Human beings can’t see God because of their sins. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, from which God had commanded them not to eat, so God drove them out of the Garden of Eden. After that, human beings could no longer see God who is the Source of life. When you cannot see God, the Source of life, you cannot receive life from its Source. Just as God had warned them, saying “You will surely die.” (Genesis 2:17), death and destruction came to Adam and Eve who had disobeyed Him.
In the Old Testament, the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle was where God dwelt. They hung the curtain to separate the Holy Place and from the Most Holy Place. The curtain was opened on the Day of Atonement once a year. When the high priest took some blood from a bull and some blood from a goat into the Most Holy Place after slaughtering them and confessed the sins of the people, saying they should have died because they were sinners like the animals who had shed their blood, God accepted the sacrifice and forgave their sins.
It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, God sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world to take away our sins. God let His Son Jesus Christ, who was innocent, die, shedding His blood on the Cross to wash away the sins of all mankind, who can’t see God.
The curtain stands for mankind becoming estranged from God by committing sins. When Jesus died on the Cross, the curtain in the Most Holy Place was torn in two from top to bottom and the way to God opened for us through the curtain. (Mark 15:37-38) The curtain is the body of Jesus Christ. (Hebrews10:20) The tearing of the curtain means that Jesus Christ washed away our sins once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption.
When Jesus died on the cross, taking up the sins of mankind and redeemed man of his sins, the curtain between the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place was torn and the new and living way to God opened. Jesus said, “I am the gate for the sheep.” By the blood of Jesus Christ, who died on the Cross, the gate of salvation that allows us to see God and to enter the kingdom of heaven has opened.
Pastor Seok-Jeon Yoon
Extracted from Yonsei Newspaper #610
