Figs, Furs and 3 Piece Suits

Genesis 3:7-13

by Dave Wilkinson

June 7, 1998

Our meditation for this morning comes from the narrative of Eden in the Book of Genesis. We find it at the point immediately after Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. All we need to say about that this morning is that the problem in the Garden of Eden was not in the apple on the tree but in the pair on the ground.

Verse 7 of Genesis 3 reads: "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings or aprons."

What verse 7 is saying through the symbol of nakedness is that at this point man, for the first time, became aware of his own self. Man had been born with a consciousness of God and awoke to a consciousness of the woman God gave to be his companion. Now Adam also finds an awareness of self and, for some reason or another, he doesn't like all that he finds. For as he discovers himself it is through the discovery that he is guilty.

Adam and Eve had barely sewn their fig leaf aprons when they heard a sound. It was the rustling sound of God walking in the Garden. That sound had once been a very welcome sound but not now. The sinful pain anticipated not fellowship but judgement. In fear they sought to hide themselves among the trees -- using the things God had given for their good to hide from Him.

Then God called out and asked, "Where are you?" Now Adam knew that there were only two people God could be talking to and they were both behind the same bush. So he answered, "I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself."

Then God asked the question Adam was waiting for and was very much dreading: "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?

Who, indeed had told Adam and Eve that they were naked? The tempter didn't tell them. They didn't tell each other. They didn't read it in a book. But somehow they were able to recognize it in themselves.

Apparently God had placed a trip-wire in their makeup which would reveal the existence of sin in Adam and Eve to their own selves. Today we call that same trip-wire our conscience.

A conscience is something that can be educated, distorted, sharpened or practically deadened. But it is still a sign of the creator's handiwork in us -- the voice within that either approves or disapproves of what we have done according to God's moral law.

Adam was unfortunate in living before the days of some of our modern psychoanalysis to help him explain away what he was feeling from inside himself. He couldn't even blame his parents -- or his toilet training. All he knew is that he felt naked and that he needed to hide from God. Of course he wasn't naked -- he had his fig leaves. But somehow that wasn't enough to take away what he was feeling.

God didn’t ask Adam, "Where are you" in order to discover his hiding place. It is not possible to hide from God. But He asked in order to give Adam an opportunity to confess -- not "Where are you in the Garden?" but "where are you in relation to Me -- to where I am?"

When Adam refuses the opportunity to own up to his guilt, God pins him down "Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"

Adam knew that God had him dead to rights. He knew that he could not escape what he had done. So he handled it like a true man. He tried to shift the blame.

There were only two places that Adam could shift the blame. He tried them both. The woman...whom You gave to be with me...she gave me from the tree... and I ate some. It was the woman's fault. And it was your fault too God because You made her and You should have realized how much trouble she could cause. I was really an innocent bystander -- a victim.

Adam became the first practitioner of the most popular indoor or outdoor sport of all time --.rationalization. It's easy to play. You are muleheaded. I hold to my convictions. You are slow. I am deliberate. You are picky. I am precise. You are rude and arrogant. I am refreshingly candid.

Adam began the flight from reality and Eve turned it into a stampede. God said to Eve, "What is this that you have done?" Eve replied, "Don't look at me. The tempter deceived me." God doesn't even wait to hear Satan’s excuse.

Adam and Eve, in their action and it their attitude, demonstrate nothing that is deserving of God's mercy. And yet it is God's mercy that is the most shining thing about this whole passage.

Adam's awakened conscience did not drive him to God but, instead, drove him into the bushes to hide from God. But God came looking for Adam. Even though the way would be hard, God would neither leave Adam and Even in their new found guilt or blot them out and start over. He came looking for them to have it out with them and begin the long, long road of healing on which we are still pilgrims. It was God who sought Adam and this had been the way with we pilgrims ever since. It was God who sought out and called Abram while he was still an idolater. It was God who sought Jacob at Bethel when he was fleeing from the consequences of his wrong doing. It was God who sought out Moses while he was a fugitive in Midian. It was God who sought out David through the prophet Nathan when David was sunk in his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband. It was Jesus who sought out the Apostles while they were engaged in fishing so that He could truly say, "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you." It was Christ who came to seek and save the lost. It is the shepherd who seeks the sheep, and not the sheep that seek the shepherd. How true it is as Paul wrote, "We love Him because He first loved us."

God's mercy is also shown in a very symbolic gift He Gave to Adam and Eve. Verse 21 reads, "And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them." Even though the awareness of their nakedness is a result of their sin, God provides a way of protection to supplant their own feeble attempts.

This is significant for us this morning because the death of an innocent animal to provide a covering for the result of human sin is the first example of sacrifice in the Bible -- the beginning of a stream of the innocent dying for the guilty that will find its ultimate expression in the death of Jesus on our behalf... not just to cover our bodies but to cover the guilt itself.

This is the sacrifice that Jesus both foretold and told us to remember as He broke the bread as a symbol of His broken body and poured the wine as a symbol of his spilled blood.

As we participate together now in the Supper of the Lord, let us do so in the knowledge that it is God who has sought us. Let us do so in the knowledge of His eternal merciful purpose. Let us do so in thankfulness that we can come because He has clothed us in the righteousness of Christ just as surely as He clothed Adam and Eve in the skins of that first sacrifice.