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Protoevangel
23rd June 2006, 08:16 PM
This was inspired by a Bible lesson I participated in last month, on the Trinity in the Old Testament. It's also on my blog, but I wanted to post it here.

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"Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them."
- Genesis 3:21 NKJV

Adam and Eve were vegetarians; death was just now entering the world for the first time. The concept, the reality, of death was totally foreign to them, until now...

Wow, do you think that God slaughtered these animals in front of Adam and Eve? I do. Can you imagine the sinking feeling as they watched the blood of these animals flow, and the poor animal's breath slowly fading away, and their kicking gradually weaken... All because they had disobeyed? Knowing that God chose these innocent animals to take the punishment that they rightly deserved.

Have you ever screwed up... really, really bad? And then later realized it was SO MUCH worse than you had ever imagined? Could you imagine knowing that every person who exists or ever will exist will suffer because of your mistake?

Is it not much the same for each and every one of us? Does not our every action and thought validate and demonstrate the correctness of that first sin, the sin of our ancestors, Adam and Eve, the sin that is really and truly ours (mine), and not theirs alone?

Let us praise and thank God for in His mercy of all mercies, He called us out of darkness into the light of His glorious Gospel; He delivered us from the captivity of Satan and took upon Himself (as the unblemished lamb) the punishment that we so rightly deserve! Let us give thanks unto God for this free gift of Salvation; through obedience and by the Works that He has prepared for us to do. Call upon Him, give thanks to Him, praise Him, and confess Him. These are all good works. Let them flow from a cheerful heart... because you have remission of all of your sins in Christ, the innocent, perfect Lamb, that has been slaughtered so that we may be clothed in His righteousness.

Amen!

LilLamb219
23rd June 2006, 08:41 PM
Can you imagine the sinking feeling as they watched the blood of these animals flow, and the poor animal's breath slowly fading away, and their kicking gradually weaken.

ugh...I never imagined that before. :(

And here I thought you were just going to say that God first clothed them in the sacrificed animals, but now clothes us in Christ's righteousness at our baptisms.

ByzantineDixie
23rd June 2006, 09:15 PM
Wow, do you think that God slaughtered these animals in front of Adam and Eve? I do. Can you imagine the sinking feeling as they watched the blood of these animals flow, and the poor animal's breath slowly fading away, and their kicking gradually weaken... All because they had disobeyed? Knowing that God chose these innocent animals to take the punishment that they rightly deserved.



As you might imagine I struggle with this imagery just a bit. I can imagine (well not really because it is beyond my imagination) the horror of seeing death and the soul piercing realization that they have done this but I don't think God rubbed their noses in it...I don't think He had to nor would that be in His Nature.

Protoevangel
23rd June 2006, 10:15 PM
ugh...I never imagined that before.
And here I thought you were just going to say that God first clothed them in the sacrificed animals, but now clothes us in Christ's righteousness at our baptisms.
The details really add dimensions, don't they?



As you might imagine I struggle with this imagery just a bit. I can imagine (well not really because it is beyond my imagination) the horror of seeing death and the soul piercing realization that they have done this but I don't think God rubbed their noses in it...I don't think He had to nor would that be in His Nature.
I agree, God didn't "rub their noses in it", and I hope I did not make it sound as if that were the case, but I also think He didn't coddle them from seeing what mischief their sin had caused. The Father didn't spare his own Son from being killed on a cross. He didn't spare the Theotokos from witnessing her Son's Holy lifeblood draining into the earth as He was suffering and dying on the cross. Are we generally spared the details? I don't think there was any "rub[bing] their noses", but I do think that every detail of the experience had a point, and none of those points were easy to take... Except for the promise. :amen:

C.F.W. Walther
24th June 2006, 07:39 AM
Imagine bearing the weight of future generations for this calamity. Eve having to bare childbirth and Adam to work the land and looking back on paradise as they left and knowing it would never be again. How much they had to hinge their hope on the promissed Savior. How much desperation and longing they felt for the coming of salvation. Must have been overwhelming to endure that for their lifetime of hundreds of years.

ByzantineDixie
24th June 2006, 08:30 AM
I agree, God didn't "rub their noses in it", and I hope I did not make it sound as if that were the case, but I also think He didn't coddle them from seeing what mischief their sin had caused. The Father didn't spare his own Son from being killed on a cross. He didn't spare the Theotokos from witnessing her Son's Holy lifeblood draining into the earth as He was suffering and dying on the cross. Are we generally spared the details? I don't think there was any "rub[bing] their noses", but I do think that every detail of the experience had a point, and none of those points were easy to take... Except for the promise. :amen:

There is a difference between not sparing someone suffering and inflicting the suffering...but I think we are mostly on the same page.

Must have been overwhelming to endure that for their lifetime of hundreds of years.

Yes, but God in His infinite Love kept Adam and Eve out of the Garden and away from the Tree of Life precisely so man would not suffer in his fallen state for eternity.