February 23, 2023
Reading: Genesis 3:11-24
Focus: Genesis 3:21 – The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
Father, as I begin this article, please fill my mind with Your words. Fill my mind with Your thoughts. Give me the right words to use to get Your point across to all who read this. In Jesus Name. Amen
God has just sentenced the serpent to slither on his belly for all of his days. He has told Adam and Eve that their lives will be changed. They won’t be able to just pick a piece of fruit off of a tree for dinner. It will take hard work, tilling the soil, to eat. Eve will suffer when bearing a child. How did things go so wrong? Sin.
Adam and Eve were naked. Naked and ashamed. We are told that they sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness. What were they thinking? Temporary covering at best, because now fig leaves will wilt and won’t cover their nakedness for very long. On top of that, fig leaves are terribly scratchy. Not a good choice in my book. God had said if they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they would die. Death was the required punishment for sin and nothing they could do would change that. Adam and Eve had sinned. Once they had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they began to die. Whatever they ate changed them, in that instant. God had said they would surely die. But God had a plan.
Adam blamed his sin on Eve. Eve blamed her sin on the serpent. Everybody was pointing fingers at someone else, well, except the serpent (no fingers). Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? But God is omniscient. He knows everything; past, present and future. He knew they would be tempted. And sadly, He knew they would fall. But before time began, God had made a plan. Death is the penalty for sin. Someone or something had to die. So, God killed an animal, or maybe two, for skin to cover the nakedness of man and woman. The life’s blood of an innocent animal was spilled to provided covering for the sinner. The animal(s) who were killed had no sin. They were innocent of sin.
Then, Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden. God could not allow Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Life. If they did, they would live forever in their sin. So, God banished them from Paradise and sent them out to live in a world that would be full of hardship. He didn’t remove Eden, but he stationed Cherubim at the gates of the garden. They had flaming swords that flashed back and forth, guarding the way into the garden. Some people think it still exists somewhere on this planet. I don’t see how. The flood in Noah’s day destroyed everything. Only God knows where it is.
God, Himself, instituted the act of sacrifice for the covering of sin. The Bible regards blood as the source of life. Atonement for sin was made by sacrificing an animal’s life for one’s own life. “For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life” (Leviticus 17:11). That is why the blood of Jesus is so important. His innocent blood was shed to give us life everlasting with Him. The Bible doesn’t tell us that He instructed them to make a regular sacrifice, but it is obvious as we read on that Adam and Eve and their family followed God’s example. As did all of the ancestors of Jesus.
And so began the circular ritual of sin offerings. Year after year, throughout the Scripture, animals were sacrificed for the atonement for sin. Each year the best was chosen Spotless, unblemished, perfect. Lambs became the prescribed sacrifice for sin. The Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, comes around every year. For centuries, thousands of lambs were sacrificed for the atonement for sin. The Day of Atonement is the most holy and solemn day of the year. People were instructed to consider their sins and repent. The Jewish people fast on that day, from sundown the evening before to sundown the next evening. Some Christians follow the same tradition of fasting on that day. Our pastor suggested that we fast too and contemplate on our lives. Are we doing what God has us to do?
Then, one day, the Lamb of God was born. He grew into a man. He followed the holy days of Yom Kippur and Passover. He practiced His Jewish faith. He went to the Temple on the high holy days. He brought the sacrifice of a male lamb, perfect, spotless and with no broken bones every year to the Temple with His earthly father. It was given to the priests to make the sacrifice on behalf of His family. High priests had to prepare themselves and sacrifice a lamb for the atonement of his own sins first before he could officiate any of the sacrifices of the people. All sacrifices of the people were done on their behalf by the high priest because he was the only one who could enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple to sprinkle the blood of the lamb on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant. And he could only do that on the Day of Atonement. We need only to look at the Jewish heritage of our faith to see that Jesus fulfills all the prophecies. In future blogs, I will talk about the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. Suffice it to say, He fulfilled them.
Let’s take a look at how Jesus is revealed by the sacrifices on the Day of Atonement. Jesus was male, perfectly innocent, spotless and when He died on the cross, none of His bones were broken. He was handed over to the high priests. The high priests had him crucified. His life’s blood was spilled as the sacrifice at Passover for the eternal atonement for sin. FYI, the sacrifice of lambs at Passover are also to cover sin. He had no sin, but he took on all the sins of all people from the past, present, and future. When Jesus died, the Temple curtain was ripped from top to bottom, giving mankind direct access to God. There was no more need to keep making sacrifices. But the leaders of the Jewish people of Jesus’ day would not see it. The perfect Lamb of God, the man with God’s blood running through His veins, lay down His life and shed His blood to cover our sins. Just as the Hebrews painted the door post and lintel above the door of their homes with the blood of a lamb in Egypt to protect against the passing of the Angel of Death. We have to symbolically paint the doorposts and lintel of our hearts with the blood of the spotless Lamb of God as the permanent atonement for sin to be free from eternal death.
Sadly, many of the Jews of Jesus’ day did not believe it and many Jews throughout the centuries still don’t recognize Him as the Messiah. The high priests of Jesus’ day would not see that the Messiah came to free them from the bondage of sin. They were looking for a political Messiah. What they got was a spiritual Messiah. They thought the Messiah was to come to bring peace between all nations. Jesus didn’t come to do that. But He will when He returns and defeats Satan once and for all. He came to bring us to God, to free us from sin and to live with Him for eternity.
Those who died before the crucifixion of Jesus and were looking forward to the Messiah, were redeemed by their sacrifices. They had believed and followed God, repenting of their sin and making atonement for their sin with a spotless lamb. Our admission of our sin, and our belief and acceptance of the sacrifice Jesus made, covers us for all time. The cycle begun by God’s initial sacrifice, in the Garden of Eden, was ended with the death and resurrection of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Are your sins under the Blood of the Lamb?
Father God, Baruch HaShem Adonai (Hebrew for) Blessed be the Name of the Lord. I thank you for Jesus. For His willingness to take my place in death. For His blood shed to cover my sins. I am amazed that You loved me so much that you gave your Son in my place. Help me to offer my best to You. In Jesus Name. Amen.
Food for Thought
- Why do you think Adam and Eve ashamed of their nakedness?
- Do you believe that God had a plan before the earth was even created to redeem fallen man?
- Why is it significant that God sacrificed an animal to cover man’s nakedness?
- Have you ever taken punishment for someone else’s misdeed? Why?
- If you were Jewish and had followed Judaism all your life as perfectly as you could and then studied the life of Jesus, would you believe and call Him Messiah? Why?
