The all-powerful God of Heaven tears apart anything that stands between Himself and… us. You. Me. Humanity. People. Everybody on the planet.

It’s never soft and gentle. It’s not ‘my Lord, meek and mild’. It’s not quiet. It’s impossible to ignore.

It’ll destroy anything that would come between Him and…

<> 

When Jesus died on the Cross, many things happened. Our ‘sin-debt’ being fully-paid was just one of them.

Because of the Atonement, full reconciliation with God is now possible, and the Father did something.

<> 

Look in Matthew 27:

⁵⁰ And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

⁵¹ At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split

⁵² and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.

⁵³ They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection andwent into the holy city and appeared to many people.

<> 

Important study note: Both words in verse 51 (torn, split) come from the same root word

       Strongs 4977: schizó: to cleave, split, tear apart, rip

       Original Word: σχίζω
       Part of Speech: Verb
       Transliteration: schizó
       Phonetic Spelling: (skhid’-zo)
       Definition: to cleave, split, tear apart, rip, rend
       Usage: I rend, divide asunder, cleave.}

<> 

This scene is in harmony with what happened in Mark Chapter 1, at the Baptism of Jesus.

Mark 1

¹⁰ Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ¹¹ And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Same word in Mark 1 as in Matthew 27.

God’s full Invasion of Heaven didn’t wait to move forward. The very nano-second Jesus died, the Father reached from Heaven to Earth, grabbed ahold of a hindrance to relationship with us, and HE tore it into pieces, and it crashed onto the ground, destroyed.

It’s historically hard to say how thick that temple curtain was (see the References below)… maybe ‘the thickness of a man’s hand’, maybe not… but two things, for sure:

       <>The temple curtain tear went from God-ward top to the shoe-level bottom… the Father didn’t want any doubt that HE purposely and forcefully did it, and HE is not sorry for the mess… and,

       <>That curtain will never again stand between us and the Father.

Father God… Abba Padre… Papa God… wants a face-to-face relationship with each of us. He violently ripped away a stupid curtain that was in the way. He ‘rent the Heavens’ to come towards us, fulfilling the prophetic cry of the Old Testament saints (Isaiah 64:1).

TAKE-AWAY:

^“What, then, shall we say in response to these things?” Romans 8:31

It wrecks me, for sure.

<> 

written by crisbaj

© 2018-2020 by crisbaj/AdoreTheLord.blog  All rights reserved.

All Scripture references from New International Version unless otherwise indicated.

 If you re-post or use material from this blog, please be honest and give author citation + AdoreTheLord.blog  as the  source… thanks!!

References:

NOTES: How Thick Was The Temple Curtain?

Professor of Theology and Biblical History Chuck Bumgardner has burned some midnight oil trying to ascertain just how thick the Veil in the Jerusalem Temple was at the time of Jesus’ death.

There are popular preachers who like to quote secondary historic sources (Jerome, circa 400 AD, the Rabbinical writings around the time of Jesus circa 45 AD) that the Veil in that Temple was “a hands-breath thick, requiring 300 Priests to replace”. This requires some historic digging, because there were TWO Temples:

-the FIRST, the ‘Holy’ Temple [בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ: Beit HaMikdash], also known as ‘Solomon’s Temple’ was opened c. 1000 BCE, and destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BCE.

-the SECOND Temple [בֵּית־הַמִּקְדָּשׁ הַשֵּׁנִי, Beit HaMikdash HaSheni], also known as ‘Herod’s Temple’ was built/re-built by Zerrubbabel in 516 BCE, and stood until destroyed by the Roman Empire army in 70 AD.

Bumgardner writes, “the statement that the Temple veil was as thick as a man’s hand is found originally in rabbinic literature (the Mishnah), not Scripture. Later rabbinic commentary tags this description as hyperbolic language.  Given the context of the original statement, as well as the uncertainty of rabbinic traditions, it is unwise for us to state in an unqualified fashion that the veil was as thick as a man’s hand.  It would be more accurate to say something like, “Early Jewish tradition stated that the Temple veil was as thick as a man’s hand, although this might be an exaggeration.”

https://cbumgardner.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/the-thickness-of-the-temple-veil/

{Notably, the Second Temple is known to NOT have the Ark of the Covenant in the ‘Holy of Holies’, but rather a ‘Foundation Stone’ where the High Priest in the time of Jesus would put a Censor for Yom Kippur. Known as  אבן השתייה‎ Even ha-Shtiyya or  סֶּלַע‏‎ Selā‛, this Foundation Stone is now the center-stone at the modern-day Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

Where was the Ark at the time of Zerrubbabel? Hmmm, maybe an up-coming AdoreTheLord Blog??}

<<>>