The First Promise

December 3^rd

“‘I will  put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.’…And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.”  Genesis 3:15, 21

There has never been a time that the Lord has not responded to our sin with grace and promise.  When Adam and Eve first sinned, God sought them out.  When the human inclination was to hide from the Lord and cover our own sin with whatever means are readily available, God’s inclination was to seek and find and reveal the truth.  When we feared God’s wrath, he showed us compassion.  When Satan had tricked us into sin, God led us into restoration.  When we were naked and ashamed, God clothed us.  This is God’s character revealed through scripture from the beginning of time. 

There was discipline as well, to be sure.  Our decision to give in to Satan’s temptation and believe the lie over the giver of life created a separation that we would never be able to repair on our own.  It brought death.  It brought pain.  It brought labor.  It brought a curse that we still deal with today.  But with the curse, God gave us a promise.

One day, through a descendant of Eve, God was going to send a savior.  While we may not have been strong enough or wise enough to resist Satan’s schemes on our own that day in the garden, God promised that one day the Messiah would destroy Satan.  Yes, the Lord would come and die, seemingly defeated, but in rising from death, Jesus would crush Satan once and for all. 

After that promise, God provides the first sacrifice, taking the skins of the animals to clothe Adam and Eve, covering their shame, their nakedness, their sin.  This is the first symbol of the sacrifice that God would provide much later, to a long awaiting world.  Broken, naked, fearful, and ashamed, the world was desperately waiting for Jesus.