Latest / Reformed Thinking / Life Named, Guilt Covered: Promise and Covering (Genesis 3:20–21)

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Life Named, Guilt Covered: Promise and Covering (Genesis 3:20–21) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed thinking. Today we're doing almost a
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forensic examination of just two verses, Genesis 3.20 and 3.21.
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Now they're short, easy to read, past quickly, but well, they
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contain so much theological weight, really, the
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infrastructure of redemption. The setting, as you know, is
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heavy. The fall just happened.
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God has pronounced the sentence. Death, toil, mortality, shame
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and fear are everywhere. They're hiding, but right here,
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this precise moment, these two verses pivot the whole story
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away from just ruin towards wealth, towards mercy.
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Yeah, that pivot is exactly why this is so critical for anyone
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looking at God's covenant dealings.
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These verses aren't just, you know, tidying up the scene.
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They're more like the architectural blueprint for the
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covenant of grace itself. So our goal today really is to
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show you how this passage serves as the first sketch of the whole
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gospel pattern. It defines salvation, and it
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introduces this necessary theological arithmetic, imputed
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righteousness, that idea that righteousness has to come from
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completely outside the center. And the source material we're
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looking at, let's just break this down into 4 clear
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movements, a pattern we see again and again in scripture.
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It's almost a rhythm problem word, promise, faith, and then
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divine provision. We'll need to 0 in on some
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specific Hebrew words to what Adam calls his wife.
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The description of the clothes God makes.
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Because that's where you know the real theological free is.
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OK, so let's unpack this four part cadence.
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It really defined how grace works when everything's broken,
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the rhythm of the covenant of grace.
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And it starts logically enough with the problem.
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Hashtag tag, tag one. The problem?
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Guilt and ruin. Right and the problem isn't
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first and foremost psychological, it's judicial,
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it's legal. After they disobeyed that one
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clear command, Genesis 3.7 says they recognize their nakedness
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and what they do, they hide, they run from God's presence.
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And this isn't just feeling a bit awkward or embarrassed.
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No, the nakedness it's symbolizes A moral and legal
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breach. They've broken the covenant
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before a holy judge. So the shame is a sign of that
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broken relationship. And the fear, well, the fear
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points to their legal exposure. I mean, if God is perfectly just
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and sin earns death, then yeah, dread seems like the only
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rational response. Exactly.
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And this legal reality, it really highlights human
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inability. Look at their first attempt to
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fix things, stitching fig leaves together, Genesis 3.7.
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Again, it's frantic, it's temporary, it's minimal coverage
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at best. And this picture, the stitched
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fig leaves, it becomes a sort of universal symbol for humanity
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trying to fix a massive legal debt with, you know, its own
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efforts to self help. Right, but I wonder, couldn't
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someone just argue? Well, maybe they were just cold
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or practically needed some covering.
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Why load these fig leaves with so much theological symbolism
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about human performance? That's a fair question, but the
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reason is that the fig leaves don't actually address the core
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issue, which is the verdict God just pronounced.
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The issue isn't the temperature in the garden, it's the sentence
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for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
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That's Genesis 3.119. Death is now the reality.
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Fig leaves can't reverse that curse.
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They can't undo the sin, and they certainly can't make
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sinners fit to live in the presence of a holy God.
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They're hiding because they are legally exposed.
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Guilty and these self-made patches, they do nothing about
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that final sentence of mortality.
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They're basically trying to cover internal guilt with
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external actions. That is the very definition of
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self righteousness, and it always fails.
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OK, so the situation seems hopeless, but then the narrative
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flow shows God acting immediately right into the scene
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of judgement, A guilt. God speaks a word of promise,
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entirely his initiative. And that's like the first rule
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of grace, isn't it? It starts with God, not with us
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pleading or even repenting first.
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Grace speaks into the mess. And it's such a strange thing to
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talk about right after delivering curses.
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This is Genesis 3.15, the Protoevangelium, often called
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the first glimmer of the gospel. The Promise is about an
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offspring, A descendant coming from the woman's line who will
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crush the serpent's head. It's basically a declaration of
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war against evil, but crucially, it carries this embedded
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certainty of ultimate victory. That one verse just changes
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everything, doesn't it? Without it, the story really
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does end at the grave. But with it, the whole narrative
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pivots towards the future, towards hope.
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It's God's immediate pledge that rescue will come.
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The consequences of sin are real, yes, but they won't be the
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final word. Absolutely.
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And the sources we're drawing on show that they're really crucial
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result of this promise is how it structures well the whole rest
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of Genesis and probably the whole Bible.
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The story from here on out is going to trace births,
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genealogies, family lines, specifically looking for this
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promised seed. It becomes this high stakes
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search every birth after this sort of filtered through this
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lens of expectation, the whole narrative is reset.
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You know, so the reader is watching, waiting, anticipating
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how God's going to fulfill this incredible covenant promise.
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Hashtag tag, tag tag 3. Faith modeled Adam's response in
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naming Eve. OK, so that promise hangs in the
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air. And that brings us right to
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Adam's response to the very next verse, Genesis 3.20.
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And the sources are emphatic on this.
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Adam naming his wife right here, right now is the first recorded
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act of faith after the fall. It's a remarkable moment of
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trust in God's Word, captured in just choosing a name.
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It really is. He names her Eve or Allah in
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Hebrew, and that name is directly linked to the verb root
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that means to live. Adam even gives the reason
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explicitly because she was the mother of all living.
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Now we have to pause and really feel the the profound tension
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between that name and the context.
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Exactly, I want to lean into that.
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God literally just told them they're mortal, they're going
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back to dust, death is their future.
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And yet Adam speaks life over the woman.
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What is it about this specific act naming that makes it such a
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clear demonstration of faith in this moment?
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Well, it's definitive because it shows Adam actively choosing to
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believe God's word of promise. Genesis 3.15, the serpent
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crusher over God's word of judgment.
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Genesis 3.19, The return to dust.
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He's pushing back against the reality that all his senses must
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be screaming at him. You know the thorns, the coming
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toil, the sentence of death. He's resisting the immediate
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reality. Instead, he anchors his family's
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future, and really all human future, in the promise of this
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coming seed. Think about it.
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If he'd named her Sorrow or Dust or Toil or Grave, that would
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have been a confession of despair, right?
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Understandable, maybe, but Despair, naming her life Hawa is
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a theological confession. It's an act of hope.
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And the source is also one of the significance for his role,
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his covenant headship back in Genesis 3 point with what did he
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do? He used his voice to blame the
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woman and even God, The woman you gave me, Michael Wright.
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But now he uses that same voice, that same authority, which is
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actually reaffirmed here by the act of naming.
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He uses it to declare a future based on God's promise, not on
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blame or the curse. It's signaled this fundamental
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shift in his whole orientation, doesn't it?
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From rebellion and finger pointing to trust in God's
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declaration. Absolutely.
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That Hebrew verb by ECRA. And he called or and he named.
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It deliberately echoes his initial role back in Genesis 2
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when he named the animals. So he's not just, you know,
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recognizing her as his wife. He's confessing his
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understanding of her vocation, her destiny within God's plan.
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She is destined to be the mother of the lion through which God
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will ultimately defeat the serpent.
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It's a confession rooted entirely in theology and taking
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God at his word. It's an act of reckoning God
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faithful, even standing there under the shadow of death.
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And in doing so, Adam models for us exactly how the covenant of
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grace is always received, simply by believing what God says,
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taking him at His word. Hash tag tag 4.
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The covering divine provision at cost.
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OK, so Adam shows faith-based on the promise.
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Yeah. And then immediately after that
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act of faith, the final piece of this covenant rhythm falls into
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place. Divine provision, Genesis 3.21
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says. And the Lord God made for Adam
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and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them.
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Yeah, the language here is incredibly precise and it's
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weighty. It really underscores the
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complete passivity of Adam and Eve in their own rescue.
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The remedy, the solution. It's initiated, it's applied,
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and it's even applied by God alone.
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Look at the syntax. God made vayas and God clothed
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them. Vayal Bisham 2 strong verbs with
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God as the subject, Adam and Eve, there are passive
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receivers. They do nothing here.
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They are not agents in fixing the problem.
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This is purely God's unilateral action.
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It's that specific detail, the skins in Hebrew, that really
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shifts this from just a narrative detail into a major
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theological statement, Right? Because switching from flimsy
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leaves to durable skins implies, well, implies a cost.
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It absolutely does. To get skins an animal had to
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die. An acceptable durable covering
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required a life to be sacrificed.
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This is the first very concrete hint we get anywhere in
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scripture of the principle of substitution.
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The source is really stressed this it plants the foundational
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idea that covering guilt properly requires a cost, and
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specifically it hints at the shedding of blood.
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This sets the stage for the entire sacrificial system that
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will develop later, all pointing towards that principle stated so
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clearly in Hebrews 9.22. Without the shedding of blood,
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there is no forgiveness of sins. God himself meets the cost to
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provide the covering that's acceptable to him.
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He closed them, yes, but he must first kill to do so.
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Wow. So if you look at that whole
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sequence and ruin promise, faith and provision, you really do see
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the complete pattern of the covenant of grace sketched out
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right here at the very beginning.
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God takes the initiative. He honors faith that rests on
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His Word, and then he supplies the necessary, costly remedy
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that humans could never provide for themselves.
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Exactly. And with that covenant pattern
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established, we can now zoom in on the profound doctrine that's
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illustrated in the covering itself, the doctrine of imputed
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righteousness. Because the fundamental
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difference between the clothing Adam and Eve made and the
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clothing God made teaches this core truth of justification,
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that true righteousness before God is always a gift received
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from totally outside the center. Right, let's spend a bit more
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time on those fig leaves because they really do represent kind of
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all human religion that tries to bridge the gap back to God
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through personal effort or moral achievement.
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That's it, precisely. The fig leaves goose shirt is
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the Hebrew word suggesting makeshift loincloths, maybe
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hastily tied. They were a product of panic.
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They're insufficient for so many reasons.
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They were temporary, made from whatever was readily available,
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and they only covered, you know, the immediate area perceived
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shame. They stand for every frantic
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human effort to manage sins, effects, particularly shame
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internally from our own resources.
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They're the very definition of works righteousness, aren't
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they? What would be some modern
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equivalents of fig leaves do you think?
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Oh well, they're everywhere really.
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Every self-made fix, every attempt to gain acceptance with
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God or even with others, sometimes through compliance.
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Religious rituals performed mechanically or just sheer
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ethical performance used like a mask.
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If someone thinks deep down I'm OK, I'm acceptable because I do
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XY and Z, or I avoid AB and C, that's a fig leaf.
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If they're ultimately trusting their own ability to keep the
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law, meet some standard tick the boxes, that's stitching together
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leaves. And the key failure going back
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to Eden is that the fig leaves did nothing to quiet their
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guilty conscience before God, nor could they possibly fit them
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for His presence. They only covered up the shame
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momentarily. They didn't remove the
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underlying guilt. And it's striking that when God
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shows up, he doesn't say oh, nice try or good effort.
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He doesn't ask about their sewing skills.
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He basically ignores them. Exactly.
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He dismisses them implicitly. They were light, flimsy,
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probably rustling, utterly provisional.
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They failed completely to meet the real need, which is legal,
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judicial. So God ignores them and provides
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something radically different, something substantial, something
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permanent. It just illustrates the total
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inadequacy of any human righteousness before God's
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perfect standard. The distance between the fig
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leaf and the garment of skin. That's the infinite distance
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between self, salvation and divine grace.
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OK, so now let's turn to God's provision.
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These garments of skin, the huge seer.
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The difference is just dramatic. These sound substantial,
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durable, and like they offered full coverage, moving way beyond
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just managing shame to actually providing a real covering.
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Yes, and the specific word choice matters a lot here.
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The term for garment or tunic is ketanet.
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This suggests actual fitted clothing, something enduring.
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It's not just, you know, a rough animal hide thrown over their
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shoulders like a caveman costume.
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And when we trace this word ketanet through later scripture,
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it pops up in a really significant context.
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It's used for the priestly garments in Exodus chapter 28.
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That's a powerful link, a canonical hint.
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OK, why does that connection to priestly clothing matter so
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much? If the kitchenette is linked to
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priests, what does that suggest about the status God is giving
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Adam and Eve here? It suggests that God isn't just
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giving them practical covering from the elements.
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He's providing something that confers status, something that
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makes the wearer fit to appear before a superior, or even, in
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the case of priests, to approach God and worship.
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These skin garments signal a new readiness for a reconciliation
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for relationship. It's not just about warmth, it's
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about dignity. Think about it, these guilty,
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disgrace singers who are hiding in shame are now robed by God
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Himself in a way that points forwards acceptance towards
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being fit for His presence again.
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And this is where that picture of imputation really comes
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alive, isn't it? When God closed them, He's
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granting them a status they absolutely did not earn based on
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a death that they did not personally suffer.
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Yes, that's the theological calculation, the imputation.
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Imputation is fundamentally a forensic concept.
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It's about legal standing. You can think of it like like a
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perfect credit score being legally transferred to someone
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who is completely bankrupt and did nothing to deserve it.
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What sinners lack, which is perfect righteousness before
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God, God grants. What sinners are shameful,
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guilty, exposed God covers. This durable, costly tunic
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placed upon the ashamed Sinner is a living picture of Christ's
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perfect righteousness being counted, credited to the
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believer. It's a full, adequate covering,
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provided entirely by God at immense cost, which the person
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receives only by faith. And it's so crucial that this
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covering is external. It's put on them.
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Their inward nature, their desires haven't instantly been
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perfected, but their legal standing before God has been
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completely changed. This really helps clarify the
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difference between justification and what we later call
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sanctification. That is absolutely vital.
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Justification is that change of legal status before God.
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It happens instantly. The moment faith receives the
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gift. It's God declaring the center
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righteous based on Christ. It's the granting of the robe.
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Sanctification, on the other hand, is the slow, internal,
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often messy, lifelong process of learning to live in a way that
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reflects that new status. Learning to walk in the robe,
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you could say. Growing into the reality of who
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we now are in Christ. Genesis 3.21 is pure
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justification. It's a gift given entirely apart
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from works, setting the stage for the new life that must
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follow. Hash hash tag track tag 3.
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Canonical echoes of the Exchange.
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In this powerful image, God providing the righteous covering
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it doesn't just stay in Eden. It becomes this recurring theme,
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a canonical trajectory showing how consistently God works out
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His plan of redemption all through Scripture.
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Right. It connects almost immediately
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to the prophets. Think of Isaiah.
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He uses this exact same clothing metaphor to describe the
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spiritual reality of his own justification.
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He bursts out in joy saying he has clothed me with the garments
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of salvation. He has covered me with a robe of
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righteousness. And that's Isaiah 61.10.
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The prophet is clearly looking back to this Eden event as the
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paradigm, the pattern for how God deals with His people's sin,
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always through a gracious supplied covering.
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And then there's that incredibly dramatic scene in Zechariah 3.
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You have Joshua the high priest, standing for the Angel of the
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Lord, but he's dressed in filthy garments symbolizing the sin and
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guilt of the people he represents, and Satan is right
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there accusing him. Yeah, the visual is just so
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powerful. The command comes, Take off his
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filthy clothes and then see I have taken away your sin and I
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will put fine garments on you. It's the legal exchange acted
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out the filth. The guilt is removed by divine
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command, and a clean acceptable status represented by the clean
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garments is put on him. Joshua doesn't change his own
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clothes. God commands the change for him.
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His righteous standing is granted, declared, not earned or
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achieved. And then Fast forward to the New
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Testament. We see it again in Jesus parable
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of the prodigal son of Luke 15. The son comes dragging himself
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home, planning this speech about being unworthy, just wanting a
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job. But the Father cuts him off,
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runs to him, and his first command bring quickly the best
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robe and put it on him. And that robe, it's far more
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than just, you know, clean clothes.
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It signifies full acceptance, restored sonship, complete
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reinstatement into the family. It's a status granted the moment
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the son returns, instantly reversing his shame, his
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poverty, his alienation. The Father doesn't make him work
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off his dead, or even clean himself up first, he commands
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put the best robe on him, emphasizing that the sun
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standing is immediately and fully secured by the Father's
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lavish, gracious provision. So Genesis 3.21, especially seen
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against the backdrop of the failed fig leaves, it really
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works as the introductory lesson, the first illustration
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of the Gospel doctrine of justification by faith alone.
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It teaches that salvation is secured by God's action, God's
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provision received by faith, and it foreshadows this amazing idea
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of the righteousness of Christ himself being imputed or
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credited to us. OK, so we've seen the pattern of
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grace laid out and we've seen the doctrine of imputation
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illustrated in the clothing. Now let's kind of pull back and
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connect these foundational pieces to the bigger biblical
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story because these two elements that emerge right here in
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Genesis 3.2021, the expectation of the seed and the necessity of
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the covering, that they really become two main plot lines that
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structure the whole story of redemption, and they both lead
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directly to Christ. Right.
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That naming of Eve, Farrah, life in verse 20, that anchors the
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first trajectory. We could call it the highway of
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promise. Maybe this naming, this act of
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faith anticipates all the births and all the genealogies that are
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going to follow. Genesis is full of them and they
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carry this promise forward. Specifically through the woman's
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line. You trace it from Seth, who
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replaces the murdered Abel, then through Noah, then Abraham,
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Isaac, Jacob, Judah, David. These lists aren't just boring
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records. They're like mile markers on the
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road, tracking God's faithfulness to His promise.
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And the focus is always narrowing, isn't it, towards
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this one specific promised descendant who will fulfill
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Genesis 3.15? Paul later confirms this
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explicitly in Galatians 3.16. He says the promises were spoken
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to Abraham and to his offspring. Singular clarifying, referring
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not to many, but to one and to your offspring, who is Christ.
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So this highway ensures that the one who will finally defeat the
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serpent and reverse the curse is clearly identified and tracked
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across centuries across millennia.
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And this leads us right into the crucial doctrine of the second
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Adam. Christ is the fulfillment of
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that promised seed. The first Adam, through his one
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act of disobedience as the covenant head of humanity,
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brought condemnation, sin, and death to everyone represented by
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him. That's all of us by nature.
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Romans 5, verses 12 through 19 lays out that incredible
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contrast, that sort of inverse parallel, the trespass of the
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one the first Adam had, the condemnation for all but the one
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act of righteousness, the perfect obedience culminating in
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the cross by the second Adam, Christ leads to justification
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and life for all who are united to him by faith.
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The whole shape of human history pivots on these two Adams.
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Exactly. And Christ's mission, his whole
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life, death and resurrection, it directly confronts and overcomes
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the conflict announced right back there in Eden in Genesis
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3.15. He didn't just come to offer
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forgiveness for individual sins, though He did that.
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He came to deal with the root problem, the cosmic conflict
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with the serpent, with Satan. His death on the cross, as
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Hebrews 2 tells us, destroyed the one who holds the power of
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death, that is the devil. And in doing so, he freed those
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who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
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The promised seed demonstrably crushed the serpent's head, just
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as Adam, in that first act of faith, confessed his hope by
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naming his wife Life. OK, so that's the first line,
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the seed. The second trajectory comes to
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the other action in verse 21. The covering those skins planted
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the non negotiable idea that covering sin, achieving
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forgiveness requires a cost, specifically a life given
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bloodshed. And this necessity is what
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drives the entire Old Testament sacrificial system, isn't it?
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If you understand Genesis 3.21, the sacrifices in Leviticus
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suddenly make a lot more sense. They really do.
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The whole Levitical system rehearse this truth over and
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over again. The death of the substitute
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animal, the bull, the goat, the lamb, visually represented the
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fact that sin deserves death and that sin must be covered by a
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death. A life for a life.
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Yet precisely because those animal sacrifices could only
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symbolically cover sin and never actually remove it permanently,
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they had to be repeated day after day, year after year,
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especially on the Day of Atonement.
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And the Book of Hebrews makes this point powerfully.
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Those repeated sacrifices, Hebrews 10 says, could never
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make the worshippers perfect. Their very repetition proved
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their inadequacy. They were always pointing
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forward, creating a hunger for the one final perfect sacrifice
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that could actually take away sin.
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So what Eden merely sketched or foreshadowed in the provision of
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animal skins, the cross fully achieves and secures through
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Christ's shed blood. And that doctrine of imputation,
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the great Exchange, finds its clearest, most concise
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expression in the New Testament. I'm thinking of 2nd Corinthians
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5.21, often called the heart of the gospel.
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For our sake he God made him Christ to be sin who knew no
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sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
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That's it. The ultimate exchange.
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Christ the Sinless One received the legal condemnation that
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Adam's sin deserved, that our sin deserved.
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And in exchange, believers receive the perfect legal
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standing, the perfect righteousness that Christ alone
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achieved. This new legal status, this
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perfect covering, becomes our actual possession through our
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faith union with Christ. When we trust in Him, we are
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spiritually united to Him. That's why Paul can say in
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Galatians 3.27 that those baptized into Christ have put on
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Christ. It's like we are clothed in Him.
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His righteousness becomes ours before God.
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And it's just so. Critical to maintain the order
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of grace that was established right back there in Genesis 3,
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isn't it? God clothes the Sinner first.
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That's justification, the gift of righteousness.
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And then the person who has been clothed begins the process of
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living differently, putting off the old self and putting on the
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new self. That's sanctification.
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Yes, the order is non negotiable for understanding grace.
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The new status of acceptance precedes the new life of
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obedience. The robe is granted as a free
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gift, totally apart from our works or efforts.
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But crucially, those who are robed are then progressively
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renewed and changed by the Holy Spirit.
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So the foundation for Christian living for obedience isn't
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trying to earn the robe. It's living from the security of
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the acceptance we already have because the robe has been given.
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Knowing that status prevents us from constantly falling back
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into trying to stitch together our own pathetic fig leaves.
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Hashtag High Tech Tech 3. And to see just how completely
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this pattern shapes the whole Bible, we really have to look
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ahead to the very end, because this imagery of God providing
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the covering the divine garment, it continues right through to
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the final book, to Revelation, showing the ultimate fulfillment
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of God's redemptive plan. It does.
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In Revelation Chapter 7. John sees this vast, uncountable
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multitude standing before the throne of God and before the
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Lamb. And how are they described?
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They are clothed in white robes, and the vision explicitly
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connects these robes back to the theme of covering achieved
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through costly sacrifice. And Elder asks John who they
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are, and then answers. These are they who have come out
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of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and
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made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
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That's Revelation 7, verses 9 and 14.
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Wow, that's the ultimate meeting point, isn't it?
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The convergence of those two canonical lines that started way
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back in Genesis 3. Jesus Christ is both the
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promised seed of the woman who crushes the serpent and secures
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eternal life, and He is the true Lamb of God, whose blood
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provides the perfect garment, the white robe of righteousness
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for sinners. Exactly what began with two
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terrified, guilty people hiding in a garden, frantically trying
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to cover their shame with leaves, finds its glorious
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conclusion and open worship, total acceptance and perfect
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security before the throne of God.
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They're a fully clothed, fully welcomed, completely secure.
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All because God Himself ticked the initiative, planned the
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rescue, met the infinite cost, and provided the perfect
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covering in His son. Hashtag tag outro.
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So this deep dive into just two verses, Genesis 3.20 and 21, it
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really functions as this powerful guardrail for the
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church. I think it keeps us steady
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against that constant temptation towards self salvation, towards
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relying on our own efforts. It warns US against stitching
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together those fig leaves, whatever form they took in our
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lives. It establishes the fundamental
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rule that governs all of God's redemptive work.
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God always moves first. He initiates, He provides what
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sinners lack, and He does it at a cost that He Himself fully
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meets in His Son. And thinking about this
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personally, for you, listening, this scene offers just
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incredible assurance. Think about it.
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God didn't wait for Adam and Eve to fix themselves or prove they
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were sorry enough or promised to do better.
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No, He stepped in and He clothed them right there in the midst of
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their shame, their failure, their disgrace, even before he
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sent them out of the garden. The solution to our deepest
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problem are guilt and shame. Before God comes entirely from
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outside us. It's supplied by a gracious
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provider and understanding that should lead us, should lead you
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to just drop every form of proud religion, every flimsy fig leaf
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of self effort, and rest completely in the righteousness
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that God himself gives. And the theological structure,
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the order in Genesis 3 is just crystal clear about how grace
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works. God gives the gift first, the
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robe, then he sends them out to live a new life east of Eden.
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The status is granted before the work begins.
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Acceptance precedes performance. So here's something to really
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consider. What does that order gift coming
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before duty tell you about God's motivation, about his heart?
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And what does it tell you about the true nature of Christian
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obedience? Is your daily walk, your
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spiritual life, fundamentally driven by a desperate attempt to
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earn the robe, to finally become acceptable to God through your
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efforts? Or does it flow from the
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security of walking in the robe that has already been freely and
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irrevocably granted to you in Christ, living a life that's
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appropriate to the glorious acceptance you already possess?
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Genesis 3 teaches us right from the start, God dresses those he
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receives.