Matthew chapter 27. Continuing through this long chapter. And we'll be looking at verses 51 through 56 this morning. Matthew 27, 51 through 56, a little context, Jesus has just died on the cross. It's just happened. He just gave up his spirit. And these are the events that ensue from that death. So we'll be looking at, again, verses 51 through 56. And as I read it, I remind you that this is the word of the Lord. Then behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming out of the graze after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. So when the centurion and those with them who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, Truly, this was the Son of God. And many women who followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, were looking on from afar. among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee's sons. That's the reading of God's word, and we pray that he would bless it to our hearts. Amen. As one might imagine, at Johns Hopkins University, where I went to school, There's a pretty big divide between those who play sports and those who are deridingly and pejoratively called GP, or general population, because GP, as they were called, people had to be extremely smart to get into that college. I think that the average SATs of people not in the athletics program are over 1,500 or something, way high. And these people, therefore, tended to be quite enthralled with their studies and in the library all the day long. And so there was this divide between the people who played sports and the people who didn't, the GP. because even though it's not technically part of the written law, but the idea is if you play sports, you can have a lot lower standard and still get in, even if you don't receive a scholarship. And this is certainly how I got in, by the way. But within the sports community, there were a few fraternities and sororities that there was heavy pressure, therefore, to join. Because if you joined these fraternities, I'm thinking of especially one fraternity, which was called Wawa, because a Wawa used to be there. But it had its Greek name, too, but everyone just called it Wawa. It was quite a temptation, not a temptation, but quite a lot of pressure to join this fraternity, because this is where all the sports people joined. And for reasons that I now understand but didn't then, I never joined. I never joined because my father taught us not to do such things, not to be involved in such things. And that's why I didn't join. But there was a lot of pressure for me to join. And so as you might expect, there was sort of a disappointment among the brothers of that fraternity that me and my older and younger brother didn't join. We were always cordial with them. And when they invited us over just to hang out there, we often went. And it was a good relationship. It was fine. But there was one room in the fraternity house that we were never allowed to go into, the brother's room. It was only for members, only for brothers of the fraternity. And those were the only people allowed in that room. We were fine with them. They were friendly with us. We studied together, we ate together. But as soon as we inquired about the room or to go in it or to see it, the answer was no. And quite automatically, there was a dividing wall. That room separated the brothers from everyone else. In many ways, the veil in the temple operated in the same way. The veil and as the temple expands, the different courts were there to separate, as we read from Exodus chapter 26, the veil separated the holy place from the most holy place. And the most holy place was only entered into one time a year and that only by the high priest. It's separated. the priests from the high priest, the normal activity from the utterly sacred activity on the day of atonement. And so when we see something so sacred as the veil in the temple tearing upon Jesus's death, we know that this means something. It isn't just some crazy occurrence, along with the other crazy occurrences that occurred when Jesus was crucified. It has high symbolic value. It's very important when we understand the significance of the veil being torn here in Matthew, chapter twenty seven. So what I want to do this morning is look at five different aspects of the veils tearing. Now, these aspects aren't to be separated, utterly distinct from one another, not completely different. They all go together. But there are five different aspects, five different meanings of what it might have signified to those who saw the veil tear from top to bottom, and what it meant, and the plan, and the purposes of God. So five different reasons. We begin with the first one. This was the first reason, I think, for the veil's tearing from top to bottom. I call it the divine response. The temple was where God dwelled. God never came back to the temple. It's something Bill and I have been quite impressed with, I think, as we go through the Gospel of Matthew. It's clearly Jesus who is the glory of the Lord returning to the temple. So when the second temple was built, God never returned. The glory of the Lord never came. That was Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, as Matthew makes it clear to us. However, the temple still signified, it still was a symbol of God's presence with his people. And so when the veil tears, it's as if God Himself is tearing that veil. And this is important because in that world, unlike our world, to tear one's garments meant something. It was a symbolic action. It signified two things. It meant two things. The first one was grief. We get this many times in Scripture. In the book of Job, particularly, we read in the first chapter, then Job arose, tore his robe, and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshipped. And he said, naked I have come from the womb, and naked I shall depart. What is the idea here of tearing the robe? Well, Job has just heard all the disaster that has come upon him and that has come upon his family, and so he tears his robe. It's a sign of grief and shock. And I think we have some of that here with it's as if God himself is grieving and shocked at this terrible occurrence of his own son dying on the cross. What a tragedy it is, not just for God in the sense that his own son is suffering on the cross and cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? That is enough. But it's his own image bearers who are doing this, the ones who he created in his own image. are the perpetrators of this awful crime. It is a tragedy. So his robe, as it were, is torn in grief, but not just grief, also indignation to tear one's robes, not just meant shock and grief, but also indignation, particularly at blasphemy. Ironically enough, it was the high priest who's done this last. In the Gospel of Matthew, in chapter 26, near the end of the chapter, verse 65, we read upon Jesus's confession that he is the Son of God. And the high priest tore his clothes, saying, he has spoken blasphemy. What further need do we have of witnesses? Look now, you have heard his blasphemy. The irony here, I think, is quite vivid. The high priest who is representing the people before God, he has called Jesus, the Son of God, a blasphemer. But God's response is the last and the most powerful response. He is declaring the true blasphemy, the blasphemy on those who operate at the temple, the blasphemy on the scribes and the priests and those who rejected Jesus. They are the true blasphemers. They are the ones that they claim to be on God's side are in league with the devil. And so God here signifies by the tearing of his own garments, the blasphemy that was perpetrated against his own son and against him as the father. This is, I think, the purpose also of the earthquake. Earthquakes in scripture often represent God's judgment. Just one example is from Micah chapter one. I'm not going to read it. It's verses three and four, but it's clearly a judgment or a judgment prophecy. And earthquakes are part of that. And so we see God's judgment coming upon those who have committed this great blasphemy against his son and then by extension against him. It's easy to think that you are on God's side. Many people think they are on God's side. Many people think that they speak for God. We hear it all the time in our day and age. God is not a God of judgment. He is a God of love. You are being bigoted. And God will see to it that you are punished. The irony, of course, is that they're calling God's punishment upon this God of love, but no one cares about that. Many people in these days claim to speak for God. They claim that God is this God of love, and by that they mean that He's just accepting of everyone. God is a God of love. But He's more than that. And the scriptures are clear. Many people claim to speak for God, but are really speaking against Him. They are really giving forth the God of their own imaginations. This happens not just in the world, but in the church. And it's important that we not speak on God's behalf unless we know it is the God of Israel, the God of scriptures that we are speaking about and we're speaking his word to the people. And how do we do that? by knowing the scriptures, by hearing them preached and read, by reading them, by being saturated in them, and by living them. That is how we know this God and therefore are able to proclaim him to others. Because it's easy to think that God is on your side if the God is your own imagination. The divine response is the father's grief and the father's indignation toward the blasphemy perpetrated against his son. Secondly, the tearing of the veil means the defeat of death. This is from verses 52 and 53. And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming out of the graves after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many." It's difficult for us to imagine just how strange Israelite worship would have seemed to us. There are all kinds of things going on. And if you pay careful attention when you read about the worship of ancient Israel, you'll see that this is very different. And the most strange thing, of course, is the animal sacrifices. The temple, if nothing else, was a place of death. Thousands and thousands of animals died in the temple over and over and over and over again. There were sacrifices. And this was good. This was God's plan and purpose, because it was a way that sin could be atoned for. The temple was the place, however, of death, because the temple was the place where sin was atoned for, and the wages of sin is death. However, when the ultimate sacrifice comes, when Christ the Lord, who is the ultimate sacrifice, who gave himself for many, when he comes and bears upon himself the guilt of the world, the sin of the world, then there's no longer any kind of need for that place of death anymore. Why? Because death has been dealt with because sin has been dealt with. And we see this when Jesus dies. What happens? Automatically, life appears. People who have been dead in their graves, rotting, are raised to life. And they appear to many in the Holy City, in Jerusalem. This is not extremely important in itself, Because, presumably, they were just raised like Lazarus was, and they died at a later time. The point here is this is a sign of what happened at Christ's death. Death itself died when Christ died. Because the penalty for sin is death, and sin is taking care of them. No longer any necessary sacrifices in the temple. Again, I want to reiterate this. It's very important that we understand this. The temple was not bad. The temple was part of God's purposes. It was not done away with because God had a better plan, or a plan B, or parentheses, or anything like that. It was always God's purpose that the temple be a symbol of Christ Himself. where God's glory truly dealt God and man together in one human. This was the purpose of the temple. So it is not done away with because it was bad. It's done away with because it has become obsolete, because it has been fulfilled in Christ Jesus, who paid the ultimate sacrifice for sin, and therefore defeated death. And this, I think, gives us encouragement The author to the Hebrews talks about how we can never cleanse our conscious from sin because talking about under the old covenant, because there was always a repetition of sacrifice over and over and over again. We can never completely do away with that, but when Christ died once for all, he came and cleared the consciences of many who were stricken with fear of death. And so we can be encouraged that while we die, we will yet live, as Jesus tells Mary and Martha. We will be raised from the dead, because death has been defeated. The tearing of the temple wall signified, in a sense, the coming destruction of the whole order, the temple, and therefore the defeat of death. Thirdly, the tearing of the temple wall symbolized the end of an era, the end of an era. The old covenant era was that of Jewish election and privilege. God chose only the Jews in the Old Testament. It's quite clear. He called Abraham and only Abraham and said in his descendants, Will all the nations of the earth be blessed? And then he carefully, as the history, as the story progresses, he narrows it down. Not Ishmael, but through Isaac. Not through Esau, but through Jacob and his Jacob sons who become the twelve tribes of Israel. It's clear from the Old Testament that God made promises to and through Israel. They were God's special people. and his privileged people. And we should not want to take anything away from that. That is true. And that is in the scriptures. And there was no greater sign of God's privilege that he placed upon the Jewish people than the temple. Yes, they had the land. And that was a great sign of God's blessing. Yes, they had the promises and the covenant. And that was also a great sign of God's blessing. Yes, God fought for them when they were entering the promised land. And that was a great sign of God's blessing and love. But the temple itself, when it was created, that was the ultimate sign, so much so that people were putting their trust in the temple, even when they were wicked. They kept saying the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, we have it. God cannot abandon us because he is with us through the temple. And of course, they were mistaken in that. And this is why the tragedy of the destruction of the temple. In the Old Testament is such a huge deal for God's presence was. And it was a sign of God's favor toward Israel. But here we see the temple being torn, again, symbolic of what will happen in just 30 short years, the temple being destroyed, because God's special people are not anymore just Jews, but Jews and Gentiles. By the way, this is not replacement, it's expansion. Not Jews anymore, just, but Jews and Gentiles. All those who name the name of Christ are part of God's special people, his elect people, those whom he has called from darkness into light. And we get just a tad view of this here in verse 54 of this, of what happened here. So when the centurion and those with him who regarding Jesus saw the earthquake and the things that had happened They feared greatly saying truly this was the Son of God a Few verses prior to this the chief priests the scribes and other leaders were mocking Jesus saying if you are the Son of God and Again, showing who their father is, because it was Satan who was saying those things to Jesus way back in Matthew chapter four. But now we see a true confession of Jesus being the son of God, and it comes upon the lips of a Gentile, the centurion and those with him. Truly, this was The son of God, it was the Gentile who understood it. We don't know what he meant by son of God. We don't know what his understanding was, but he recognized. The truth of what Jesus was saying and the truth about who he was, and it was the Jews who missed it, the ones who had all the privileges, the ones who had God's covenant and his promises and God's glory. And so we see here a taste of the end of the old covenant era and the beginning of a new era where Jew and Gentile are together God's people. I think this is important for us to stand back here and say, because if Some people were in here, they might accuse me of being anti-Semitic by saying things like this, by saying, oh, you're really taking the pendulum the other way. The Jews bragged about it, but now you're bragging about it. That is not what we are to do. Romans 11 makes it quite clear that we cannot be anti-Semites and we cannot have a special hatred toward the Jews because they disobeyed for two reasons. First of all, They were the sons of God, and in some mysterious way, God's gift and his calling are irrevocable. God still has a special way of looking at the Jews. I don't know how it exactly works. Paul lays it out in Romans chapter 11, but he says the strange statement to our ears. According to the gospel, they are your enemies, but according to election, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, that is, on account of the promises given to the patriarchs. So they still have a spot in God's plan because they were the ones from whom the Messiah came, because they were the bearers of God's prophecies and his word. They were entrusted with, as Paul says in Romans 3, the oracles of God. Now, I don't think that means that the temple is going to be rebuilt. Obviously, it doesn't. And it may mean that many Jews will be converted at the end. I'm not sure, but it certainly means that we should not hold a special or harbor any special hatred toward them. In fact, we should give privilege to them. In a sense, Paul says first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. Secondly, and this is where the point comes home here. Paul says it again in Romans 11. Speaking to the Gentiles. Be not arrogant because God's blessing has come upon you, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, that is the people of Israel, he will not spare you either. You who are a wild olive shoot who has been grafted into God's plans and purposes. God has always desired Mercy and not sacrifice. God has always desired. Obedience and not burn offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit in a contrite heart, by the way, all three of those verses come from the Old Testament. And if we become arrogant because God's blessings have come upon us, we in this country in particular, God will raise up others The Christ kingdom will prevail. We will be left behind from there. The tearing of the temple signified the end of an era, the end of the old covenant era, and God's blessings going forth, not just to Israel, but to all the world. It also, fourthly, signified or symbolized what we normally think it does, free access to God and his presence. We know this from a reading of Exodus chapter 26, but also from just a reading of the scriptures as a whole and knowing a general knowledge of things. The temple segregated people in the sense that only certain amount of people were allowed in one court, the priests, and then only one person was allowed in the most holy place, and that was the high priest, and that once a year. And by Jesus's time, they had all these elaborate settings in courts. There was the court of the Gentiles, which was on the outside. Then there was the court of Israelite women, which was next in. Then there was the court of Israelite males, which was next, and then the sacred court of the priests and finally the most holy place. So the temple had this aspect of dividing and separating again. This was not a bad thing. This was a good thing. When you're dealing with God's presence, you don't want to be close if you're sinful. So it was for the protection of God's people that this happened. But once the ultimate sacrifice has been made, Once Christ comes and fulfills all that the temple stood for and all that it was in God's purpose. The veil is torn from top to bottom, there is no longer any divisions, all have free access to God and his presence, we have we can boldly come before the throne of grace, as the author to the Hebrews puts it. This is a great and a glorious truth. We don't need a high priest to enter into God's presence. God's presence is here when two or three are gathered in his name. And sometimes we take this for granted, we read the Old Testament and we think, how could they have been so afraid of God's presence? That's because we're so used to God's grace and mercy in Christ, we don't remember just who the holy God we are approaching is. He is the holy God of Israel. He has not changed. He has not changed his character, mind or disposition when the New Testament came. What has changed is that the sacrifice has been made fully and permanently, and so we can boldly enter God's presence. That which divided the holy place from the most holy place, the veil, is now obsolete because all who trust in Christ are high priests, not just priests, high priests, because we can enter the holiest of holies without fear of God's judgment because of the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Fifthly and finally, The tearing of the veil represented what I'm calling here the expansion of God's purposes and God's presence. As we have said time and time again, the temple was the place where God's presence was on Earth. I think sometimes we don't understand how, in a sense, how risky that is to do that. There are all kinds of political wars about who controlled Jerusalem. And one of the reasons that the Northern Kingdom sinned was that they made a high place for God. They made a place to worship God in a place other than Jerusalem. And this was political as well as religious, because whoever controlled God's presence or the place where God was also controlled in many ways the people. So God dwelling on Earth is something that he committed himself to because he created the Earth. But because of human sin, it caused problems and caused, as we see in the Old Testament, it was a source for much sin, people sinning there. And of course, worshiping other gods is also connected with this sort of idolatry. But still, even in the Old Testament, there was the promise, the promise that God's glory would not be refined or just be confined to one place. the promise that God's glory would fill the whole earth, the promise that which began in the Garden of Eden would finally be fulfilled, that God's presence would be all over the earth, and that the earth would finally be subdued under God's rule and the rule of his vice-regent, man. But of course, this whole project got off on the wrong foot because of sin. We see it with Adam and Eve, and we see it with Israel. But the promise still remain valid. And so we read in Isaiah chapter 11 that the earth will be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. We read the prayer in Psalm 72. May his glory fill the earth. We also sang it earlier in Psalm 57. May his glory be over land and sea. Yet His glory was confined just to one place. And this was, again, part of God's purposes. You didn't want to be in God's presence if you were not covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. But because of Christ and His sacrifice, the veil was torn and God's glory now can go throughout the whole earth. Nowhere is this better seen than at Pentecost, when God's presence, his spirit, the third person of the Trinity comes and God's presence overwhelms those who are there and they hear the gospel in their own languages. It's kind of a foretaste for the going forth of the gospel to all places. And as this continues, as the church keeps going, being In itself, the place where God's glory rests, we begin to see the fulfillment of these promises of God's glory filling the earth. This was always God's intention, always his plan. He never revoked it. He never changed it. And it was always his plan that this would be through Christ, his sacrifice, his resurrection, his ascension and his sending of the spirit to his church. And so we see that the veil is broken and God's glory is let loose. And so we pray with the psalmist, may his glory fill the earth. And as we pray, we live knowing that because of the power of the Holy Spirit corporately and individually, we are bearers of God's glory and his image. And we work and we continue to work in God's kingdom with the prayer and with the hope and with the solid assurance that his glory will indeed fill the earth. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for. We thank you for your purposes with Israel, we thank you for how it showed us and it's clear to us your plans and in all kinds of ways demonstrated what would what was necessary and what would be in order for your promises to be fulfilled. But we thank you also, Father, that that whole covenant was fulfilled in Christ, the law and the prophets were fulfilled. And so, therefore, the promises which you spoke first to Abraham and reiterated to his children, to Isaac, And to Jacob and to all Israel are finally fulfilled in our Lord Jesus Christ. And so it is our prayer. That your glory would fill the earth. And it's in your name we pray. Amen.