In Charles Wesley’s theologically rich hymn Tis Finished! The messiah dies, there’s a curious phrase: “The veil is rent in Christ alone”.
Great hymn, but that line seems like gobbledegook.
To my parents’ generation, the meaning might have been obvious because it’s actually based on a quotation from the Authorised Version of the bible.
It comes from the moment of Jesus’s death in Matthew 27. In the modern NIV, we read:
And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”
But in the Authorised Version, we read:
Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.
In this context rent is not something to do with housing. The Cambridge dictionary describes it as an “old use or literary” word meaning “to tear or break something violently”. Twain is an old word meaning “two”.
So what’s the ripping of the veil or curtain about? Well, the design of the Jerusalem temple is built on the original transportable tabernacle that the Israelites construct in the desert during the leadership of Moses. It’s extensively described in Exodus.
The veil was a barrier protecting the innermost part of the tabernacle or temple, known as the Most Holy Place. Only the the high priest could enter once a year, as Hebrews 9 recalls, and after having made a sacrifice to cleanse himself. The other priests could enter the outer room, just known as the Holy Place.
Jesus death, however, brings an end the need for the old arrangements.
As N.T. Wright says in Hebrews for Everyone:
The period of time right up to the coming of the Messiah … was simply the time of temporary arrangements (and the temporary arrangements included, confusingly, the entire tabernacle or Temple itself!). Don’t make the make the mistake of thinking that this whole system, elaborate and well constructed though it is, is what God has made in mind as the final scheme…
In Jesus the great high priest, God has put things into proper order at last. He has thus established the new covenant, in which sins have been fully and finally dealt with.
The writer of Hebrews explains in verses 19-22 (NIV):
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
So in saying that “The veil is rent in Christ alone”, Wesley is talking about how we now have direct access to God through the purifying work of Jesus.
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The hymn
’Tis finished! The Messiah dies,
Cut off for sins, but not His own:
Accomplished is the sacrifice,
The great redeeming work is done.
’Tis finished! all the debt is paid;
Justice divine is satisfied;
The grand and full atonement made;
God for a guilty world has died.
The veil is rent in Christ alone;
The living way to Heaven is seen;
The middle wall is broken down,
And all mankind may enter in.
The types and figures are fulfilled;
Exacted is the legal pain;
The precious promises are sealed;
The spotless Lamb of God is slain.
The reign of sin and death is o’er,
And all may live from sin set free;
Satan has lost his mortal power;
’Tis swallowed up in victory.
Saved from the legal curse I am,
My Saviour hangs on yonder tree:
See there the meek, expiring Lamb!
’Tis finished! He expires for me.
Accepted in the well-beloved,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
I see the bar to Heaven removed;
And all Your merits, Lord, are mine.
Death, hell, and sin are now subdued;
All grace is now to sinners given;
And lo, I plead the atoning blood,
And in Your right I claim Thy Heaven!
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Picture of the tabernacle by Epictatus at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0.