Hebrews 10:19–22 confused me for a very long time. How is the veil a picture of Christ's flesh? I admit that one wasn't very clear to me.
A couple years ago I found what I think is the answer. It's in Numbers 4:4–6. When the tabernacle was to be moved, the priests were to take down the veil and use it to cover the ark of the covenant. So the veil was the thing – well, one of the things along with badgers' skins and a blue cloth – that covered the ark as it was carried through the wilderness.
Similarly, Christ's body contained the full presence of God as He walked in this fallen world.
Now, it's easy for us to take a wrong step when we contemplate Christ as the incarnate Son of God, so let's be sure we're clear about this... the Lord Jesus Christ is eternally God. He has no beginning, He has no end. He is God. So when I say that His body contained the full presence of God, it's not that He was just a Man who was indwellt of God. He is God, and He became a Man. That order is important: He's not a Man who became God, He's God who became Man.
But while He is not just a Man indwellt of God, He is indeed a Man indwellt of God. Colossians 2:9 is explicit: the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily. He is God, He became Man, and the fullness of the Godhead dwells in His body.
I still find it amazing how John describes the burial of Christ (John 19:38–42). In verse 38, we have Joseph of Arimathaea begging Pilate for "the body of Jesus", and in verse 40 we have them wrapping up "the body of Jesus" in linen with spices for burial. But when we get to the actual burial in verse 42, we have, "[t]here therefore, on account of the preparation of the Jews, because the tomb was near, they laid Jesus." Notice the wording changes from "the body of Jesus" to just "Jesus." I don't know a stronger statement in Scripture of the Incarnation than that. They didn't bury "the body of Jesus," they buried "Jesus." He is so completely Man that scripture tells "He" – not "His body" – was buried (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:3–5).
So we don't want in any way to diminish the Lord's completeness as God and as Man, but the Scripture makes statements about the Lord's flesh, and we need to listen to them. We are to remember the Lord with bread to represent His body and wine to represent His blood (1 Corinthians 11:23–26). The fact that there are two distinct physical representations draws our attention to distinctions in the Lord's mind. We err when we make those distinctions too big, but we also err when we make them too small.
The veil reminds us that the Lord carried the entire presence of God in this world wrapped up in His body. And while that's certainly a mystical statement, it's very physical. John reminds us that he looked at, contemplated, and handled the "eternal life that was with the Father" (1 John 1:1–3). The Lord Jesus brought God close enough to touch.
And it's significant that John doesn't claim that we have looked at, contemplated, and handled the eternal life that was with the Father. He did, the other Apostles did, but we did not. We're part of the "you" (vv. 2–3). If he had made the claim that we had experienced God like they did, he would effectively deny the Incarnation. If it means anything, incarnation means an immediacy to God's presence in the body of Christ that only people in that time and place could experience.
Of course I don't mean that we won't see His face in the future. But if we claim to have seen and known the Man who is God in the same way that John and the Apostles did, then we are really saying that He isn't a real Man. We certainly shall see Him, but we haven't seen Him yet.
So the Lord Jesus carried the fulness of the Godhead in His body in a real, physical way.
And when we understand that – to the extent we can understand any of this – it changes our contemplation of His death for us. He gave His body for us. The body that contains the fulness of the Godhead... that body was given for us.
6 comments:
Excellent, Mark.
And welcome back! I have prayed that
you would have a full recovery, and
be restored to full health in all it aspects.
Amen Mark and HWW!
Inside the veil, outside the camp!
There is ambiguity in the translation of Hebrews 10:20 Most will view the veil as linking to 'His flesh'.
I would like to suggest that we should link 'His flesh' with 'the new and living way' and the Greek text allows for this. It is not manhood on earth that is in view but manhood that He has taken to heaven.
The veil of the temple was rent but never the veil of the tabernacle. The veil was in the OT type a means of entrance for those who were privileged. It has the same meaning in Hebrews 10. There is a new and living way consecrated for us - we can go through the veil because there is a Man now in heaven who is the high priest over the house of God.
Good article. I think I see what you're getting at. I'd like to add that the body cannot be separated from the Logos and that they are in complete union. But not sure we can fully know what only God knows. Just my standing on the subject. Great to see you back.
Thanks for bringing out the "privileged people" point, Robert. There is a sort of tendency out there to make the rending of the veil an invitation to "all people" to come in, but really the veil only kept the priests out.
I'm mulling over the connection between "the new and living way" and "His flesh." I don't recall ever hearing that before, but I glanced over Darby's comments on Hebrews 10, and there it is, right on the page. I appreciate you bringing that out.
It might be worth mentioning, too, that Colossians pointedly says the fullness of the Godhead "dwells" (not "dwellt") bodily in Christ. I don't read that to mean that the fullness of the Godhead didn't dwell in Christ when He was on earth – I am certain it did! But it's worth mentioning that Colossians describes Christ who is Man in Heaven now. So there's a connection there with "manhood that He has taken to heaven."
It's amazing to think that the Incarnation isn't ever undone. It's easy for us to forget that the Son of God took manhood to heaven, and that's a permanent change. Hymn #317 in the Little Flock says, "He wears our nature on the throne." That's amazing to contemplate.
I think the main teaching of Hebrews is that He has taken manhood to heaven and His deity to the office of priesthood. The entire epistle is about His present life and ministry in heaven.
‘For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life’ Romans 5:12. It is one thing to know that Christ died for me. There is much more to Christianity than this. There is a Man in heaven who lives for me.
In Hebrews 10 the imagery is taken from the Day of Atonement. The veil was never rent on that day. The high priest offered a sacrifice for sin at the brazen altar then entered through the veil into the holiest. Christ has fulfilled this type: ‘ But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins, forever sat down at the right hand of God’. And because He has done this, what was unthinkable in the OT is now open to believers of this dispensation - we follow Him into the holiest through the veil.
Mr Leckie taught us that we enter because of a finished work: ‘ the blood of Jesus’. We draw near because of an unfinished work:‘having an high priest over the house of God’.
Once you remove the thought of a rent veil from Hebrews 10 the passage makes sense.
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