When a Roman spear pierced Jesus' side, God the Father declared the Temple obsolete by removing the barrier to its central item: the Ark of the Covenant.
A core message of the Tabernacle and Temple is segregation. Sinful people cannot come into the presence of a holy God, the God who dwelt within the Holy of holies, above the Ark of the Covenant.
Gentiles could only come so far. Jewish women could come further, but not as far as Jewish men, and only Levi's descendants could ever enter the Temple itself. The Holy of holies, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept, was completely off limits to everyone except a descendant of Aaron, the High Priest. And he could only enter there once a year, on the Day of Atonement.
With the ripping open of the body of the Lord Jesus, the Father rips open the way into his very presence. He ripped open the curtain from top to bottom, the curtain that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of holies.
Within one generation of this gracious event, God himself removed the obsolete vacant building, a wind-swept house from which God's glory had departed. The Lord Jesus removed our sins in AD 30, and God removed the Temple in AD 70, because it had completely fulfilled its purpose.
What can remove the basis for our accursed estate, whether we are of Jewish or Gentile descent? Nothing but the blood of Jesus, and with his removal of human sin, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin.
No one can ever abandon Christ and return to the rituals of the Old Covenant for the simple fact that they no longer exist.
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After serving Grace Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, Louisiana, Bob was honorably retired on Sunday, September 27, 2015, and given the title "Pastor Emeritus." This was forty years to the day after he became their pastor.
He now works for the Presbytery of the Gulf South as...
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