Spiritual Light

An Important Detail

Over long periods of time, words often undergo a metamorphosis. Their meanings change. An example of this is the word "offend". In the era when the King James Version was written, the meaning of "offend" was usually "to cause sin". For example, Jesus said, "If your right eye offend you, pluck it out" (Mt. 5:29). But now "offend" most often means "to insult" or "to hurt the feelings of". The meaning has changed. Among other such examples of change in meaning is "sacrifice".

I once asked my students to give me a synonym for "to sacrifice". I gave them this sentence:

"The man is going to sacrifice the lamb."

Next, I removed "sacrifice" from the sentence and asked them to replace it with a synonym. You do it. Fill in the blank with another word for "sacrifice":

"The man is going to _____________ the lamb."

What word did you think of? To kill? To give up? To slaughter? If so, you are correct in modern usage but incorrect biblically speaking. In the Bible, "to sacrifice" never means simply to kill. Killing the victim always preceded the sacrifice; to sacrifice is to offer the slain animal to God. "To sacrifice," then, is to offer something to God that has been prepared to be offered. In the case of an animal, the killing was only part of the preparation for sacrifice; it was not the act of sacrifice itself.

Christ, then, was no more sacrificed on the cross of Calvary than the Old Testament animal was sacrificed where it was killed. His crucifixion was only part of the preparation for the sacrifice which followed. On Yom Kippur, had the Old Testament High Priest killed the animal and then not entered into the tabernacle to offer its blood to God, there would have been no sacrifice. And had Jesus been killed and then not risen from the dead and ascended into heaven (the true tabernacle) to offer himself to God, there would have been no sacrifice. In both cases, the sacrifice was made possible by, and followed, the death of the victim. The earthly High Priest entered into the earthly tabernacle with the blood of goats and calves, but Jesus, the High Priest of heaven, entered into the

Passing Through The Veil

It is interesting to focus for a moment on the specific time that Jesus was glorified, or "passed through the veil". We know from observing the earthly pattern that, since the veil was inside the tabernacle, the Lord's "passing through" took place inside the tabernacle. So, according to the pattern God gave to Moses, Jesus' glorification took place after he entered into God's heavenly tabernacle and entered the very presence of God.

Jesus' ascension into heaven followed the three days he spent preaching in the heart of the earth(Mt. 12:40; 1Pet. 3:19) and the forty days he spent on earth "speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God " (Acts 1:3). And seven more days of consecration are accounted for after his ascension (Lev. 8:33-36). This total of fifty days accounts for the fifty day period between Passover and Pentecost.

There is some doubt as to exactly when we should start counting those fifty days. Still, though we may not be able at this time to pinpoint the precise day or hour that Jesus passed through the veil to offer himself to God on our behalf, we know that precious event took place only after his ascension into heaven in the first chapter of Acts, and at least seven days after that.

Whenever the precise moment Jesus' glorification occurred, that glorification was our deliverance. For when God, as Peter preached in Acts 3:13, "glorified his Son Jesus" with the glory which was his with God "before the world was" (Jn. 17:5), the Spirit of God was sent down from heaven upon a large group (about one hundred twenty) of Jesus' disciples on Pentecost morning.

John (7:37-39) told us that the Spirit would not be given until Jesus was glorified (not crucified or resurrected). "Glorification" means to be changed from life in a fleshly body to life in a spiritual body, being changed from mortality to immortality, from a body subject to disease and sickness to an incorruptible body. Glorification is synonymous with "inheriting the kingdom of God". Those born of the Spirit are heirs with Christ, but as long as we are still in these fleshly bodies, the inheritance has not yet been received. Paul told the Corinthian believers:

"Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I show you a mystery; We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."

(1Cor. 15:50-53)

We will all be changed! We will all pass through the veil, for Christ "will change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious [glorified] body" (Phip. 3:21). What a wonderful promise! In these bodies of flesh we cannot see God as He is; it would kill us to do so (Ex. 33:20). And although "it does not yet appear what we shall be . . . we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we will see him as he is" (1Jn. 3:2). This glorification of the body is the "passing through the veil"; it is the promised inheritance of sons.

If you are a faithful child of God and die blind or lame, God has promised you that you will not spend eternity in a blind or lame spiritual body. A glorified body will not have our physical inadequacies, or missing parts, or scars. The "mansions" Jesus is preparing for us are perfectly glorious, eternal and whole. John did not see any blemish on the glorified Jesus in his revelation of the Lord (Rev. 1:13-14):

"And in the midst of the seven lampstands [was] one like the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girded up to his chest with a golden girdle. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like a flame of fire. And his feet like unto fine brass, glowing in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters."

There are no blood stains on the robes Jesus now wears, no thorn pricks in his forehead, no lash marks on his back. He has passed through the veil that was subject to those things.

When Jesus came out of the tomb, however, he was not glorified. He was still in the same body of flesh that had been nailed to the tree. The nail prints were still in it; the spear wound was still there. He even had to tell his disciples, before they would believe it, that he was not (yet) a spiritual being. He said in Luke 24:39b:

"Handle me, and see; for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me have."

So, if he was yet in a body of flesh and bones, he obviously was not yet glorified. And if not yet glorified, then the Spirit was not yet available because the sacrifice had not yet been made.

One Ascension, No Return

The book of Hebrews adds this instructive note to our study:

"But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth [waiting] till his enemies be made his footstool."

(Heb. 10:12-13)

The fact that Jesus sat down at God's right hand after offering himself as our atoning sacrifice is important, for it means (1) that he did not (as many teach) return to earth after he offered himself to God, and (2) that he will not return to earth "until his enemies be made his footstool." Of course, in Spirit, both Jesus and the Father returned at Pentecost (Jn. 14:16, 20, 23). But as for Jesus' personal presence, let it suffice to remind the reader that we are looking for his second coming, not his third or fourth. After his first visit, he sat down.