Posted on 12/29/2011 8:04:40 PM PST by pastorbillrandles
Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21)
Remember that when Adam and Eve sinned they immediately perceived that they were naked? The nakedness of our first father and mother was a spiritual condition as well as a physical one. Now that they had broken away from God, they deeply sensed that they were vulnerable , uncovered, and exposed as sinful beings in the presence of holiness.
This sense of nakedness has passed down unto all of the children of Adam. All of us feel the need for some kind of covering of our innate shame. Even unbelievers in God have a psychological need for some sense of justification of their own lives, often seeking it in “do-goodism”.
Adam and Eve constructed clothing of fig leaves in their vain attempt to deal with the sense of shame, caused by the fall. None of us want to have to appear naked before the Holy God, therefore we seek a covering.
But the fig leaves proved to be inadequate. They didn’t truly remove the shame, for Adam and Eve fled from God, even though they were clothed in fig leaves . On the Judgment day, all of the accumulated “fig leaves” will prove to be insufficient as a covering for our shame.
The problems with fig leaves are manifold. First of all , they are the solution initiated and enacted by man. It was Adam’s idea, his own solution to the profound spiritual, moral and psychological problem of nakedness, ie shame.
The fact that Adam’s solution to the outcome of sin was rejected by God, is an early testament to what Paul the apostle would make so clear, in Romans 3;
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.(Romans 3:20)
We can not be saved by good works,(fig leaves) , for God doesn’t accept them as satisfaction of His broken law. The solution can’t come from fallen man, the best that man can do to justify himself, in the sight of God is as abominable as filthy rags,
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.(Isaiah 64:6)
Secondly, Adam’s solution to the shame problem didn’t address the real problem. In trying to cover over with fig leaves the sense of shame for what he had done, he showed a failure to appreciate the true nature of his sin, as well as the impact of it upon his God. He was trying to remedy guilt feelings, but not true moral guilt.
We men don’t merely feel guilty, we are guilty. We have broken God’s law, and by our self-will, disrupted God’s universe. All of our sins are against God himself. If there is to be a solution to the estrangement they have wrought, it has to come from God.
All of the false religious systems of the world, developed by the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve are man centered. They are designed to recover the lost sense of covering, the “rightness” with God that Adam once took for granted and that even fallen men acutely sense.
They are mere fig leaves, man centered works systems which prove wholly insensitive to the true claims of God and to the deepest need of man, which is not the eradication of guilty feelings, but the expiation of true and deep guilt.
This is the significance of the animal skin coverings. The fig leaves had to be removed, Adam and Eve had to forswear their own solution to the shame problem, in order to accept God’s solution, which was the animal coverings.
On a practical level it must have horrified them to see the dead lambs , rams or bulls that God skinned as He made them coverings. They had never seen physical death, the shedding of blood, or the tanning of hides.This was God’s solution? It seemed so harsh, so barbaric, so bloody!
Surely fig leaves was a more compassionate way of clothing oneself!
But the bloody skins were God’s way, not the fig leaves, and like every other detail in this hugely significant chapter, they are of vast theological import. What is God teaching by this act of clothing them?
Substitution; The wages of sin is death, therefore someone must die for sin, either the sinner or an innocent substitute. God’s way of dealing with the shame of sin, is by the substitution of life for life.
It would later emerge in the unfolding of God’s revelation that God knew we would sin and fall and need such a covering, and had already provided Jesus as “the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world”.
And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;(Revelation 5:9)
But for the first couple, the testimony was the promise of the “seed of the woman” and the freshly slain animals, whose death provided an adequate covering.The first lesson God taught the newly fallen couple was the lesson that to them, worship would only be possible by way of blood sacrifice.
This they would pass on to their sons, one of whom would virulently reject the revelation, the other one would die as a martyr to it.
/johnny
You prefer to keep it private, then. I’ll respect that and not ask again.
Are you still in physical pain? I’d imagine you are.
/johnny
I think they wore animal skins because the alternative was freezing their tails off. Had nothing to do with shame, IMO.
You’ve mentioned this several times. Are you talking about charity, volunteering with a food pantry or working in a soup kitchen? People need spiritual sustenance just as surely as they need physical sustenance.
Is this what you mean?
Doesn’t say they were cold:
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
When I feed you, you get a couple of slices of bread and a slice of ham or cheese, and maybe, depending on the season, a piece of fruit.
Or.. if you aren't the masses, you get some chili concoction that may burn your upper lip. Or duck, (ISWEARIWASNOTTHERE), or semi-raw chicken, stewed in peppers hot enough to kill any bacteria. (or reasonable man)
Nope. when I say I feed people. I mean people. And food. No need to be mysterious about it.
/johnny
And this relates to the originator of the thread how?
Sorry, I’ve assumed there must be some sort of spiritual angle. It’s a thread posted to the Religion Forum by an individual with “pastor” in his screen name, so it’s an understandable mistake if I’ve made one.
If this is a closed religious forum, I'm sorry for intruding, and ask the RM to nuke me.
But just because someone is called 'pastor' doesn't make him right.
And if you missed my spiritual angle... You... well... God bless you.
/johnny
Food. People...
Later, we got to the spiritual part.
/johnny
Not closed to anyone that I noticed. Just the usual, minimal rules on decorum to keep it from turning into too much of a donneybrook, lol.
I haven’t missed that there is some sort of spiritual angle, but I am trying to understand it better. It’s not jumping out at me.
Help me out, here.
There was a miraculous aspect to it before there ever was enough to feed those present.
Help yourself out, slick.
If you didn't feed anyone today... with your own hands.... did you do what is important?
/johnny
Every feeding of a crowd is a minor miracle.
/johnny
Thanks for the post, Pastor Bill. I for one enjoy and receive from them. If memory serves correctly, I thought I heard you on a radio show here in the Mpls./St. Paul area a few months back. Hope to get a chance to visit your church and meet you in person sometime.
You have made my point Johnny- I will pray for you-As for who I fed, all that matters is that God knows everything...
And for that we should give thanks to God.
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