When Adam and Eve attempted to clothe themselves with fig leaves, it was an obvious admission of guilt. Adam and Eve’s fig leaf fiasco was a self-help attempt to cover their guilt, but guilt can never be removed by the offender. Only the offended party can remove the offender’s guilt. In their case, the offended party was the very God who created them, and only He could remove their guilt and affect reconciliation. Yet, not even God can ignore the principle of justice. Justice is the eternal right standard of the universe. It requires the balancing of the scales of morality and righteousness. But, what could do that? The obvious way for justice to be done is for the offender to pay the price for his offense. Then, justice would be served. This would, of course, require the death of Adam and Eve…”the wages of sin is death,” and they certainly qualified with their willful offense and disobedience toward their Maker who had already forewarned them of the penalty.
But, couldn’t God merely look the other way? Not as long as justice must be served. And, injustice would be unthinkable to the God who is the personification of righteousness. Adam and Eve would have to die unless some alternate plan could be devised. Enter…the principle of substitution. Could another, who was not guilty but innocent…could they take the place of the guilty by being a substitute? This would mean the innocent suffers the consequences of the sin of the guilty. What could possibly prompt this arrangement but the benevolence, love, and grace of the offended One. The substitute would be in the innocent animals who were slain by God to provide the coverings for the guilty pair. Thus was instituted the very practice of animal sacrifice, the innocent animal dying for guilty sinners. Substitution. It would be the very defining core of the whole of Judaism and Christianity.
While the Israelites would engage in animal sacrifice for centuries involving multiplied thousands of animals, human sins were never spoken of as taken away, only covered. That’s the meaning of atonement…to cover over so as to be out of sight. But we are told in Hebrews 10 that it was not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin. All they could do was cover it. Yet, the text goes on to say that Christ, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God. This one ultimate sacrifice for sin, made by God’s own Son, was what the multitude of animal sacrifices was pointing to. And, what was behind it? The same love and grace that was behind the animals sacrificed to cover Adam and Eve. Justice has been served. Payment has been made. The moral scales of the universe have been balanced. This is the epitome of divine love and grace. Now the way of access is open to God through Jesus Christ, God’s Son and man’s Substitute.
CC 09-14
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