THE MESSIAH ON THE MOUNT

MOUNT MORIAH

Though it has been remodeled many times, the Dome of the Rock has marked Jerusalem’s most venerated spot for more than thirteen hundred years. The sacred peak of Mount Moriah is the rock housed in the structure which gives the Dome of the Rock its name.

This rock is the oldest physical evidence for Jerusalem’s holy hill. This is where God directed Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac in Genesis 22 and it is where David sacrificed when he purchased the threshing floor of Araunah in Second Samuel 24, which was where Solomon would later build his temple.

To fully understand Mount Moriah’s significance we must understand how the place relates to Jesus Christ.

(Mark 15:37-39) “And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last. Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, “Truly this Man was the Son of God!””
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Three things happened in these verses: Jesus died, the curtain was torn, & the centurion believed. Salvation had come to mankind. But how does this relate to Mount Moriah.

JESUS DIED

On Mount Moriah, Abraham looked up & there in the thicket he saw a ram…and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his own son. (Genesis 22:13)
Centuries later John the Baptist looked up and, seeing Jesus, cried out, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)

As a perfect parallel to the story of Abraham & Isaac, our expectation might be that Jesus’ sacrifice would have to take place on Mount Moriah. Some in fact believe that Golgotha is a continuation of Moriah.

Jesus wasn’t crucified on the Temple Mount of Mount Moriah, but possibly a portion of it.
However, Jesus’ death dramatically affected the most sacred place on Mount Moriah—the holy of holies in the temple.

THE CURTAIN WAS TORN

Immediately, as Jesus breathed His last breath, the curtain in front of the Holy of Holies ripped open from top to bottom. This curtain had always been the separating boundary between sinful, unholy people and a most holy God. Now, however, the curtain was ripped open and access to God was restored:

We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have this confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, His body. (Hebrews 10:10, 14, 19-20)

THE CENTURION BELIEVED

As the curtain at the temple ripped, something amazing happened at the cross. A Roman centurion (Mark 15:39) was experiencing the barrier between man & God torn open.
As he saw Jesus die, this soldier understood and believed “that Jesus was the Son of God”—a Son who was willing to open up a way to His Holy Father in heaven by paying with His own life.

What the high priest had always done for the Jewish people each year on the Day of Atonement, Jesus had now accomplished (also) for the Gentile centurion and all of humanity—He, through His death opened up a way to safely be in the presence of God.
 
By believing, the centurion spiritually stepped through the torn curtain into relationship with God. From that day on, all people who understood that Jesus was God’s son & believed that He had paid for their sin could approach God with confidence, because they were now covered with Christ’s righteousness, not their own sin.

What the Old Covenant and the temple had only foreshadowed, Jesus had fulfilled: confidence to enter into the Most Holy Place, the ability to be intimately related to God.

The new had come. The old was obsolete and would soon disappear (Hebrews 8:13). Within forty years of Christ’s death, Herod’s temple was completely leveled to the ground, with no stone left upon another.

It has never been rebuilt, and it is no longer needed. Atonement is no longer found in a temple made by human hands atop Mount Moriah. Moriah’s atonement is found in Jesus Christ—God’s Son—the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!