Grace

What a fine picture of this we have in Genesis 3:21. “Unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” They had just proved the utter worthlessness of their own doings, but now they are clothed by God Himself.
Reader, try and picture to yourself what Adam’s experiences were when hiding among the trees of the garden, and what they must have been as he stood before the Lord God, clothed in God’s own provision for him. Oh, how different Every time that his eye rested upon his coat, his heart would go out to God, ―that God he had deeply grieved and dishonored; and its language would be, “Oh, I know God better now than I knew Him when an innocent man. Then I knew Him as Creator, but now I know Him as Redeemer.” At the same time, he could never forget the terrible consequences of his sin; the memorial of it was ever before him, in that very coat wherewith he was clothed, for it was a skin. A victim must die, life must be given up,—ere the naked rebel sinner could be clothed.
How this speaks to us of the death of God’s beloved Son. No hope for guilty man can be, except one be found to bear his sins, and meet the claims of God. But oh, wondrous grace, God Himself has met my need. He has provided the Victim, which at once meets the claims of His throne, vindicates His majesty, and puts away my sins. The very Lamb whose blood has blotted out all my sins, is Himself my righteousness. He who knew no sin, was made sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). The believer can say, “In the Lord have I righteousness and strength” (Isa. 45:24). How blessed Righteousness to fit me for God’s presence, and strength to bring me there.
Let us for one moment go back and see how Adam got into this wondrous position of grace. Brought out from his hiding-place, he tries to excuse himself, by saying, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.”
Then the woman blames the serpent (how like ourselves this is, making miserable shifts, instead of owning the truth), and God, in pronouncing the serpent’s doom, tells of the deliverer. The woman’s seed should bruise the serpent’s head. This was the one ray of light and hope, kindled by God Himself, that Adam laid hold of. No sooner had God ceased speaking those sad, terrible words, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,” than Adam opens his mouth, and gives a name to the only creature he had not already named. He called his wife’s name Eve, i.e., living. God, in His last words, spoke of death, and now Adam speaks of life. What presumption! you say. Ah! God did not think so; for at once He crowns his faith by clothing him with the coat of skins. Blessed faith; wondrous grace. Reader, Innocence is gone.
Where are you, ―in your sins or in Christ? Guilt or grace it must be. G. R.