Exodus 26:31-37

THE VEIL OF THE TEMPLE

"And thou shalt make a veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen: with cherubim the work of the skilled workman shall it be made: and thou shalt hang it upon four pillars of acacia overlayed with gold; their hooks shall be of gold, upon four sockets of silver. And thou shalt hang up the veil under the clasps, and shall bring in thither within the veil the ark of the testimony: and the veil shall separate unto you between the holy place and the most holy. And thou shalt put the mercy-seat upon the ark of the testimony in the most holy place. And thou shalt set the table without the veil, and the candlestick over against the table on the side of the tabernacle toward the south: and thou shalt put the table on the north side. And thou shalt make a screen for the door of the Tent, of blue and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined lincn, the work of the embroiderer. And thou shalt make for the screen five pillars of acacia, and overlay them with gold; their hooks shall be of gold: and thou shall cast five sockets of brass for them."

Two things of the most paramount importance appear in these verses: the construction and erection of the veil, and the placement of the articles within the tabernacle. We shall note the veil first.

Observe that all of the furniture was placed with reference to that veil, either within or without. Among many things, the veil typifies Christ, and thus we see that the placement of everything in our world is at last polarized with reference to Christ, within, or without! There is perhaps a greater weight of symbolism incumbent upon this veil than may be found in nearly anything else in the O.T.

WHAT THE VEIL TYPIFIED

1. The colors: blue, purple, and scarlet appear three times in this chapter: (1) in the inner covering of linen; (2) in this veil; and (3) in the screen at the entrance. That they carry a weight of symbolism is certain. Unger pointed out that:

   "Blue signifies Christ's heavenly origin. Purple suggests his royal lineage as David's Son. Scarlet indicates his sacrificial blood shed for fallen mankind."[18]

   William R. Nicholson read the symbolism thus: "Blue stands for his heavenly nature, scarlet for his earthly nature, and the perfect blending of the two colors to form the central panel of purple, symbolize the perfectly balanced person of Christ, completely man, and completely God, IMMANUEL."[19]

2. This veil symbolizes the mysteries of the O.T. The purpose of the veil was to hide, to conceal, to deny access; and, as long as that veil was in place, many of the plainest teachings of the O.T. would remain hidden in darkness. The veil is a double symbol of Christ; it represented the promised Christ as long as it remained intact, but when it was rent from the top to the bottom at the crucifixion of our Lord, it then represented the revealed Christ. Paul commented on this:

   "Their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remaineth, it not being - revealed to them that it is done away in Christ. But unto this day, whensoever Moses is read, a veil lieth upon their heart, but whensoever it shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away (2 Corinthians 3:14-16)."

   Right here, then, is the reason for so many foolish and irresponsible things being written about the O.T. Unregenerated, unsaved men who know not Christ are incapable of writing intelligently about the O.T. If this is not what the blessed Paul said in this passage, he didn't say anything! As we have witnessed before, God's people are extremely foolish, and are merely repeating the error of Eve, when they allow Satan to "explain" God's Word for them!

3. In the rending of this veil which occurred at Calvary, there is an eloquent symbol of the victory of Christ over death. By its very location, standing between the compartments of the tabernacle which typified the Church and Heaven, the veil became thereby a symbol of death which separates Christians from their reward in Heaven. Isaiah said:

   "And he (God) will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. HE WILL SWALLOW UP DEATH IN VICTORY; and the Lord will wipe away tears from all faces." (Isaiah 25:7-8)

   The veil, therefore, over all people is the veil of death; and the rending of that veil (in the very act of his death) was a symbol of Jesus' great victory over death. In that death, Christ not only triumphed over it through his resurrection, but he "through death slew him (Satan) that had the power of death" (Hebrews 2:14-15). What an eloquent symbol of that victory, therefore, was this veil in its terminal event, the rending of it by Christ!

4. There is a double symbolism of the veil as being in its pivotal position a symbol of the entire Mosaic Law, and also a symbol of the annulment that fell upon that Law by the establishment of the New Covenant, that latter truth being typified by the spectacular rending of it at the Crucifixion!

   Even Westcott was reluctant to receive the veil as a type of Christ, for he pointed out that the chief function of the veil was that of concealment, whereas the great purpose of Christ was to "reveal God to men." Of course, if one leaves out of view the "rending of the veil," Westcott's objection is valid; but in its being rent asunder by an act of God upon the occasion of Christ's death, even that veil ultimately revealed heaven itself in the figure!

5. The veil was symbolical of the office of the Jewish high priest, since only he was permitted to pass beyond it, and that upon only one day in the year, namely, the Day of Atonement. Thus the "rending" in which that veil surrendered its office, there is the abolition of the office of an earthly high priest in the kingdom of God. No earthly high priest is now needed; the way is open for all. "There is (only) one mediator between God and man, himself also man, Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5-6), and he is not on earth but in heaven interceding for the redeemed.

6. The veil, and the Atonement services associated with it, symbolized the separation between God and man, one of its great functions being that of preventing any man's approaching God, with the sole exception of the high priest, who indeed could approach, but only once in the year, and after first offering elaborate sacrifices for his own sins, and then, before approaching the mercy-seat, fogging up the whole area around the mercy-seat with clouds of sweet incense, the symbolism being that before God could bear to look upon men and forgive their sins, the human presence had to be sweetened substantially before God would even bear the sight of it! "In Christ," of course, "a new and living way" has been opened up "through the veil," that is to say, "the flesh of Christ" (Hebrews 10:20).

7. Most emphatically "the rent veil" is a symbol of the equality of all of God's children. The Old Covenant had its priests, lesser priests they were, and the high priest who went behind the veil for the Atonement; but all such distinctions have forever disappeared in the kingdom of Christ, all the members of which are "kings and priests unto God" (Revelation 1:5). "All of you are brethren," is the way Christ said it (Matthew 23:8); and the apostle Peter denominated all Christians as "a holy priesthood" (1 Peter 2:5,9). To be sure the veil did not symbolize that until after it was rent; prior to that it symbolized just the opposite. Thus the most important thing about that veil that anyone could know is the fact that God rent it asunder.

Therefore, every time some would-be high priest gets behind a veil to hear a confession, or grant absolutions, or to perform any other mediatorial service whatever, he is only trying to bring back that old veil; but let the redeemed in Christ flee from such a thing. It is only that old veil trying to come back. Tear it down and trample upon it. Remember God rent it. Take it away forever! Glorious as it once was, its every function has been destroyed by God Himself. All Christians are equal. As Spurgeon said it: "If even upon thy deathbed some shaveling priest shall seek to hear thy confession or absolve thee of thy sins, lift thy bony hand from thy dying pillow and absolve him; thou hast the same right!"[20] Let that old veil come no more between the "redeemed in Christ" and that ready "access" which every Christian has to God without benefit of any human mediator whatever.

One curiosity in this chapter is found in Exodus 26:18 and Exodus 26:22, where the words for the south side are, literally in the Masoretic Text, "to the side of the Negev, southward," (Exodus 26:18), and "westward" (Exodus 26:22) is literally, "to the sea." Critics, whose resourcefulness never fails to amaze us, have seized upon this as proof that Exodus was written long after the times of Moses at a time when Israel was comfortably settled in Canaan. Such an allegation, however, overlooks the fact that the original home of the Hebrews, dating back to the lives of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was Canaan, that being the period of course when the idiomatic expressions for the points of the compass became embedded in the language of the Israelites. The proof is therefore merely an allegation with no solid support whatever. We appreciate Fields' effective handling of this evil criticism.[21]

The placement of the articles of furniture, with the exception of the altar of incense is given in these verses. Perhaps a diagramatic presentation is the best way to see this:

In sharp contrast to the limited and somewhat ambiguous instructions for many of the elements of the tabernacle, there is no uncertainty whatever regarding the location and the placement of the articles of furniture. They were placed as indicated in the chart above. From this, we may conclude that the principal symbolism of the articles of furniture was inherent in the manner and position of their placement in the holy structure. Having already examined the spiritual significance of items among the furniture, we shall now glance at the symbolism of the three divisions of the whole tabernacle. It was composed of the Holy of Holies, a perfect cube of ten cubits for all dimensions, a sanctuary called "The Holy Place" containing twice the amount of floor space as the Holy of Holies; and then there was the outer court, a much larger rectangular court fifty cubits by one hundred cubits in dimensions (75 feet by 150 feet), enclosing the entire tabernacle area. What is represented by these divisions?

1. Without any doubt, the Holy of Holies, where the presence of God is represented as being enthroned there, is a type of heaven itself.
   1. God was enthroned in both (Revelation 4:1-2).

   2. Divine light is in both (Leviticus 16:2; Revelation 21:23).

   3. Both have worshipping cherubim (Exodus 25:18; Revelation 4:6-8).

   4. Both are golden (Exodus 25:11; Revelation 21:18).

   5. Both are represented as perfect "cubes," here as 10 10:10 10:10, (cubits), and heaven as a cube of 1,500 miles in width, breadth, and height (Revelation 21:16ff).

   6. God's law is in both, the tables of the testimony here, the eternal law of all the universe in heaven (Psalms 119:89).

   7. the Atonement was made in both, here, by the high priest on the Day of Atonement, and in heaven by Jesus Christ "once and for all" (Hebrews 9:11-13).
2. The Holy Place is a type of the church of God. Both this Holy Place and the church are the places lighted by the word of God (the candlestick); both are the special objects of God's providence (the showbread); special privileges of prayer pertain to Christians in the church (the altar of incense); the only entrance to the Holy of Holies was by passing through the veil from the Holy Place, and the only entrance into heaven, according to the N.T. is by entering into God's church, and thence through death (the veil) into heaven. Some are unwilling to see this; but Jesus' parable of the Draw Net teaches exactly the same thing.

3. The Court must stand as a type of the whole world, as indicated by the two articles of furniture placed in it. The Altar, a type of the death of Christ, stood conspicuously at the very entrance of the whole enclosure, just as Christ's death is by far the most conspicuous event of all history. The Laver also indicates this. Being a type of Christian baptism, by which Christians are said to be "translated out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God's love" (the church), the great Laver stood near the entrance to the Holy Place, and yet, still in the court, not in the Holy Place, indicating also the true place of baptism, not an ordinance within God's church, but a transitional ordinance by which one enters God's Church. It was for precisely this reason that all of the great cathedrals of Europe placed their baptisteries in a separate building outside their sanctuaries, and not within them.

In all of these incredibly significant and extensive symbolisms one finds the complete frustration of critical denials that God is indeed, through Moses, the author of every word of these magnificent chapters.

"And thou shalt make for the screen five pillars of acacia, and overlay them with gold ..." The same colors in this screen were those of the veil and the inner canopy. The gold attests the beauty of this formal entrance into the sanctuary.

In our diagram above, we have anticipated somewhat the revelations of subsequent chapters, the altar of incense, the great altar in the court, and the great laver, belonging not to this chapter but to later ones.