. If we now combine this verse with the third reference to ‘katapetasma’ (10.20), our launch-pad for this line of thought, we see that to pass through the ‘first tent’ is to leave behind our earthly, physical humanity, just as a rock-climber must leave ‘terra firma’ beneath him. The veil, then, represents the barrier between earth and heaven, between man and God, and to pass through it is a picture of death, the death Jesus had to pass through on his way inside the veil into his Father’s presence. A curtain (the other common translation of ‘katapetasma’), like a door, can be thought of either as a barrier or as a gateway; likewise, death can be seen either as a dead end, or as a gateway to a new beginning. None of us knows exactly what lies behind this veil (that is what veils are for !), but Christians have the ‘sure and certain hope of the resurrection’ as their anchor, because Christ has gone before us. It is John who, perhaps, expresses both the uncertainty and the hope more vividly than anyone: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet revealed what we will be. We know that when Jesus is revealed we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3.2). What a ‘revelation’ that will be !
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