Did The Saints Really Come Back To Life?
An Expository on Matthew 27:51-54
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2014 by M.L. Wilson. All rights reserved. No part of this document or the
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"And
behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the
earth shook, and the rocks were split.
The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had
fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection
they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those
who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took
place, they were filled with awe and said, ‘Truly this was the Son of
God.’"
-
Matthew 27:51-54
One
of the more bizarre passages in the New Testament is the one above found in the
Gospel of Matthew. This particular passage which occurs at the point of time
when Christ died on the cross was part of a series of climactic events which
occurred in Jerusalem. In addition to this event where the “saints” (Greek: Hagios - Those who are like Christ or Likeness of nature with the Lord) arose, we
also have the curtain separating the inner Holy of Holies being torn in two
starting from the top down to the bottom. Without a doubt, this is a difficult
passage and one which I have found no one quite can agree on. This is a passage
which had perplexed me for more than 30 years. On its surface, it does not seem
to make a great deal of sense. Are we reading spiritual analogy, is it meant as
symbolism, or did this event really occur as it was recorded by the Apostle
Matthew? I will endeavor to answer the question to the best of my ability.
I will start this
exploration by making a few things about what I believe very clear. Unless one
knows my perspective, one will not be able to follow my explanation. I will
begin by making clear that I do not hold to many orthodox views respecting Christianity
as readers of my commentaries are already well aware. While my views do not
necessarily follow orthodoxy, I will challenge anyone—ANYONE—to show me where
my views diminish Christ. To be clear, Jesus Christ is God Almighty. There is
but one God that I believe in and He showed Himself to us in the personage of
the Christ. He interacts with us in this day though His Spirit and through
other Christians who are to be His face. A great deal of what orthodoxy teaches
is essentially doctrine and dogma. Some of this Dogma has been embraced by my
Evangelical brethren, but there is scant evidence of its legitimacy. Again,
readers of my commentaries are already aware of this. I would suggest any who
wish to understand more about my viewpoint to start with my commentary on
Matthew 27:46 which is a nice companion piece to this present commentary. It
can be found here:
I feel as though I need
to paint a picture of the situation in the world at the time this event
occurred before I begin. The situation was not limited to the temporal realm,
but to the spiritual as well. In fact most of what was transpiring during this
period was as a result of a war going on in the spiritual realm which had been
unseen by most of humanity.
Jesus Christ had been
prophesied to come to earth since the very beginning. In Genesis 3:15 we find
this piece of condemnation levied against the serpent that had deceived Eve:
“And
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and
hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel.”
The
allusion is Christ being superficially injured as a result of an act by the
serpent. The serpent fares far worse for the exchange which will take place
between the two. One of the more striking prophesies is found in Psalm 22 where
the entire future crucifixion scenario is played out. Isaiah also very
accurately prophesies the coming Messiah. A careful reading of the Old
Testament scriptures will reveal a time when the Messiah was to come to earth
and dwell amongst us. The question, however, is why?
Why.
Yes indeed—that is a question. If The Most High God had created mankind with
foreknowledge of their disobedience and that disobedience necessitated their
deaths, then can it be reasonably argued that it is not so much humanity which failed,
but rather God Most High for creating something so manifestly inferior to begin
with? Of course I am well aware that to even contemplate such makes me a
heretic. (You’ll have to stand in line to hurl that particular appellation at
me. Might I suggest you bring reading material—maybe one of my novels http://www.thegodprinciplebook.com
. It’ll be quite a wait, so you may as well enjoy it.)
Regardless,
it is a legitimate question to ask. If God is the ultimate Creator and knows
all, then shouldn’t God have employed better methodology with respect to his
human creation? The entire Garden of Eden scenario impresses me as little more
than a setup. That is, it would impress me as little more than a setup IF I subscribed to the orthodox view.
Clearly I do not and am more than comfortable with what I have come to believe really happened. Let me explain:
If
one wishes to hold to the view that God Almighty as manifest in the Old
Testament scriptures is Jesus Christ, one has a huge hurdle to jump. As a
result of the blatant disparity between the two principles, many theological
teachings have sprung up over the two millennia since Christ bade us an earthly
farewell. The one which pervades Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christianity is
Dispensationalism. However, we also have facets of Calvinism and Deism which
construct a disparity between God’s character and that of Christ.
Dispensationalism attempted to give us the “Why” of the question and John
Nelson Darby is at the very least to be given his just due for that. However,
orthodoxy never dared ask the question, simply holding to the view through the
model of the Trinity that God and Christ were two different components of the
Triune Godhead. An example: If you are married, you and your spouse may be in
agreement on how to raise your children, but one of you may be the “easy touch”
to your children whereas the other is the disciplinarian. You are both in
general consort with one another, but one is much more harsh and unforgiving in
approach than the other. Between the two of you, a reasonable middle ground is
reached. This is essentially how orthodoxy views the Trinity and its players.
To
me the Trinity is a complete misnomer. I am not going to delve too deeply into
the history of the concept of the Trinity as I have answered that in earlier
commentaries, most notably my commentary on Matthew 27:46. I will say that as
an embraced concept within the early church, the Trinity as we understand it
did not exist. It wasn’t until 186 AD that the church fathers were able to even
come to a rudimentary understanding of the three aspects of God. The Trinity as
we’ve come to embrace it was wholly a construct of the Ecumenical Councils
first convened by Constantine the Great, Emperor of Rome. His reasoning for
creating a structured hierarchy is clear to see: Just as there is a structural
hierarchy in Heaven; God the Father, as ultimate head, then Jesus Christ and the
Holy Spirit in lateral lesser, but essentially equal positions, Constantine
could recreate that Spiritual structure with an earthly counter-part. He would
rule as the ultimate leader (an earthly God the Father) while the Pope (or
father of the Church) would fulfill the Christ leg of the Trinity with their
doctrine and dogma filling in the gap for the Holy Spirit. In this hierarchical structure, complete control was assured; no one would be straying from the
established and sanctioned path without incurring the Emperor’s holy wrath.
What
the Church has to come to grips with (and what they are tremendously resistant
to do) is recognize that the doctrine and liturgy which they embrace is a
result of these councils. Unless and until we understand church history, the
enemy can use it to cloud our understanding. And we cannot forget that as
Christians, we are facing a very, very powerful spiritual entity that will stop
at nothing—NOTHING—to take us away from the truth. The Christian faith has been
infected repeatedly with false teachers who I firmly believe began their
mission perfectly sincere, but then were seduced by the adulation of their
followers. It is difficult to ignore people who look to you to have all the
answers. Worship is alluring to even the strongest among us.
“For false Christs and false
prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the
elect—if that were possible.”
- Matthew 24:24
These spiritual enemies
are warring against God by warring against us human beings. Prior to Christ,
this entire realm (not just the planet earth, but the entire universe) was
theirs. Everything which was contained within was theirs. This was as it was set
up by covenant. God gave them this realm to create, to shape, to build. When
one reads the Gospels and specifically Paul and Peter’s letters, this becomes
quite clear. Let me explain:
"This
is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead
of light because their deeds were evil.
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light
for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be
seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
-
John 3:19-21
There is a chronology
to the Bible which I find all too often overlooked by too many in theological
circles. Too many teachers of the Bible tend to forget that until Christ died
upon the cross, He—along with everyone else—was living under the strictures of
the Law. I cite this so often because when one believes that Christ was NOT
under the Law one is misinformed as to just what the Law truly was. Christ
fulfilled the Law not only by not sinning (read transgressing the Law), but by
being killed by the enemy for no covenantal reason. Hebrews is quite clear on
this point in explaining why Christ had to die.
“For
this reason, Christ is the mediator of a new
covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal
inheritance—now that He has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins
committed under the first covenant.”
- Hebrews 9:15
(emphasis mine)
“By
calling this covenant “new,” He has made the old obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.”
- Hebrews 8:13
(emphasis mine)
“But
now He has appeared once for all at
the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”
- Hebrews 9:26
(emphasis mine)
Paul adds to this point
of view given by the unknown author of the book of Hebrews and even expands
upon it in his letters to the Churches at Colossi and Ephesus.
God
made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its
regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away,
nailing it to the cross. And having
disarmed the Powers and Authorities,
He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” - Colossians 2:13-15 (emphasis mine)
“Although
I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to
preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to
everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept
hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the
church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the Rulers and Authorities in the heavenly
realms, according to His eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ
Jesus our Lord.” -
Ephesians 3:8-11(emphasis mine)
“For
our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the Rulers and Authorities, against the Powers of this dark world and against
the spiritual forces of evil in the
heavenly realms.” - Ephesians 6:12 (emphasis mine)
There is little doubt
that Paul gives us a rather interesting insight on the unseen spiritual
entities which rule the earth. Both the author of Hebrews and the Apostle Paul also
seem to make very clear that these are beings which not only gave us the Law,
but ruled the earth long before Christ came and “made a public spectacle of
them, triumphing over them by the cross.” The naked truth is that if one does
question the veracity of the argument that the world prior to Christ’s
crucifixion was ruled solely by God, one then is forced to explain just what
these entities are and why they have such vast power over us; why Christ had to
come and defeat them.
The author of Hebrews
asserts that Christ came but once. This is an assertion which
carries with it some weight. What it means is that Christ never appeared here
in this realm prior to His earthly incarnation. This is significant because
orthodoxy claims that the instances of God throughout the Old Testament,
instances where God talked face to face with Abraham, Job, Moses—even to Adam
and Eve—were either the pre-incarnate Christ, or a Theophany. A Theophany is
best defined as a spiritual manifestation of a deity. The author of Hebrews
makes it clear that those manifestations of the Old Testament God were not Jesus Christ in any incarnation.
“Just
as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was
sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring
salvation to those who are waiting for Him.” -
Hebrews 9:27-28 (emphasis mine)
Note that Christ’s
return a second time would be in His Glorified incarnation. Thus He will appear
in the same manner as He would have appeared to these various Old Testament
figures to those who hold a pre-incarnate Christ view. When one is studying
scripture, it is vitally important that one do so without filtering such
through any preconceived notions as to what it is “really” saying. Orthodoxy
long ago concluded at the Ecumenical Councils that a Triune Godhead ruled, thus
every theological interpretation of the scriptures must follow that lead
without equivocation. This presents a problem for many, many passages of
scripture which clearly indicate that something else was going on.
Humans are rather
judgmental characters. That isn’t a criticism, just a fact. We make judgments
about everything all the time. Because
of human character, we tend to look at God as though He was also human. Because
the attitude of the Old Testament God is also very judgmental, there is a
certain kinship which exists; human beings can readily identify with a God who
chooses some people over others, who covets, who is jealous, who angers quickly
and who kills. The Old Testament is filled with this type of god and his
antics. I won’t bore the reader with the examples here; they are listed in my
other commentaries and throughout the Old Testament. What is important to
consider, however, is that God in the Old Testament makes a rather bold
assertion. God states unequivocally that He
does not change. (Numbers 23:19,
Malachi 3:6) If that is in fact the case, one has to explain why Christ is so
vastly different in approach from the God of the Old Testament. Further, one
would have to explain how the Spirit of God is also vastly different from the
Old Testament God.
“But
the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no
law.”
-
Galatians 5:22-23
This is a rather tall
order to fill when one considers the Spirit of God and the Word of God act in
total opposition to “God” Himself. The Old Testament God acts nothing like
Christ and displays NONE of the fruits of the Spirit. If he is to be believed
in His assertion that He does not change, then exactly what is going on? Even
if one subscribes to the Triune Godhead, the dictates of such a structure would
demand that they act in perfect accord with one another. Thus, there should be
no discernible difference in their approach, only how they manifest themselves
to us.
Paul was keenly aware
of this case of mistaken identity where Christ and the Old Testament god were
concerned. To the Church at Colossi he wrote:
“See
to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy,
which depends on human tradition and
the basic principles of this world rather than Christ.” - Colossians 2:8(emphasis mine)
The human tradition
I’ve emphasized is understandable enough. Most of orthodox doctrine was
conceived through man, not Christ. The Nicene Council established most of what
the Christian Church believes and teaches. The underlined “basic principles” is
interesting though. What does that mean exactly? What is it Paul was trying to
convey? In the Greek, basic principles translate to the word, “stoicheion”or “stoixeion” στοιχεῖον,
ου, τό. The definition of this word is interesting. Strong’s
Exhaustive Concordance renders its meaning as:
4747
stoixeíon– properly, fundamentals, like with the basic components of a
philosophy, structure, etc.; (figuratively) "first principles," like
the basic fundamentals of Christianity.
[4747
(stoixeíon) refers to "the rudiments with which mankind . . . were
indoctrinated (before the time of Christ), i.e. the elements of religious
training or the ceremonial precepts common alike to the worship of Jews and of
Gentiles" (J. Thayer).
The RSV however
renders stoixeia as "elemental spirits," i.e. spiritual powers or
"cosmic spirits" (DNTT, 2, 828). This views 4747 /stoixeíon
("elements") as ancient astral beings associated with the very
beginning (make-up) of the earth.]
Consider for a moment
that Paul is merely referring to the “rudiments with which mankind …were
indoctrinated (before the time of Christ). Would not God’s rudimentary teachings
be the same as Christ’s irrespective of a Triune Godhead? Are these two not
supposed to act in one accord? Yet the very word choice points out that this
isn’t at all what is going on. Paul is warning the Colossians NOT to be taken
captive by such basic principles—stoixeia.
Consider now that these
basic principles are more in keeping with Paul’s other admonitions with respect
to spiritual Rulers and Authorities in the heavenly realms. Not only would that
be consistent with what Paul has said to other churches, it also answers some
very nagging questions as to exactly who is who in the Old Testament. Naturally
such a view is discarded out of hand by those who have adopted the orthodox
view; the concept of Christ molded by the hands of a Roman Emperor who
worshipped the pagan sun god, Amun Ra.
Tradition is a hard
habit to break and no one knows that better than I. But it is a fact that some traditions
are better discarded than nurtured. Just because something has graduated to the
status of tradition, does not necessarily make it good. Paul recognized this
and warned against it—almost three hundred years before Constantine convened
the first of the councils. In Paul’s day, it was the traditions of the Hebrews
which troubled him, but not just the Hebrews, the pagans as well. They had
their “basic principles” too.
Consider this
interesting passage in the book of Isaiah:
“How
you are fallen from heaven,
O
Lucifer, son of the morning!
How
you are cut down to the ground,
You
who weakened the nations!
For you have said in your heart:
‘I
will ascend into heaven,
I
will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I
will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On
the farthest sides of the north;
I
will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I
will be like the Most High.’
Yet
you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To
the lowest depths of the Pit.
- Isaiah
14-12-15
There are a couple of
interesting things about the above passage. We have been taught that Lucifer
was the name of Satan prior to his fall from Heaven. This is incorrect. The
name “Lucifer” appears only in the Latin Vulgate and the King James Bible translation
of the Holy Bible. When Jerome of Stridonium translated the Greek Septuagint
into the Latin Vulgate in approximately 382 AD under the direction of Pope
Damasus, the names of all other named angels in scripture—Michael, Gabriel,
Raphael—were left in their original Hebrew. However this particular angelic (or
Celestial) entity’s name was not left in its original Hebrew, rather Jerome
translated it into Latin. Jerome gives no reasoning as to the why. Lucifer
means, “the morning star,” or “light bringing” or "light bearer." In the Hebrew, Lucifer is rendered as Helel: הֵילֵל
An interesting aspect
of this name is that it describes this spiritual entity as being the bringer of
light. One should find it reasonable to ask, “Whose light?” If Almighty God
already reigns as supreme and Lucifer (Satan) stands opposed to Him, whose
light is Lucifer bringing?
Consider that as
Christians today, we are supposed to bring to others not already in a
relationship with Christ the “Light” of His Word and truth. We are to bring the
Light of Christ to our fellow man. Prior to Christ, this was the job of these
Celestial entities. As I have already pointed out, they failed in this task
magnificently for many of the same reasons human beings do. These entities
charged with administering over humanity and bringing God’s Light to us all,
fell prey to the seduction of worship instead. As time went on, they bothered
less with reflecting God’s true Light and instead reflected their own.
This sentiment is
reflected by the Old Testament Prophet, Isaiah. It is an interesting passage in
Isaiah Chapter 14 which seems to come out of nowhere to describe an act of
duplicity motivated by pride and vanity:
You
said in your heart,
“I
will ascend to Heaven;
I
will raise my throne above the stars of God;
I
will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
On
the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.
I
will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”
- Isaiah
14:13-14
Understanding that
there were spiritual entities which were placed here to be liaisons between God
and man is necessary to fully understand what occurred when Christ gave up His
spirit. One must understand the “lay of the land” before one can proceed. Thus,
I will proceed upon the premise that there were these spiritual entities which
are referred to as Celestials in the book of 2nd Peter and Jude. (2nd
Peter 2:10-11, Jude 8) These entities were charged with being God’s face to the
human creation. In this, they failed magnificently. Nothing they did was as it
should be. The true nature of God was not reflected in their administration of
the human creation and as a result, Christ came and freed us from their rule.
Covenantally, this entire realm was theirs. When Satan offered the entire world
to Christ if only He would bow down before him, this was not an empty promise.
The Celestial entity that made the offer had full rights to this entire realm;
not just planet earth, but the entire temporal realm. (Matthew 3:1-11)
For those inculcated
with the teachings of orthodoxy, this is simply too fantastic to believe. The
first reaction is shock, then anger will set in. After this initial digestion
of information occurs, there is a scrambling to prove the error with scripture.
Rationalizations and twisting of scripture will have to be employed in order to
get around certain obvious statements made by Christ, Paul, Peter, John, the
author of Hebrews, Jude and Luke in Acts.
It was these spiritual
Powers and Authorities—these stoixeia which
Christ was speaking to while hanging on the cross in Matthew 27:46. When He
cried out, “My God, My God, why have you
forsaken me?” He was not lamenting being forsaken by God the Father, He was
speaking first to the Celestial beings who had engineered his crucifixion
(Colossians 2:15) and then to the Jewish leaders who were well familiar with
the referenced incipit which we know of today as Psalm 22. Christ was telling
both parties what was about to happen.
When He finally gave up
His Spirit and left his temporal body upon the cross, Christ descended to Sheol
where all human spirits were trapped since the beginning. This prison of Sheol
was what was regarded as a spiritual death for it was a (seeming) eternal separation
from Creator God Almighty. Sheol was a construct of this temporal realm and as
such, it belonged to those who had rule over this temporal realm: That being
the Celestial entities, the stoixeia.
Paul states where
Christ went upon His earthly death very clearly:
“When He ascended on high, He led
captives in His train and gave gifts to men.” (What does “He ascended” mean
except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended
is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the
whole universe.)
-Ephesians 3:8-9
The
Apostle Peter makes the same declaration in his epistle:
“For
Christ died for sins once and for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to
bring you to God. He was put to death in the body, but made alive by the
Spirit, through whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison who
disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark
was being built.”
-
1st Peter 18-19
What truly occurred at
the moment that Christ died upon the cross was something completely opposite of
what these Celestial Rulers and Authorities had expected. I surmise from what
Paul explained as their reaction that they had expected Christ to admit defeat,
pack His bags and return to the eternal ether from whence He had came, leaving
them to continue to administer over the human creation as they saw fit. Instead,
upon reaching the abode of the dead in Sheol, Christ was armed with the power
which came from a violation of the very Law the angels themselves had written:
They had killed when death was not warranted—nor allowed. Christ had not
transgressed their Law, yet they killed Him anyway. In so doing, these
Celestials proved themselves to be just as flawed, just as errant as the human
creation they asserted were nothing but sinful, unworthy creatures. This is
nothing to brush aside blithely; Christ proved to these Celestial Rulers and
Authorities before the entire host of heaven that they were absolutely no
better than their human charges. Upon that stark realization, God Almighty, in
the personage of Jesus Christ the Messiah, was able to take legal control of
this realm out of their hands.
Christ’s first order of
business was to empty this abode of all its occupants. Within three days, He
rose again in a new, glorified body which was not of flesh and blood, but was
perfect. It was a body which possessed all the qualities of a fleshly body, but
was imperishable. This new body was not bound by the laws of physics or
space-time. Christ was able to alter His appearance at will, appear and
disappear at will, but He could also eat and drink; He could touch and be
touched. Most of these instances are recorded in the Gospel of John which are
too numerous to list.
With special attention
now being given to those who were in Sheol at the time Christ arrived, I will
now endeavor to explain just who it was that came out of their tombs upon
Christ’s earthly passing. Being well cognizant that space and time are not
measured the same, what is seen as almost instantaneous to us, may have been a
length of some time to those inhabitants of Sheol and to Christ Himself. Those
who rose were regarded as saints, but a better rendering would be believers.
These were most likely people who had heard Christ’s teachings, believed in
Christ and had recently passed. Let me explain.
There a few things to
clear up with respect to misconceptions about this particular passage in
Matthew. First, addressing just who it was that emerged from the tombs. I have
read various expository writings and commentaries whereupon the authors assert
the saints raised were such luminaries of the Old Testament as Elisha, Abraham,
Daniel, Isaiah, etc. Such is not the case. Were any of those men to have been
the ones coming out of the tombs (putting aside the fact that none of those men
save for Abraham even died in Israel), no one would have known who they were.
There were no cameras back then, no renderings of what any of these men looked
like in paintings, busts, etc. Bringing forth any of these Old Testament
“saints” would have been pointless as a testimony for no one would have been
alive to recognize who they were; they would have been strangers.
The second thing to
clear up is a bit more obvious, but I’ll cover it here none-the-less. It has to
deal with the tombs themselves and the culture surrounding the dead for the
Jews. In that era (and going back much further, in fact), upon death, a body was
washed and then dressed for burial by being wrapped in linens filled with
various aromatic herbs and flowers. The body was then laid in a “tomb” (more
like a hollowed our space in a rock face) where it remained until the soft
tissue decayed and left nothing but a skeleton. This was a process that took
approximately two years. At the end of that time, the bones were collected and
placed into a small stone box called an ossuary. This ossuary could be left in
the tomb (if it was owned by a family of means), or it could be kept in the
home or elsewhere convenient. Given that in the Gospel account these tombs
broke open and the bodies of the saints came out, I would assume based upon my
knowledge of the customs that these were people who had died within the last
two years, thus in much the same way that Christ raised Lazarus from his tomb,
so too were these bodies raised.
Now
the better question is why? Well, the text gives us the reasoning, but we had
to put everything in its proper context. These were people who had been
returned to their fleshly bodies in much the same way as Christ had raised
many, many people from the dead throughout His earthly ministry; the state of
decay is immaterial. Lazarus had been dead for four days and putrefaction had
already set in. An unembalmed body after four days would have been beyond
viable no matter how one may wish to look at it. A sack of bones or a bloated
corpse is the same to God. The word used for “bodies” here in this passage is
the Greek word, “Soma” σῶμα. The literal translation
is, “the body (as a sound whole), used in
a very wide application, literally or figuratively:--bodily, body, slave. A
body, the mass of anything, usually a corporeal tissue, human, animal, or
plant, though it can also refer to a heavenly body; the church is said to be
like a (human) body, emphasizing its essential unity with very important
diversities of function within the unity”.
- Strongs Concordance 4983
So
these two interesting signs occur just as Christ gives up His spirit. The
curtain separating the inner Holy of Holies is torn in two from the top down,
and recently dead followers of Christ miraculously emerge from their tombs and
return to family and friends to tell them the Good News of Christ’s victory
over the enemy upon His resurrection.
So why tear the curtain
in two and what is the significance of tearing it from the top down? The answer
is one filled with much symbolism. First let’s look at the curtain itself. The
dimensions of this curtain (or veil) were quite stunning. It was sixty feet in
height, thirty feet in width and four inches thick! This veil was made of fine
linen and blue, purple and scarlet yarn. There were figures of cherubim
(angels) embroidered onto it. Cherubim, spirits who serve God, were in the
presence of God to demonstrate His almighty power and majesty. They also
guarded the throne of God. These cherubim were also on the innermost layer of
covering of the tent. If one looked upward, they would see the cherubim
figures.
Angelic figures were
all about the veil and the interior of the Holy of Holies. The very lid of the
Ark of the Covenant had two cherubim angels with their wings outstretched,
touching one another. Between these wings, the essence of God would appear on
the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur. If it is as we have already established—the
Celestial Ruler and Authorities were the acting “god” to the human creation,
then the abundance of cherubim imagery is more than explained: We are seeing a
cult of angelology manifest in the entire temple structure. Christ understood
this completely and upon wresting covenantal control from these Celestial
entities, He signified the end of this cult of angelology by tearing apart the
veil separating the inner Holy of Holies from the outer temple from the top
down—as only Creator God Almighty could do. These beings would no longer stand
between God Almighty and His creation. God would now interact with humanity on
a very intimate and personal level.
When coupled with the
witnesses from Sheol who had risen from their tombs and most likely went to
find their families to wait until after Christ’s resurrection in order to
spread the Good News about Christ’s victory, this entire situation had to have
not only angered these Celestial Rulers and Authorities, but actually caused
great fear—perhaps something experienced by them for the very first time. There
is absolutely no record that those who were raised from their tombs suddenly
returned to the ether, or otherwise did anything but live out a natural life
only to taste physical death once again. I’ll hasten to add that there is no
accounting of Lazarus’s life after his resurrection either. There is no
accounting of exactly how many people came forth from these tombs, and thus far
there is no actual accounting outside of the Gospel of Matthew to buttress this
incident. But they did witness and testify as to where they had been and who
had set them free. They were also able to give an accounting of who sent them
there and kept them in chains. To these Celestial entities, this must have been
more than they could bear. The Apostle Paul stated clearly that, “Christ had made a public spectacle of
them…” (Colossians 2:15)
I happen to believe
this event occurred exactly as it is outlined in the Gospel. Where I find
myself at odds with my fellow Christians is the “why” of the matter. One can
clearly see that the orthodox point of view essentially lets these Celestial
entities—Satan, if you prefer—almost completely off the hook. For millennia
we’ve blamed the Jews for killing Christ. Even though we tend to recognize that
the entire plan was Christ’s from the beginning, without knowing the actual
reasoning behind why things work the way they work, we’re left wondering. The
earthly part of the battle was only a slim sliver of what was really going on.
Christ engaged these Celestial beings (yes that is a plurality I have employed.
Paul, Peter, and Christ acknowledged a plurality when referring to the enemy)
and emerged victorious.
The Book of Hebrews is
a book rich with information to the Spirit-filled reader. I urge any who are
reading this to look more deeply into what it is that I have suggested in this
commentary. There are many ideas which will be new to you, but give them
prayerful examination before you decide they are without merit. Consider that
in this era with Christ’s return imminent, the time of angelology has passed
and we must now embrace Christ. With that, I leave with a quote from that book
and its unknown, but Spirit-filled author:
“This is the
covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will
put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds, “I
will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.” Where there is
forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. Therefore,
brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of
Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain,
that is, through his flesh,” -
Hebrews 10:16-20
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