God forgives us when he doesn’t have to, when we don’t deserve it, and with foreknowledge that he’ll have to freely pardon our sin again and again and again to get us into his heaven. If for no other reason today, you and I should be thankful for a merciful God who goes out of his way to forgive.
The Journey // Focus: Genesis 3:21
“And the Lord God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife.”
Adam and Eve sinned—and as the Bible tells us, “the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23a) It was a stiff penalty, but if God was to be a just God, somebody had to die. And somebody did! In this case, as a remarkable foreshadowing of Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross for the sin of the world, an animal was slain and its hide used to cover the sin-exposed human couple. Thus we are introduced to a God who is not only just, but whose mercy saves us from his justice: “…but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ the Lord.” (Romans 6:23b)
How loving, merciful and full of grace the Creator was—and still is—not to completely do away with his prized creation, man, because of his willful sin, to begin again with a newly created man. If God dealt with our sin as we deserve, who of us would stand a chance? (see Psalm 130:3) Perhaps no other writer captured the lovingkindness that emanates from the core of the Creator’s character as poignantly as the prophet Jeremiah, who wrote in Lamentations 3:22-23,
The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.
Rather than judging us as we deserve, God covers our sin through the promised Redeemer (v. 15) who bore the punishment of our sin with his life, a redemptive reality foreshadowed by the covering of the original couple with skins of a sacrificed animal (v. 21).
Thank God for his mercies, given by his grace afresh and anew each day. “My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!” (Horatio Spafford)
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