The Veil

When Moses came down from the mountain his face shone with the glory of God, so bright that the people were afraid to come near, and he put a veil over his face. The apostle Paul, looking back on that veil, sees in it a picture of something deeper and sadder. There is a veil, he says, that lies not over a shining face but over the human heart, a covering that keeps us from seeing the glory of God shining in the face of Christ. And he gives the one remedy for it in a single clause. When it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.

We must understand where the veil lies, for this is the heart of the matter. The veil is not over the truth. It is over us. The glory is there, shining, unhidden; the fault is in the eyes that cannot see it. Their minds were blinded, Paul says of those who read the old covenant without seeing Christ in it, and the vail is upon their heart. The Scriptures are not dark; the gospel is not obscure; the glory of Christ blazes on every page for those with eyes to see. But a veil lies over the heart, and men read and do not see, hear and do not perceive, hold the very words of life in their hands and remain in the dark.

THE VEILED HEART

What is this veil, and how did it come to lie over us? It is woven of unbelief, and of hardness, and of the long turning away of a heart that does not wish to see. And there is a darker hand in it still, for the apostle says that the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them. So the veil is partly our own doing, our own hardness and refusal, and partly the work of an enemy who labors to keep us blind. But in neither case is it a fault in the glory. The sun has not gone out. The veil is over the eye.

And this is a humbling truth, for it means that our failure to see is not the fault of the Scriptures being unclear or of God being hidden. We have read the same passage a hundred times and it lay flat and lifeless, and then one day the veil lifted and the very same words blazed with a glory we had never seen, though they had not changed a letter. What changed was not the word but the eye. The glory had been there all along, veiled from us, and the veil, not the word, was what had kept us in the dark.

THE TURNING THAT UNVEILS

How, then, is the veil taken away? Not by our striving to see harder, not by cleverness or study alone, but by turning. When it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. The turning of the heart to Christ is the lifting of the veil. In the very act of turning, of ceasing to look away and setting the face toward him, the covering falls, and the eyes are opened, and the glory that was always there is seen. This is what happened to the two on the road to Emmaus, whose hearts had been veiled even as the Lord walked and talked with them, until their eyes were opened and they knew him, and he opened their understanding that they might understand the scriptures. The turning and the opening are one act, and it is his gift in the turning.

So if you have read the word with a veil over your heart, lying flat and dead before you, the counsel is not to strain harder at the page but to turn to the Lord himself, to look up from the letter to the living Christ of whom it speaks and ask him to take the veil away. Turn to him in the very place your heart is veiled, in the doctrine you cannot love, the command you cannot obey, the promise you cannot believe, and let the turning do what all your effort could not. He destroys, the prophet said, the veil that is spread over all nations. He can lift the one over your heart.

BEHOLDING WITH OPEN FACE

And what happens when the veil is lifted is more wonderful than mere sight, for the apostle goes on. We all, he says, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory. The unveiled soul does not merely see the glory; it is changed by seeing it. For we become like what we behold. Gaze long at the world, and the soul takes the world’s shape; gaze at the Lord with open face, and the soul is slowly conformed to his image, changed from glory to glory, one degree of likeness at a time. The veil off, we behold; beholding, we are transformed. This is the whole secret of Christian growth, not straining to become like him by our own effort, but gazing at him with an unveiled face until we are changed into his image.

And with the unveiling comes liberty. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, the apostle says in the same breath, there is liberty. The veiled heart is a heart in bondage, unable to see, unable to approach, unable to be changed. The unveiled heart is free, free to behold the glory, free to draw near with open face, free to be transformed. The Spirit who lifts the veil is the Spirit of liberty, and the soul he unveils is set at large, no longer groping behind a covering but gazing with open face at the glory of the Lord.

FROM GLASS TO FACE

Notice that the changing is from glory to glory, by degrees, and not all at once. The veil is not always torn away in a single moment, leaving the soul in perfect sight. More often it is drawn back slowly, thread by thread, and the glory is seen a little more clearly this year than last, and the soul is changed one degree at a time, from glory to glory. This is a patience we must learn, both with the word and with ourselves, for the unveiling is usually a long work, and the soul that expects to see everything at once grows discouraged when the veil lifts only a little. Do not despise the small degrees. Each is real, and they are leading somewhere.

For even the clearest sight we have now is not yet the full sight. Now we see through a glass, darkly, the apostle says, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known. The veil thins, but in this life it is never wholly gone. We behold the glory as in a glass, truly but dimly, enough to be changed by it but not yet enough to see it whole. This should keep us both humble and hopeful, humble because our present sight is partial and dim, hopeful because the dimness is not the end.

And there is a day appointed when the last veil falls entirely. Beloved, the apostle John says, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. There is the final unveiling, the face-to-face sight, and with it the completion of the change, for the seeing and the becoming are one, and when at last we see him as he is, we shall be wholly like him. The whole work of the unveiling, begun in the first turning of the heart and carried on by degrees through this life, is finished in that sight.

So be patient with the partial sight you have now, and do not stop turning and beholding because the veil has not wholly lifted. Keep turning to the Lord in the dim places, keep gazing with the open face you have been given, and trust that the glory seen dimly now will one day be seen whole, and that every degree of change worked in you by the beholding is carrying you toward the day when you shall see him as he is, and be like him.

So ask whether a veil still lies over some part of your heart, some region where the glory of Christ has never yet broken through, where the word lies dead and the face of God is dark to you. Do not conclude that the fault is in the word or that the glory is not there. The veil is over the eye, and there is one remedy. Turn to the Lord. Turn to him in that very place, and let the veil be taken away, and behold with open face the glory that was always shining, and be changed by the beholding, from glory to glory, into the image of the One you see. When it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.