Fig Leaf Fashions
Genesis 3:1-21
Scripture Reading (6-7)
I. The Cause for the Fig Leaf Fashions v. 1-7a
A. The serpent scheming
Let's start with some background. Adam and Eve are living in the Garden of Eden, Paradise. In Chapter 2:16,17 God has given them a simple instruction. Whenever I play a new board game, I always get a little frustrated because it seems there are 900 rules. In the Garden of Eden, however, it is very simple. There is only one rule. Do not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As we come to Chapter 3, we are introduced to a talking snake. 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" This chapter does not tell us exactly who the snake is, but the rest of the Bible makes it clear. The snake is Satan. As Revelation 12:9 says, he is "the great dragon, the ancient serpent, called the devil, or Satan." Apparently some time before God had created the earth, He had made angels, beings who served Him in heaven. One of the most powerful of these angels was Lucifer who led the rebellion against God and was cast out of heaven. Many Bible scholars think Isaiah 14:12-25 describes this event. In Genesis 3, Lucifer, or the devil, indwells and possesses a snake with the purpose of enticing Adam and Eve to make the big mistake of joining him in his rebellion against God.
Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst;
he promises honor and pays with disgrace;
he promises pleasure and pays with pain;
he promises profit and pays with loss;
he promises life and pays with death.
Thomas Brooks.
B. The sinners seeing
Gary Richmond, a former zoo keeper, had this to say: Raccoons go through a glandular change at about 24 months. After that they often attack their owners. Since a 30-pound raccoon can be equal to a 100-pound dog in a scrap, I felt compelled to mention the change coming to a pet raccoon owned by a young friend of mine, Julie. She listened politely as I explained the coming danger. I'll never forget her answer. "It will be different for me. . ." And she smiled as she added, "Bandit wouldn't hurt me. He just wouldn't." Three months later Julie underwent plastic surgery for facial lacerations sustained when her adult raccoon attacked her for no apparent reason. Bandit was released into the wild. Sin, too, often comes dressed in an adorable guise, and as we play with it, how easy it is to say, "It will be different for me." The results are predictable.
In 1982, "ABC Evening News" reported on an unusual work of modern art--a chair affixed to a shotgun. It was to be viewed by sitting in the chair and looking directly into the gun barrel. The gun was loaded and set on a timer to fire at an undetermined moment within the next hundred years. The amazing thing was that people waited in lines to sit and stare into the shell's path! They all knew the gun could go off at point-blank range at any moment, but they were gambling that the fatal blast wouldn't happen during their minute in the chair. Yes, it was foolhardy, yet many people who wouldn't dream of sitting in that chair live a lifetime gambling that they can get away with sin. Foolishly they ignore the risk until the inevitable self-destruction.
C. The sovereign seeking
5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house.
10 For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
Luke 19:5, 10
4 And he must needs go through Samaria.
10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
John 4:4, 10
II. The Construction of the Fig Leaf Fashions v. 7b
A. There was an awakened consciousness
Adam and Eve were conscious that they had lost something. Chapter 2:25 describes a glory that surrounded the guilty pair that was now gone. Their purity of mind and heart that had clothed them was now torn away to reveal their nakedness and shame.
B. There was an arrested conscience
They hid themselves from God in the garden and then they sought to hide their sin by assigning blame first to the serpent, then to the women and finally to God himself. “Conscience tells us that we ought to do right, but it does not tell us what right is--that we are taught by God's word.”
H.C. Trumbull.
C. There was an attempted cover-up
The drunken husband snuck up the stairs quietly. He looked in the bathroom mirror and bandaged the bumps and bruises he'd received in a fight earlier that night. He then proceeded to climb into bed, smiling at the thought that he'd pulled one over on his wife. When morning came, he opened his eyes and there stood his wife. "You were drunk last night weren't you!”? "No, honey." "Well, if you weren't, then who put all the band-aids on the bathroom mirror?"
Hiding behind the fig leaves of reformation - salvation by subtraction
Hiding behind the fig leaves of self-righteousness – “what good thing must I do”
Hiding behind the fig leaves of relationships – “mom and dad are Christians so….”
Hiding behind the fig leaves of religion - “having your name on a church roll somehow justifies you in the eyes of God.”
III. The Correction of the Fig Leaf Fashions v. 8-21
A. The divine provision
Who can estimate the value of God's gift, when He gave to the world His only begotten Son! It is something unspeakable and incomprehensible. It passes man's understanding. Two things there are which man has no arithmetic to reckon, and no line to measure. One of these things is the extent of that man's loss who loses his own soul. The other is the extent of God's gift when he gave Christ to sinners...Sin must indeed be exceeding sinful, when the Father must needs give His only Son to be the sinner's Friend!
J.C. Ryle, Foundations of Faith.
B. The distinctive pattern – In this verse we have the pattern for the atonement. Listen to what Paul writes in Hebrews….
22 ………and without shedding of blood is no remission.
23 It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:
25 Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others;
26 For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
Hebrews 9:22-28
The first reference in the New Testament to His blood stresses this aspect. Jesus said, at the last supper: "This is my blood of the new testament (same as 'covenant') which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matthew 26:28). Let no one, therefore, even count the "blood of the covenant...an unholy thing" (Heb. 10:29), for the blood of Christ is forever innocent, infinitely precious, perfectly justifying, always cleansing and fully sanctifying.
Paul calls it the purchasing blood in Acts 20:28 and the redeeming blood twice (Eph. l: 7); Col. 1:14, see also I Peter l: 18-19, Rev. 5:9), thus declaring the shedding of His blood to be the very price of our salvation. Therefore, it is also the justifying blood (Rom. 5:9) and the peacemaking blood (Col. 1:20). Its efficacy does not end with our salvation, however, for it is also the sanctifying blood (Heb. 13:12). There is infinite and eternal power in the blood of Christ, for it is "the blood of the everlasting covenant" (Heb. 13:20).
And they overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. (Rev. 12:11) This is the last reference in the Bible to the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ; here it is the overcoming blood, enabling believers to withstand the deceptions and accusations of Satan. There are at least 43 references to the blood of Christ in the New Testament, all testifying to its great importance in the salvation and daily life of the believer. Judas the betrayer spoke of it as "innocent blood (Matthew 27:4) and Peter called it "the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (I Peter l:9). It is the cleansing blood in I John l: 7 and the washing blood in Rev. l: 5, stressing that it removes the guilt of our sins.
In his book Written In Blood, Robert Coleman tells the story of a little boy whose sister needed a blood transfusion. The doctor explained that she had the same disease the boy had recovered from two years earlier. Her only chance for recovery was a transfusion from someone who had previously conquered the disease. Since the two children had the same rare blood type, the boy was the ideal donor.
"Would you give your blood to Mary?" the doctor asked. Johnny hesitated. His lower lip started to tremble. Then he smiled and said, "Sure, for my sister." Soon the two children were wheeled into the hospital room--Mary, pale and thin; Johnny, robust and healthy. Neither spoke, but when their eyes met, Johnny grinned. As the nurse inserted the needle into his arm, Johnny's smile faded. He watched the blood flow through the tube. With the ordeal almost over, his voice, slightly shaky, broke the silence. "Doctor, when do I die?'
Only then did the doctor realize why Johnny had hesitated, why his lip had trembled when he'd agreed to donate his blood. He's thought giving his blood to his sister meant giving up his life. In that brief moment, he'd made his great decision. Johnny, fortunately, didn't have to die to save his sister. Each of us, however, has a condition more serious than Mary's, and it required Jesus to give not just His blood but His life.
Thomas Lindberg.
C. The definite purpose
Leather was better than leaves but there was something more here than the skin of and innocent animal. Beyond the leather apron that covered their nakedness was the blood.
They had been clothed with purity and righteousness. They had sought to clothe themselves with their own self-righteousness after the fall but the fact that God replaced the leaves with the leather indicates that the fig leaf fashions were not enough for God. They needed more than a covering, they needed cleansing!
5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:5-9
6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
13 Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.
Isaiah 1:6, 13-14, 18-20
6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Isaiah 64:6
There is a relationship which makes life complete. Without that relationship, there is a void, a vacuum in life. Many people, even those who are well-known, can attest to that void.
For example, H.G. Wells, famous historian and philosopher, said at age 61: "I have no peace. All life is at the end of the tether." The poet Byron said, "My days are in yellow leaf, the flowers and fruits of life are gone, the worm and the canker, and the grief are mine alone." The literary genius Thoreau said, "Most men live lives of quiet desperation."
Ralph Barton, one of the top cartoonists of the nations, left this note pinned to his pillow before taking his own life: "I have had few difficulties, many friends, great successes; I have gone from wife to wife, from house to house, visited great countries of the world, but I am fed up with inventing devices to fill up twenty-four hours of the day."
Morning Glory, May 29, 1993.
