Genesis 3:21

They had fallen. They knew good and evil, and they knew they were naked. They are under the shame of sin. Then we learn how powerless all human means are to hide sin. Then they hear the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. At that moment all the fig leaves are nothing. The leaves covered them from one another. But the moment God was there, they say that they are naked. Afterwards God made them coats of skins; it was a very different thing when God did it.

God had promised that a Deliverer would come and break the power of the enemy. To that promise God added an act, and the act shed light on how the deliverance would come. The Lord God covered Adam and his wife with coats of skins. Now skins are not a plant product but an animal one. They can clothe a man only after the animal that produced them has died. Here then we find the first revelation that man can only stand clothed before God on the basis of death. He must admit that another has taken his place and borne the death sentence that justly rests on him.

When our first parents fell, their conscience woke up to their fallen state. So they tried to cover themselves with fig-leaf aprons. They tried at-one-ment, but it did not succeed. How did the Lord God cover them? He had passed the sentence of death on them for their sin. Death ALONE then could meet their case. Here is a moving thought. The first death after the fall was not the death of the sinner who deserved it. It was the death of the sacrifice that provided the covering.

The word atonement, which occurs so often in the Old Testament, means in the original Hebrew to cover. These coats of skins covered our first parents. How did they get these skins? It must have been by the sacrifice of innocent animals. It must have been that blood was shed. Centuries roll by, and David throws fuller light on the subject. "Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" (Psalm 32:1)... So atonement exists to bring forgiveness of sins and to cover wrongdoing — to put it out of God's sight for ever.

Eve is named the mother of all living in a world where death had come in. And the Lord God clothes them with coats of skins before they are driven out of Paradise. Grace met their need by God's act, before judgment drove them out from natural blessings they had forfeited — blessings they could no longer enjoy in the same way.

But what did God do for those poor naked sinners? He made coats of skin and clothed them. The coats were obtained by death. God has found us righteousness through the death of Christ... It is all God's work — He made the coats of skin, He clothed them. I had nothing to do with it, just as Adam and Eve had nothing to do with the coats of skin. They made the aprons of fig-leaves; God made the coats of skins. He had no hand in their work; they had no hand in His. Had I had a finger in the work of God I should never have had peace; I should always have been wondering whether I had done my part right.

We have here, in figure, the great doctrine of divine righteousness set out. God provided the robe, and it covered them because He provided it. Man made the apron, and it failed because man made it... When Adam stood clothed in the coat of skin he could not say, "I was naked," nor had he any reason to hide himself. To know that the dress I wear, and in which I appear before God, is of His own providing, must set my heart at perfect rest.

As soon as they discovered that they were not fit for the presence of God, He made coats of skin and covered them. The skin meant, of course, that the animal's life had to be given up. There is the gospel at Eden's door. It pointed on, ever clearer and clearer, to the Lamb of God. He gave up His life so that we could have a perfect covering for the shame of our nakedness.