God Soothes Our Greatest Fear With A Stronger Covering - Made to Tremble: Finding Awe in Your Anxiety

“In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.” (Hebrews 9:22, NLT)

“Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.” (1 John 4:18, NLT)

How did God do it? How did God cover Adam and Eve’s exposure and soothe their greatest fear? There are three answers: a stronger covering, a better tree, and a greater Adam who steps into our world and succeeds where the first Adam failed.

A Stronger Covering

What does God use in place of those fig leaves? “The LORD God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife.”^a

All of humanity needs an exchange of clothes. We need God to remove our rags and replace them with righteous robes. But why animal skins? What’s happening here, and what is it trying to point us toward?

Eden was once a space completely unfamiliar with death. But after the Fall, the first death was the spiritual death of Adam and Eve and the second death was the physical death of an animal. Why this second act of death? To atone for Adam and Eve’s spiritual death. Because sin brought death, God required that an animal must die to atone for the breaking of God’s law. God provides the sacrificial animal because “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” of sin.^b

Adam and Eve were sin-filled, shaking, and afraid. Their anxious responses get them nowhere close to a real solution. God, on the other hand, has a solution in mind. He cried out for them, intentionally seeking them out to restore the relational fray and clothe them with His mercy by means of atonement. Their sin, shame, and anxieties would be covered satisfactorily. The animal’s death pointed toward the new way God would tell His people to handle sin—at least for a time—and that was through animal sacrifice.

Ultimately, Christians know an atonement much greater than the one in Genesis 3. What God did for Adam and Eve was a foreshadowing of what He would do through Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, once and for all time. God has undoubtedly cried out for us, for we would never discern or desire Him unless He drew near to us first.^c Then, in mercy, He clothed us with His Son’s righteousness and met us with His presence. How did He clothe us? After a lifetime of walking in perfect obedience to the Father, our Savior Christ took on our nakedness, shame, and death through the most shameful means: crucifixion.

The atonement paid by Jesus Christ for our sins on the cross of Calvary, along with His resurrection, changes everything about our lives since it removes our greatest fear of judgment by granting us peace with God. In this way, we no longer relate to Adam and Eve trembling in the Garden before God clothed them. We have security in Christ because of His perfect sacrifice. We are free from the condemnation they experienced. “Perfect love drives out fear.”^d We have received a great exchange. Our sins were placed upon Christ, and His righteousness now covers us.