Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Hebrews 10:20

"by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;" — Hebrews 10:20 (ASV)

The way to God is both “new” and “living.” It is “new” (GK 4710) because what Jesus has done has created a completely new situation; it is “living” (GK 2409) because that way is indissolubly bound up with the living Lord Jesus. The writer does not say, as John does, that Jesus is “the way” , but this is close to his meaning. This is not the way of the dead animals of the old covenant; rather, it is the way of the living Lord. This way to God he “opened” (GK 1590; this word is the same one used in 9:18 of putting into effect the old covenant with blood), which hints again at his sacrifice of himself. The “curtain” goes back once more to the imagery of the tabernacle, for it was through the curtain that hung before the Most Holy Place that the high priest passed into the very presence of God.

There is a problem as to whether we take “that is, his flesh” (NIV, “body”; GK 4922) with “curtain,” which is the more natural way of taking the Greek, or with “way.” The difficulty in taking it with “curtain” is that it seems to make the flesh of Christ that which veils God from human beings. There is a sense, however, in which Christians have always recognized this, even if in another sense they see Christ’s body as revealing God. As a well-known hymn puts it, “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see.” The value of this way of looking at the imagery of the curtain is that it was by the rending of the veil—the flesh being torn on the cross—that the way to God was opened. The author is saying in his own way what the writers of the Synoptic Gospels said when they spoke of the curtain of the temple as being torn when Christ died (Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38). The “body” (“flesh”) here is the correlate of the “blood” in v.19.