Scripture References: Genesis 3
The Way of Redemption
Now we come to the merciful plan of redemption, the way of salvation announced here in the beginning of God’s Book. It is called the “protevangelium,” meaning, “the first gospel,” and this is it: “So the Lord God said to the serpent, . . . I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” – Genesis 3:14-15. “And the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” How much, how much, when we come to know what finally and fully that meant! It meant Calvary; it meant the blood of the cross. It meant the coming of Jesus into the world. It meant the crown of thorns and the atoning blood in the hill called the “place of a skull.” It was through the deception of the woman that sin came into the world. It was through the conception of the woman, the seed of the woman, the Son of Mary, that redemption was brought to the fallen race. This “protevangelium” was the first announcement of the glorious message of the gospel of hope.
This same gospel of blood-bought redemption is prefigured in the third chapter of Genesis: “For Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.” – Genesis 3:21. When the man found himself naked, and his wife, they sewed fig leaves together that they might hide their shame. “The eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.” – Genesis 3:7. This is a profound impulse in the human heart. All of us have tried to hide away, to cover out of sight the sin and guilt of our lives. But we cannot do it; fig leaves will not cover it up. One reason a desperately wicked man is sometimes a leader in some of the noble philanthropies and charities of the community is because he seeks to cover up the hideousness, the gross sensuality of his life. He may succeed, too, in his attempt to hide from the sight of man his guilt. Fig leaves may suffice to cover our sins from human eyes, but in the presence of the Almighty who knows all things, how empty and shallow are those attempts! It takes something more than manmade aprons, good works, generous deeds, to hide away sin.
Somewhere in the garden of Eden the Lord God slew the first sacrificial victim, an innocent animal that had nothing to do with the transgression of the guilty pair. Somewhere in the paradise of Eden the ground drank the blood of the first offering for sin, and from that harmless and blameless creature a coat was made to cover up the shame and the nakedness of the man and his wife. It is a picture of the covering, the atonement, the washing away of our sins in the sacrificial victim on the cross of Calvary.
The chapter ends with this final word:
Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. – Genesis 3:22-24.
What could that mean? The tree of life is taken from the man “lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” It means that had the man in his sin eaten of the tree of life, he would have lived forever in his sin, in his wretchedness and misery. He would have been confirmed in his sin; and confirmation in sin is eternal hell. He would have lived forever in a body of death, a frail body that is forever perishing, subject to all the ills and hurts that flesh is heir to. Death is given to man as a privilege and a release, that he might die to this life of sin and live to God forever. Revelation 9:6 describes the torment and horror of men who seek death and cannot find it. “In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them.” Death was a merciful provision on the part of the Lord God, and any man who lives long enough will come to recognize in the summons of the pale horseman a release from bodily affliction that ultimately grows unendurable.
To Be Continued
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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