Passage: Genesis 3:20-24
The Big Idea
Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. In the garden, God didn’t hand Adam and Eve a list of penances. He killed an innocent animal and clothed them in its skin, the first picture of grace: God giving what we need, at the cost of an innocent life. Then, in mercy, He barred the way to the tree of life, guarded by cherubim, until the Lamb of God would open the way back.
Blood Is Life
Hebrews tells us that under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22).
Blood represents life.
- Tens of thousands of miles of blood vessels link every living cell in your body. Your heart circulates your entire blood supply about once a minute.
- Because blood represented life, Israel was forbidden to eat blood (Leviticus 17:11). A faithful Jewish cook would check meat carefully to make sure the blood had been drained. Blood was always poured out to God.
It’s been this way since the beginning. Let’s look at the first shedding of blood, the first sacrifice, the first life taken because of sin, and the first gracious, undeserved covering of sin.
Tunics of Skin (Genesis 3:21)
The LORD God made tunics of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
Pastor Gayle Erwin jokingly called these the first lambskin seat covers!
- God understood their situation. He had already confronted their sin, and now He didn’t require penance. No list of prayers, no book to read, no tasks to accomplish.
- He gave them what they needed. He supplied the resources they required.
This is such a picture of grace: God giving what people need. They didn’t earn these new clothes. In fact, they earned the shame that left them naked! They caused the need. And God gave them what they needed anyway.
He wasn’t a mean God in the Old Testament who became kind in the New. He has always been gracious, and always truthful. Truth in love.
How did God provide?
He killed an animal. A life had to be sacrificed. Because of Adam and Eve’s sin, an innocent animal had to die.
- Remember, Adam had named all the animals. He felt connected to them, responsible for them.
- Imagine watching in horror as God slaughtered one of those animals right in front of them, and then made clothes from its skin.
- It taught them the principle of blood covering sin.
- And it was the most powerful illustration I can imagine, because they had to wear it every day!
Every time someone asked, “Hey, where’d you get that outfit?” they’d have to say, “God killed an innocent animal for it.” Every time they put it on, they’d remember life before shame and sin, and what they lost. And they’d remember the grace God gave them, though they didn’t deserve it.
The fact that we wear clothes can be a constant reminder of God’s amazing grace. And every time we see a lamb, we can remember that the innocent died for the guilty.
The Lamb of God
That’s Jesus, the Lamb of God. The innocent died for the guilty.
You weren’t redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from the empty way of life handed down to you, but with the precious blood of Christ, like a lamb without blemish or spot (1 Peter 1:18-19).
Animal sacrifices could only deal with the penalty of sin for a time. They could only cover it. They could never take away sin or guilt (Hebrews 10:4). Because our problem isn’t on the outside; it’s on the inside. We have a blood disease. Our very life is corrupted, and no medicine can cure it.
What do doctors do when someone needs new blood? A transfusion: taking someone else’s blood and putting it inside you.
Hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:5).
That’s our transfusion! A change of life from the inside. A real solution for the sin of Adam and Eve, not just the removal of a penalty. Jesus offers His blood and life in exchange for ours.
Eat My Flesh, Drink My Blood?
Then Jesus says something strange. He tells the crowd that unless they eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, they have no life in them. Whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life, and He will raise them up on the last day (John 6:53-54).
Jews weren’t allowed to consume blood! And now Jesus says that without it, you have no life. What is He talking about?
It’s always best to let the Bible explain itself, especially when it’s confusing. Jesus goes on: His flesh is true food and His blood is true drink. Whoever eats His flesh and drinks His blood abides in Him, and He in them. Just as He lives because of the Father, whoever feeds on Him will live because of Him. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the manna their ancestors ate and died; whoever eats this bread will live forever (John 6:55-58).
Jesus was talking about a relationship:
- We trust Him for His grace, and He gives us His grace.
- He doesn’t expect us to supply our own life from ourselves. He invites and commands us to receive His life from Him.
- He doesn’t want a relationship based on what we’ve done or can do for Him, but on learning and growing in what He did for us.
We just feed on Him: all He is, all He provides, all He gives. We use the word “grace” for all of it, but it’s so much bigger than one word. We’ll spend eternity learning His grace.
That’s the glorious wonder of Christianity. We receive everything God could give, and none of us did anything to deserve it. Yet it’s poured out on us and in us anyway.
Sent Out in Mercy (Genesis 3:22-23)
Then the LORD God said the man had become like one of Us, knowing good and evil. Now, so he wouldn’t reach out and take from the tree of life and eat and live forever, the LORD God sent him out of the garden to work the ground from which he was taken.
This was actually an act of mercy, an act of protection.
- God knew we had the disease. Sin was in the heart, in the blood.
- If we had eaten from the tree of life in that condition, we’d be stuck forever in a state of inner shame, forever under the curse, forever dying but unable to die.
The tree of life shows up again at the end of the Bible, in the New Jerusalem, where God’s people will freely eat from it (Revelation 22:2, 14).
Why do we have to wait? Why is it kept in heaven?
Because there are no shortcuts. You can’t have the blessings of life without the sacrifice of Jesus first. Or to put it another way: you can’t get the blessings of heaven through the efforts of earth.
- Many people want the outward circumstances of their lives fixed without humbling themselves before God and trusting Him. They want the tree of life before the flesh and blood of Jesus.
- Our first concern should be abiding in Him: feeding on Him, remembering His sacrifice and provision, not just chasing happiness and blessings.
- But as we connect with Jesus, we end up receiving all those things anyway: blessing, joy, peace, wisdom, and a deep, rich life.
Cherubim and a Flaming Sword (Genesis 3:24)
So He drove out the man, and placed cherubim east of the garden of Eden, with a flaming sword that turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
- Cherubim are linked with the presence of God. In Ezekiel, Isaiah and Revelation, heavenly beings like these surround the throne of the Lord.
- When we see cherubim on earth, they mark a meeting place with God.
God told Moses to make a mercy seat of pure gold, with two golden cherubim at its ends, facing each other with wings spread over the mercy seat on top of the ark. And God said, “There I will meet with you and speak with you, from between the two cherubim” (Exodus 25:17-22).
And when Mary looked into Jesus’ empty tomb, she saw two angels in white, sitting one at the head and one at the feet where His body had been (John 20:12). Just like the cherubim on either end of the mercy seat! Hmm!
Donald Grey Barnhouse suggested that any angel could have kept Adam out; the flaming sword was really pointed at Satan, to keep him from destroying the way of access to God that God had set up.
That shows God is committed to a relationship with us. He would literally go to the grave to make a way back to Him, even though we were the ones who broke it off.
He guards the way to the tree of life not to keep people from it forever, but to bring them to it at the right time.
The Lord is faithful; He will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one (2 Thessalonians 3:3). Coming to the altar, the meeting place with God, is how your life is guarded from the enemy’s attacks. He has promised to protect you. Stay by the altar!
Holding the Horns of the Altar
In the Old Testament, people in danger would sometimes grab hold of the horns of the altar for protection.
In 1 Kings 2:28-34, when Solomon became king, Joab was in trouble. He had backed the wrong side and had killed innocent men, and now he faced the death penalty. Joab ran to the tabernacle of the Lord and took hold of the horns of the altar, trying to save himself. But Solomon had him executed there anyway.
What does that story have to do with God’s protection? Two lessons:
1. Outward actions mean nothing if they’re fake. Many people think they’re under God’s protection because they keep the sacraments, follow the rules, go to church, pray sincerely, read their Bible, have a pastor (or are one), or hold sound doctrine.
Charles Spurgeon put it powerfully: whatever you depend on apart from the blood and righteousness of Christ, away with it! Away with it! If you’re even depending on your own repentance and faith, away with them! If you’re looking to your prayers or your giving, away with them! Nothing but the blood of Jesus, nothing but His atoning sacrifice. But if you come and lay your hand on that, you will be blessed.
2. There is a spiritual altar that, if we cling to it, keeps us safe and saved from every evil. Lay hold of the altar of Jesus with the hands of faith.
- There’s true salvation for everyone who fully commits to the Lord.
- Even when a voice calls, “Let go and follow me,” from some distraction or rival love, we answer, “No! I’d rather die than leave this relationship.” And we’ll have our protection.
- Commit to the relationship. Feed on His body and blood. Abide in Him. Don’t listen to the enemy’s calls to walk away.
As an old hymn puts it:
If I must die, here will I die,
Here at the cross I bide;
To whom or whither should I fly?
Where else can I confide?
Grace Takeaway
From the very first sin, God answered our shame not with a to-do list, but with a sacrifice. An innocent life was given so the guilty could be covered. Jesus is the Lamb who doesn’t just cover sin but takes it away, giving us His own life inside. Stop sewing fig leaves. Wear the covering God provides, and cling to the cross.
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