What Really Happened at the Cross? The Veil Was Torn!
“and behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom;
and the earth shook and the rocks were split.” Matthew 27:51
“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast
and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us…”
Hebrews 6:19
The veil was torn! This may be the most important or all the very important things that happened at the cross. The tabernacle of the Old Testament is a picture of our entry into the presence of God as New Testament believers. We start at the laver, being washed of our sins. Then we enter into the Inner Court where we see the Light and the Bread (Jesus. The Truth, The Word). And that is where the Christian church finds itself today – in the Inner Court. We know the word of God. We study its meanings, its intricacies. We understand salvation, grace, God’s love, mercy, God’s plan for the world, but we don’t know God. We have not entered into the veil – the place of the very Presence of God. Some of us have peeked in occasionally. We can write in the front of our Bibles the times that we knew the Presence of God. But we don’t step in – committed, fully engaged, determined not to leave, and devoted. But the veil was torn as Jesus died upon the cross. We have access to the Creator Father God!
AW Tozer said, “According to its teachings we are in the presence of God positionally, and nothing is said about the need to experience that Presence actually…Ignoble contentment takes the place of burning zeal. We are satisfied to rest in our judicial possessions and, for the most part, we bother ourselves very little about the absence of personal experience.” (Tozer, The Pursuit of God. P.35.)
There was a man that prayed for me and my mom’s salvation for almost an hour. He always entered quickly into God’s Presence. You knew when he prayed that he was zealous for what he prayed and believed without doubt in the One to whom he prayed. There was power in this prayer. Fortresses were torn down, barriers were removed, and my mom accepted Jesus the next day, a week before she went to be in the Presence of God herself. But we do not have to wait until death to be in God’s Presence. This man showed me more about prayer than any other, because he lived it. Always ready to intercede to his Pappa God. Oh how I longed for that relationship.
I preach about Practicing the Presence of God. And I do it as long as it fits into my schedule. I am entertainment saturated, lonely, and seeking. I know the answer. You do too. Enter into the veil and like David, may your soul long and even yearn for the courts of the Lord; may your heart and your flesh sing for joy to the living God. (Psalm 84:2)
