What is significant about the torn curtain? What about Jesus' death impressed the centurion at the cross? When Jesus died, the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom:

Mark 15:38-39 (NIV)


  38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39
  And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he
  died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”


What made the centurion say that? What is the significance of the torn curtain - does it have doctrinal significance?
Two things are significant. The first is that the curtain symbolically divided the Holy of Holies, the most revered place in the temple where God was believed to dwell and only priests were allowed to enter, from the rest of the temple where ordinary people were allowed. Removing that division was a symbol that there was now no barrier between ordinary people and God; we no longer needed specially appointed people to intercede for us.

The second is that the curtain was torn from top to bottom, as opposed to from bottom to top. This indicates that the curtain was not ripped by man but by God.