Does ‘his flesh’ in Hebrews 10:20 refer to the whole phrase, ‘a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil’?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1991.

You ask whether the phrase in Hebrews 10:20, that is, 'his flesh', refers to the whole phrase 'a new and living way, which he inaugurated for us through the veil'.

I suppose the passage could, at a pinch, be taken to mean this, if other considerations forced one to that conclusion; but it does not seem to me to be the natural way to interpret the Greek. The apparently similar construction in Hebrews 2:14—'death, that is, the devil'—is not strictly parallel, because in that sentence 'death' is in the genitive case, whereas 'the devil' is in the accusative case; and therefore 'that is' unambiguously refers to the earlier expression, 'him who had the power', which likewise is in the accusative case. In Hebrews 10:20, by contrast, 'his flesh' is in the genitive, whereas 'the new and living way' is in the accusative. Therefore, if you take 'that is' to be referring to 'the new and living way', you must suppose an ellipsis and read, 'that is [the way of] his flesh'. It is easier to allow the genitive 'his flesh' to refer to the previous genitive 'through the veil', for then one does not have to suppose any ellipsis.

Westcott was a famous advocate of taking 'his flesh' to refer to 'the new and living way', and he supported his interpretation by arguing that this translation brings the significance of the veil in 10:14 into line with the unquestioned significance of the veil in 6:19–20.

This argument certainly has some strength; but it does not seem to me to be decisive, for the Epistle to the Hebrews itself indicates that the tabernacle and its systems of rituals had a double function. In the first place, they were a copy of things in the heavens (see Hebrews 8:5). Looked at from this point of view, the veil very aptly signifies that which hides the unseen presence of God and the eternal world from our view. But then Hebrews 9:11 and Hebrews 10:1 indicate that the tabernacle had another function. It was a shadow of the coming good things; that is, a shadow of the person and work of the Lord Jesus. Looked at from this point of view, the veil becomes a very good picture of his humanity.

Westcott, of course, did not understand this. He felt that it was impossible to regard our Lord's humanity as a veil that hid the presence of God. He argued that our Lord's humanity, far from hiding God, revealed him. And for this reason particularly, Westcott felt obliged to adopt the other interpretation of Hebrews 10:14.

Westcott's mistake—if I may be allowed to talk thus of that eminent scholar—was to think of the veil in completely negative terms, as something that hid God's presence from man. In actual fact, the veil was a merciful provision. If there had been no veil in the tabernacle, the priests could not have entered the tabernacle at all. They would have had to keep outside the building completely. The positioning of a veil twenty cubits down the length of the tabernacle allowed the priests to come much nearer to God than that; to enter, in fact, the Holy Place within the tabernacle, even if for the time being they could not enter the holiest of all. The veil, therefore, was a merciful provision, allowing the priests as much access and nearness to God as could possibly be allowed in the days when they were still dependent on mere animal sacrifices. Moreover, when they took advantage of this provision and entered the Holy Place, while the veil in some sense hid the presence of God, its delightful symbolism, the rich colours of the mysterious cherubim, revealed something of the glory and wonder, the beauty and the majesty of the God, who presenced himself behind the veil.

This function of the veil, therefore, becomes a delightful picture of the function of our Lord's humanity 'in the days of his flesh'; that is, the function he performed for people while he was here on earth. No mortal man could see God and live, and yet fallen men and women were able to come right up to Christ and touch him, and little children were able to sit fearlessly on his knee, though at that very time all the fullness of the Godhead dwelt within him bodily. In that sense, mercifully he hid the glory of the uncreated God, and people were able to approach him and thus come nearer to God than anyone else had been able to in all the previous centuries. At the same time, he revealed God in a way that no previous institution or revelation had been able to reveal him.

That said, it remains true that, during our Lord's lifetime on earth, not even the apostles had that access into the heavenly holiest of all which we now have. That access only became possible after our Lord's sacrifice at Calvary and his resurrection and ascension into the immediate presence of God.

That, then, is how I would be inclined to understand Hebrews 10:14. The late Professor F. F. Bruce took a similar view.

Ever truly yours,