What is the significance of the garments of skin that God made Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:21)?

The promise of God that there should arise a Deliverer, who should break the power of the adversary, was supplemented by an act of God, which shed light on the way the deliverance would be brought to pass. Adam and his wife had attempted to cover their nakedness with fig-leaf aprons, and had failed. The Lord God did cover them with coats of skins. Now skins are not a vegetable but an animal product, and only available to clothe man when death has come upon the animal that produced them. Here then we find the primitive revelation of the fact that man can only stand clothed before God on the basis of death. He must own that the death sentence, which righteously lies upon him, has been endured by another in his stead.

The first occurrence is found in Genesis 3:21, “Unto Adam and also to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed [covered] them” When our first parents fell and got a conscience as to their fallen condition, they sought 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. It is an affecting thought that the first death that occurred when the fall came in, was not that of the sinner who deserved it, but that of the sacrifice, whereby the covering was obtained.

We shall, now, briefly glance at the truth presented to us in God's providing a coats for Adam and Eve. "Unto Adam, also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them." We have here, in figure, the great doctrine of divine righteousness set forth. The robe which God provided was an effectual covering, because He provided it just as the apron was an ineffectual covering, because man had provided it. Moreover, God's coat was founded upon blood-shedding. Adam's apron was not. So also, now God's righteousness is set forth in the cross; man's righteousness is set forth in the works, the sin-stained works of his own hands. When Adam stood clothed in the coat of skin he could not say, "I was naked,'' nor had he any occasion to hide himself. The sinner may feel perfectly at rest, when, by faith, he knows that God has clothed him: but to feel at rest till then, can only be the result of presumption or ignorance. 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. There can be no true, permanent rest in ought else.

Now here the force is the greater, because till after the deluge no moving thing that lived was given to be food for man. "Thou shalt eat the herb of the field" Adam had just heard once more. This has induced crowds of theologians to suppose that sacrifice was now enjoined by God and offered by Adam. But we are not at liberty to supplement the word of God with the tradition of man. Sacrifice has its own proper record in Gen. 4, and scripture, both Old Testament and New, attests the all-importance of its antitype for man and its acceptance with God; but we cannot go beyond the inspired word. Before the work of Christ which gave its meaning, faith in Him was the essential, as it still is. The action here revealed was on the part of Jehovah Elohim; not a word is said of what the fallen pair did. Jehovah Elohim made for each (for this is carefully noted), coats of skins and clothed them. More He does not say nor are we called to believe, as to the matter of fact.

Is there then nothing implied beyond a strong garb which efficiently covered their persons, in contrast with the poor aprons of fig-leaves they had made for themselves? There is a truth most impressively taught, that He Who clothed them made for each of them coats which had their necessary origin in skins of animals slain for the purpose. That solemn word, death, was now brought before them as a fact for the first time. Man fallen may vainly essay to hide his shame by some device of nature; Jehovah Elohim bases the clothing He provides on death, the penalty of sin.

The only revelation which is disclosed to us in the Scriptures is that provided by God's action on the day sin entered Eden, when He clothed Adam and Eve in coats made from skins. These coats must have involved death falling upon the animals whose skins were taken for this purpose. So on the very day that sin entered the Garden, death entered too; only it was not the death of the man and woman who had sinned, but rather the death of innocent victims, whereby was provided the covering needed by the sinners. This action of the Lord God was deeply significant. It was one of those occasions when actions did indeed speak more loudly than words. God presented His mind in a pictorial way.

But, second, note that death did fall in the garden on the very day of Adam's sin. Not on him personally but on some innocent victim, or victims, out of whose skins the Lord God made clothing for the guilty pair. Thus early was testimony given in a typical way to the fact of death as the wages of sin and also to the efficacy of a substitutionary sacrifice.

I have no doubt that death had come in, because it is skins, and animals must have been killed; how, it is not said, but this is the case with many things, because it is not the object of revelation. They had made themselves aprons of fig-leaves, and still were conscious that they were naked as ever, for they hid themselves in spite of it. But God clothed them, and then they were not naked at all. It was grace coming in, but only, of course, the sin thereby covered. And I think there was faith too, because it comes immediately after Adam calling his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living.

36 NOTE. - Though I do not say historically, as they are separate statements, yet in the Spirit's mind, as presented by God; Eve's being the mother of all living where death had come in, and Jehovah Elohim clothing them with coats of skins, before they are driven out of Paradise, grace met their need by God's act, before they were driven from forfeited natural blessings (which they could indeed no longer so enjoy) by judgment.

On the other hand, Abel's sacrifice ever points to the one great fact which God taught our first parents as soon as sin had come into the world. 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, which pointed on, ever clearer and clearer, to the Lamb of God who gave up His life in order that we might be provided with a perfect covering to hide the shame of our nakedness.

Having pronounced their judgment, "Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return," God clothes the pair with "coats of skins," that could only be obtained as the result of the victim's death. Man's ruin can only be met by death, and I do not doubt, in the clothing of this sad and guilty pair, you have a beautiful type of the atoning death of the Lord Jesus.