August 6 I Thursday

Psalms 70-71

Romans 8:22-39

“I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of His righteousness…”   

—Isaiah 61:10

Since wisdom is about seeing things from God’s perspective, it is more than simply asking what is right or wrong and good or bad in any situation. Although there is an established good and bad, right and wrong in Scripture, one of the things about the heart of God is that even in the bad and wrong, God does not abandon us in these broken situations.

In Genesis, when God created Adam and Eve, He placed them in the Garden of Eden. God commanded, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:16). But they yielded to the serpent’s temptation and sinned. One of the consequences of the fall was that Adam and Eve’s eyes became opened and they realized their nakedness. They tried to cover their shame by sewing fig leaves together.

When God called out to them, Adam and Eve hid themselves. God said, “Where are you?” Not because He did not know where they were; God asks us questions to get us to admit the truth. But Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent as an excuse for their sinful actions, which did not absolve them from the fact that both had sinned. As a consequence of their action, Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden.

But just before Adam and Eve were dismissed, we get this beautiful verse: “The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21). Have we ever thought about the implications of that? To make a garment of skin, an animal had to die. It was the first death in the history of creation and God killed the first animal for the purpose of making garments of skin to clothe Adam and Eve.

Some view the event of God making garments of skin for Adam and Eve, where it took the shedding of blood to clothe them, as a foreshadowing of our own redemption. Adam and Eve thought they could hide their sinfulness and shame by wearing fig leaves. But God took away the fig leaves and replaced them with a covering of skin. Hebrews 9:22 tells us, “…without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Even in Adam and Eve’s broken situation because of their disobedience, God had a plan for humanity’s redemption through sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to wear our sin and shame on the cross so that we could be clothed with His garment of salvation.

Prayer: Gracious God, I confess of all those times that I thought I could hide behind my fig leaves, when only Your garment of salvation is able to cover my sin and shame. Thank You for Your love and plan for redemption of humanity through Jesus Christ. Praise You!