Question: Some have interpreted Hebrews 10 to say that the Savior is the veil of the temple. Is there support for this in the scriptures generally?
Answer: As used throughout the scriptures, the word “veil” signifies something separating people from the Lord that is inherent in humanity’s mortal or fallen nature. It can be physical, as symbolized by “the veil of the covering of my temple” (Doctrine & Covenants 101:23), or spiritual. That spiritual veil has been called a “dark veil of unbelief” (Alma 19:6), a “veil of darkness” (Doctrine & Covenants 38:8), or the “veil of unbelief which doth cause you to remain in your awful state of wickedness, and hardness of heart, and blindness of mind” (Ether 4:15).
In order to pierce the veil separating us from the Lord, we are to purify ourselves and “continue in patience until ye are perfected” (Doctrine & Covenants 67:13); “gather together, and stand in holy places; and prepare for the revelation which is to come” (Doctrine & Covenants 38:8; 101:22–23); “exercise faith in me, saith the Lord, even as the brother of Jared did, that they may become sanctified in me,” and “call upon the Father in my name, with a broken heart and a contrite spirit” (Ether 4:7, 15)—until we see him just as the brother of Jared saw him.
Paul—author of the Epistle to the Hebrews—depicts the “veil” as something that separates believers from God: “. . . .That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us—which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters into that within the veil, whither the Forerunner for us has entered; even Jesus, who was made a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:18–20).
Here we see that Jesus himself “entered” within the veil so that all who obtain a “hope” in him by following after him might also enter. And who is it whom we first meet through the veil but Jesus? So did Paul (1 Corinthians 9:1), Isaiah, Nephi, and Jacob (2 Nephi 11:2–3), the prophet Joseph Smith and his companions (Doctrine & Covenants 76:14; 110:1–4), and the brother of Jared (Ether 3:8). Lastly, so shall those Gentiles who will “rend the veil of unbelief” and be privileged to see the things the brother of Jared saw (Ether 4:13–16).
Paul says the way was prepared for us “to enter into the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, and by a new and living way he ordained for us through the veil; that is, by his flesh” (Hebrews 10:19–20). In other words, we enter through the veil not only “by the blood of Jesus” but also by being “sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ” (Hebrews 10:10), “the terms “body” and the “flesh” being synonymous: “He who eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him (John 6:56; cf. 1 Corinthians 11:27; 3 Nephi 18:28–30; 20:8).
When we see Jesus, therefore, it will be because we have become like him: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doesn’t 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. And every man who has this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure” (1 John 3:2–3; cf. Moroni 7:48). And as Jesus shows us the Father (John 16:25), that is the order through which we come to know God. Persons who are translated, who inherit the kingdom of the Father (3 Nephi 28:8), know this.
