THE TUNIC IN THE GARDEN

Transcription

1 "The Gospel of Genesis" -- Study 12 THE TUNIC IN THE GARDEN God warned Adam and Eve that they would die if they ate of the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The first creatures to physically die in the Garden of Eden, however, were not humans but animals. God slew animals to make Adam and Eve tunics, or coats, of skin. This symbolizes two important themes of the Bible. The first is that Adam and Eve's rebellion not only caused themselves to fall but also all of creation. Before the fall, the creatures of the world lived peacefully with each other, those who would become predators in the fallen world and those who would become prey. Only when Adam and Eve chose rebellion and independence did the world become subject to violence and death. Afterwards, it was not just mankind that cried out for a redeemer, but all of creation. The second point is that only by the spilling of sacrificial blood can the world be liberated from the consequences of this rebellion. In this manner, God's act of killing animals to make tunics for Adam and Eve symbolized the fall of the world into death and corruption and foreshadowed its ultimate redemption from death and corruption through the spilling of Jesus' blood on the cross. THE TUNIC IN THE GARDEN STUDY QUESTIONS 1. Read Romans 8: Did Adam and Eve's rebellion affect only themselves? What else did it affect?

2 2. Read Genesis 3:21 What was the first being to die in the Garden of Eden? Is this an indication of what had happened to all of creation as a result of man's fall? 3. Read John 3:3. What does God say is necessary for a man to escape the corruption and death of the world. Read Psalms 102:25-26, Mark 13:24-25, 2 Peter 3:10-11, and Revelation 21:1-2. Will all of creation go through the same process of death and rebirth when Christ comes again? 4. Read Genesis 1:28. To whom did God give authority over the world? Read 1 John 5:19 and Luke 4:5-7. Who seized hold of man's authority over the world? Is this a reason there is so much cruelty, evil, corruption and death in the world? 5. Read Ecclesiastes 2:11 and Matthew 16:26. Does it do a man or woman any good to gain riches in this fallen world? Read Luke 12: What does Jesus tell his disciples to seek? 6. Read Exodus 12:1-13. What kind of sacrifice did God required of the Hebrew people to escape the curse of death that was coming on the land of Egypt? What did God tell the people to do with the blood? What did the blood do? 7. Read Leviticus 16:3-16, which describes the annual sacrifice required as covering for the sins of the people. What did God require the people to bring as an offering? Is the blood of the animal a substitute for the blood of Adam's descendants who are under a curse of death? Did God have this in mind when he sacrificed the animal in the Garden of Eden to make a tunic for Adam and Eve? 8. Read John 1:29. Why is Jesus called the Lamb of God? 9. Read Matthew 26:28. What did Jesus mean in this passage? 10. Read Hebrews 9:19-10:4 What is the difference between the offering commanded by Moses and the offering made by Jesus? Where did Jesus pour out His sacrifice of blood? Did God have a plan in mind for us when he killed the animal in the Garden of Eden?

3 11. Read Hebrews 10: What is result of Christ's sacrifice of His blood? 12. Read Hebrews 9: What are the dead works that this scripture speaks of? Is there any further sacrifice that we need to make to be acceptable with God? THE TUNIC IN THE GARDEN LEADER S GUIDE 1. Adam and Eve's rebellion against God caused the whole world to fall into corruption. God had blessed them to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth. (Genesis 1:28). Sin, therefore, entered the world through them, bringing with it corruption and destruction. 2. Scripture says that God made tunics for Adam and Eve from the skin of animal, but it does not say what kind of animal. God would have had to kill the animal to make the tunics. 3. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must experience a spiritual death and rebirth to enter the kingdom of heaven. A person who is born again is a new creation. "Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17) The same is true of all of creation, which will pass away and be recreated by God in the last days. Paul wrote that all of creation groaned as in childbirth awaiting this final redemption. (Romans 8:22) 4. God gave Adam and Eve dominion over the earth. When they rebelled against God, they became subject to Satan's rule, as opposed to God's rule. The world came under the sway of Satan, whom the Bible describes as the "prince of the power of the air." (Ephesians 2:2) God, however, always holds dominion over all creation, and Satan can only act within the limits God allows. Because the world is under the sway of Satan, the world reflects his cruelty, selfishness, and corruption. 5. The riches of this world are a deception. People who put trust in them will never be satisfied or find peace. Indeed, Jesus warns that a person

4 who trusts in riches is in danger of losing his soul. He advised his disciples to surrender their hold on riches and seek after a spiritual treasure in heaven that is eternal and will not fade away. 6. God instructed each family of the Hebrew people to sacrifice a lamb without blemish and to mark their doorposts with the blood of the lamb. When the angel of death struck Egypt, he saw the blood on the doorposts and passed over those households, not inflicting the curse of death on them. 7. Once a year, the high priest was required to offer a lamb or goat without blemish to cover the sins of the people. This was a substitute sacrifice, the blood of the lamb taking the place of the blood of the people. God foreshadowed this substitute sacrifice in the Garden of Eden when He spilled the blood of animals to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve. 8. Jesus is called the Lamb of God because He was the perfect sacrifice offered up not just to cover the sins of all but to cleanse us of our sins. As the sacrificial lamb under the Mosaic law, Jesus bore our sins and became accursed in our place. 9. Jesus said that His blood would be spilled to cleanse us of our sins, as the sacrificial lamb was spilled to cover the sins of the people under the Mosaic law. 10. The blood of lambs and goats sacrificed as part of the Mosaic law were offered in the earthly temple and just a shadow of the perfect sacrifice of Christ, who poured His blood on the mercy seat not in an earthly temple but in heaven itself. Unlike the blood of Moses, the blood of Jesus perfects the believer. While the Mosaic sacrifice had to be offered repeatedly and were a continual reminder of the reign of sin in the lives of the people, the perfect sacrifice of Jesus only had to be offered once and is a continual reminder of His victory over sin. Once cleansed by the blood of Jesus, we can count ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:11) 11. Jesus' perfect sacrifice removed the curse of the Garden of Eden and washed us of sin. Therefore, it opened the way for us to enter through it into the presence of God and have intimate fellowship with Him, since

5 sin no longer separates us from Him. 12. Dead works are our efforts through the law of Moses, moral codes, human traditions, and other means to make ourselves righteous, or in right relation, to God. The works are dead because they cannot accomplish anything but leave us still enslaved to sin and still separated from God. The only "work" that could permanently remove our sin and make us righteous with God was the "work" of Christ on the cross.