The Penalty and the Price

 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.  Genesis 3:21

When God created everything, it was perfect. Mankind’s purposes and priorities were perfect also. The Big Lie, Lucifer (Satan), used to deceive Adam and Eve out of their eternal inheritance was that God’s motives were questionable at best and His commandments were biased with suspicion and jealousy. 

In reality, in mankind being placed into a perfect and eternal setting, the Creator knew the suffering and destruction sin would bring to Creation and warned of its consequences. God was not withholding anything from our first parents; He was protecting them.

The penalty for sin was the price.  No one could pay it.  There was not enough righteousness outside of God, Himself, that could satisfy His wrath against it. Sin was something so heinous it would hurl mankind into a pit of wretchedness, death, and despair. 

A payment so terrible was demanded to cover it and that demand was the shedding of innocent blood.  The first blood shed was by the animals God sacrificed to clothe Adam and Eve. Scripture doesn’t say how it happened, but I believe God had Adam and Eve watch Him kill two of their beloved, (and innocent), animals, to bring home to them the ruin sin had brought and how horrible a price to Creation it would be. 

So why did God allow humanity to become slaves to sin?  Because He knew Adam and Eve would fail and His plan all along was to reveal His glorious Love and Nature by paying the debt Himself.  He gave the promise in Genesis 3:15, that was fulfilled through the shedding of the innocent blood of His own dear Son, Christ Jesus. Jesus would crush the head of the serpent (destroying slavery to sin) and the serpent would bruise His heel (death by crucifixion). The Perfect Sacrifice was made not with a temporary covering, but a once-for-all offering, meant to bring us into eternal redemption with God when we accept it (Hebrews 9:12).

Satan questioned God’s goodness when he said to Eve, “Did God really say that?” (Genesis 3:1).  While God did say it, the LORD immediately put His payment on the table to deal with it. In a generation yet to come, the world would watch as He allowed His Lamb to be crucified by the very race He came to save.  John the Baptist so rightly declared of Jesus Christ, “Behold the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world,” (John 1:29). And indeed, that Lamb clothed the world in robes of righteousness to His honor, glory and worship.

People will ask, “But at what price to us?”  The statement ought to be, “What an astounding price God paid with His own little Lamb, while we laughed and mocked Him!” It was truly amazing grace. That is a price that will never be matched.  It is a price that can never be repaid. Thanks be to God for the perfect lamb and the Robe of Righteousness He placed upon us. One Lamb was enough.

Ken