Genesis 3:20-21
The sermon focused on God’s love in his salvation, giving a garment of skin to Adam and Eve. Here is a summary of the sermon: Genesis 3:20-21 are important verses with great depth about God’s love and salvation. We’ll look in three parts: Big picture framework of judgment, interpreting garments skin, and insight to salvation and God’s grace.
First, judgment happens to everyone as Hebrews says, we all die and face judgment. Besides Christianity, two other views on afterlife include the physical view where there is nothing afterlife and also reincarnation where life repeats in a different form. Both are miserable views with not eternal meaning. Christianity’s worldview is beautiful, it’s that our time on earth is temporary, before going to our Father in heaven. The Bible also teaches us that the day we die will come like a thief, therefore the time we live on earth should be used preciously and to live properly. This time of virus is a time of judgment and especially now, we should live properly. Our spirit knows if we’ve lived improperly, so that is why non-believers have a face of horror being dragged to death, with the Spirit knowing where they will go. As Christians, we have the assurance of Jesus Christ, so we can die peacefully, this is God’s love for us, even covering our sins.
Next, we see what the garments of skin are used to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve. Nakedness is a feeling only humans can have, it is fear and shame, just like Adam and Eve had when they sinned. The truth is, we can’t cover our sins and we also can’t go to heaven with sin, since heaven is a place without sin. The commentator Matthew Henry said that since Adam and Eve’s fig-leave covering made by themselves were too narrow, so God gave us garments of skin, which took shed blood in order to create. As Christians, we believe in Jesus Christ who shed his blood for our sins so that we have the confidence to enter the holy place in eternity. Jesus gave us the clean white robes to go to heaven. For believers, we need to constantly wash our robes in wine. Furthermore, we must gain the fine linens, this is becoming fruitful. God guides this in our life and we gain the fine linens by following God’s will for us in working for the Kingdom of God here on earth.
Finally, Genesis teaches us deep insight into salvation and God’s love and grace which is prevalent throughout the Bible. The naming of Eve, which means “life”, is an act of faith for Adam. Previously, we saw his pride, disobedience, and disbelief. But after God passes judgment and hope of salvation, Adam trusts the enmity God puts with the serpent and that out of the Seed of the Woman, the savior will come. It’s that even in judgment, God uses judgment as a medium for salvation to come. The judgment doesn’t end at the judgment, but through he wishes to restore a loving relationship, which requires our faith that God saves us. God is love and he wishes to save us. The truth is that sin must be judged and the punishment for sin cannot be ignored. But the garment of skin that God gave us to cover our sins was made by Jesus Christ who shed blood and paid the punishment for us.
Today’s verse is a continuation of the protoevangelium, the first glimmer of the Gospel in Genesis. Jesus Christ came and crushed the head of the serpent and was the garment of skin, his cross which bore our sin and shame. Let us always remember God’s love and grace which saves us.
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