Abiding in Christ is something that Jesus mentioned several times and is repeated in various New Testament books. But what exactly does it mean to abide?
To some, abiding is simply attending regular church service. To others, abiding means regular bible study and devotional. And others still haven’t given abiding any consideration at all.
But abiding is is critical for a healthy spiritual Christian life, and the scriptures don’t leave us guessing as to what it means. So today, we will examine what it means to abide in Christ, and how it applies in our daily life.
In the ancient temple, there was a veil (the פרכת) – which was actually a very large and thick cloth, that separated people from God… Only one person (the High Priest) could enter in to the most holy place of the temple, which was sealed-off by the veil; and he could only go in once per year (Hebrews 9:7).
The high priest would enter only after a very thorough cleansing ritual, and offerings of blood sacrifice to cover his own sins, and the sins of the people for which he was a representative.
This continued for years, until one major event, until Jesus Christ, the final eternal High Priest offered the final eternal sacrifice for all-time; not just covering sins for one year – but completely removing sins for all-time.
And right after Jesus declared “It is Finished!”, and surrendered His Spirit, that veil which separated the people from God was torn – and this is what I want to share with you today… the tearing of the veil, and what it means for us today in Christ.