Genesis 3:16-24: a reflection

16To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. You will bear children in pain. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” 17To Adam he said, “Because you have listened to your wife’s voice, and have eaten from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ the ground is cursed for your sake. You will eat from it with much labor all the days of your life. 18It will yield thorns and thistles to you; and you will eat the herb of the field. 19You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, for you were taken out of it. For you are dust, and you shall return to dust.” 20The man called his wife Eve because she would be the mother of all the living. 21The LORD God made garments of animal skins for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them. 22The LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever—” 23Therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24So he drove out the man; and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

The aftermath of the fall is heavy: pain, toil, thorns, struggle, and finally death and exile from the garden. God's word to the man and woman lays out the hard consequences of their sin, and they are driven from Eden, barred from the tree of life. It is a scene of judgment, and it should not be softened. But in the middle of it comes a small, tender act of grace easy to miss: the LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

Notice that gesture. The man and woman had tried to cover their shame with fig leaves of their own making, inadequate and quickly withering. God, even as he pronounces judgment, does something better for them: he makes them garments of skin, a covering that required the death of an animal, and he clothes them himself. In the very moment of their guilt and exile, God provides a covering for their shame, at the cost of a life. It is the first hint, this early, of atonement, of God himself providing what covers our shame at a cost.

That small act points forward across the whole Bible to Christ. Our own attempts to cover our shame, our fig-leaf efforts at self-justification, are inadequate and withering. But God provides a better covering, at the cost of a life, ultimately the life of his Son, and clothes us himself. Even in judgment, God is a God who covers his guilty people with grace. If you are burdened by shame and guilt, do not settle for fig leaves of your own making. Let God clothe you, as he clothed Adam and Eve, with the covering he provides at his own cost.

Lord, even in the judgment of the fall, you tenderly made garments of skin to clothe Adam and Eve, covering their shame at the cost of a life. Thank you that you did not leave them in their inadequate fig leaves, and that you do not leave me in mine. When I am burdened by shame and guilt, help me stop trying to cover myself, and let you clothe me with the covering you provide at your own cost, fulfilled in Christ. Cover me with your grace.