Coats of skins

“Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.”

In Heb 9: 22 we read, “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no remission.” We also read that the life is in the blood (Gen 9: 4). The Lord God made coats of skins because Adam and Eve knew that they were naked; they hid themselves because they were ashamed of being naked. This is the first time that there is clothing in the Bible and it was a consequence of sin. However, it is impossible to take the skins from animals without first killing them. It may be possible to skin an animal alive but the animal would soon die and God is not cruel to to that. When Adam and Eve sinned the Lord performed a sacrifice on that day so that the skins could be taken from the animal and used for clothing. This looks forward to a future sacrifice that was already promised at that time when the seed of the woman would bruise the serpents head but be bruised on His heel.

This is also the first instance of substitution, for even though Adam and Eve both began the long slow process of physical death on that day, the Lord actually accepted this death as a substitute for their immediate death on the day that they sinned. If Adam and Eve had died on that day then there would not have been any seed and there would not have been any redemption.

If you would like to find out more about God's grace at the beginning you might like to visit http://www.lulu.com/content/799024 and buy a copy of my book “The Scarlet Thread”.

(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)