The Covering of God’s Righteousness
The second covering we’ll discuss is actually the first covering mentioned in the Bible, in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, the book of the beginnings, and then its spiritual counterpart is mentioned numerous times in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. This covering is the most important covering of all, in that this covering—the covering of God’s righteousness—is that covering that makes it possible for God to see and regard us as “holy and blameless before Him” (Eph. 1:4; see also, Eph. 5:27, Col. 1:21-11).
Man was originally created by God in His image and therefore was originally holy and blameless like God Himself. Thus, before the fall, Adam and Eve, because they were holy and blameless, had no consciousness of sin and evil, and therefore no shame, though they were naked, or unclothed:
And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (Gen. 2:25)
But, then, tragically, subsequent and consequential to the fall:
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. They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” (Gen. 3:7-10)
The tragic result of the fall of man was that their soulish eyes were opened so that they now had a soul-consciousness of “good and evil,” and through that soulish perception they now had an awareness or knowledge that they were naked, which produced a soulish shame. So, in an attempt to “cover” over that inward sense of shame, they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings, not understanding that their shame was inward and could not be overcome by outward clothing covering their private parts. That was made manifest when they next “heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.”
So also was the fact that man now was stricken with a soulish instinct to run and hide himself from God because as a result of his uncovered, unredeemed sin, he was now afraid of God: “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked;so I hid myself.” Unredeemed mankind has existed in that very circumstance ever since—afraid of God because of his spiritual nakedness before a holy God, which causes him to run and hide himself from God.
But God created mankind for the purpose of having fellowship with them. It is not His desire to be separated and alienated from humans. But, man yielded to the lies of Satan, the father of all lies, the tempter, and as a result fell into perdition, or spiritual apostasy. So, a “fix” to this tragic circumstance now was desperately needed, because God was not content to endure the separation that sin effected. So as a temporary “fix” until the “right time” (Rom. 5:6) would later come when God sent His only begotten Son to become the human Lamb God to die for the sins of the world, God slayed a lamb, shedding its blood for the covering over of Adam and Eve’s sin, and made out of lamb skin an outward covering to cover over their soulish shamefulness as well.
The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. (Gen. 3:21)
When the Bible invokes the term “LORD God,” it is referring to the second Member of the God-Head, God the Son, who, of course, would be manifest on earth in human form as Jesus, and become the Christ, the Messiah, the Lamb of God, whose shed blood takes away (remits) the sins of the world. Though the passage does not say it explicitly, because Jesus was, as John the Baptist, identified Him, “the lamb of God,” assuredly we can safely assume that the animal God slayed, shedding its blood to provide Adam and Eve the “garments of skin” for a covering for their nakedness and shamefulness, was a lamb.
Unless God had Himself “made the garments of skin” for the progenitors of the human race, Adam and Eve would have never known on their own, by their own knowledge, how to cover over their spiritual shame with which their conscience had now been permeated. They would have never understood that what their circumstance required was a “blood sacrifice” wherein a lamb must be slain and its blood shed, for “without the shedding of blood (there) is no remission” of sin (Heb. 9:22). And to be effectual, only the Lord Himself could slay the lamb, shed its blood for the covering over of Adam and Eve’s sin and sin consciousness, for He Himself was “the Lamb that was slain from (before) the foundations of the world” (Rev. 13:8). What is so critical to understand and what I am trying to point out is that this act of providing spiritually fallen Adam and Eve with an effectual covering that was able to cover over their sin and sin consciousness was executed by Christ Himself at the beginning of human history in the Garden of Eden in order that they be restored to fellowship and relationship with God, otherwise the entire human race would have been damned and doomed with the very first two humans.
From the beginning, man needed a covering for sin that could only be provided by God Himself. So, as it turns out, this one rather inauspicious verse of Scripture, Genesis 3:21, though it appears in the book of the beginnings subtly with no fanfare or pomp, is arguably the most critical verse in the entire Bible. Had it not been for what is described in this verse, there would be nothing of what transpired subsequently over the ensuing six-thousand years.
Nevertheless, Scripture makes it clear that the need for a covering for sin that only God Himself could provide was by no means a surprise to the omniscient Creator that somehow caught Him off guard, but rather He knew the whole matter of Man’s debut on Earth could go no other way, and thus He made the provision for a redemptive covering for Man’s inevitable sin and consequential fall before it transpired and even before He formed the foundations of world and the creation and placement of Mankind upon the Earth:
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love (Eph. 1:4)
Despite the mind-blowing loftiness of the concept, God’s desire to have fellowship and relationship with His Mankind Creation was so strong that His provision to deal with the sin and sinfulness with which the human race was permeated consequential to the Garden fall and failure far surpassed the mere covering of it, which the provision of the shed blood of bulls and goats accomplished under the previous covenant, but rather under the new covenant, He accomplished through the shed innocent blood of Christ Jesus what the blood of bulls and goats could never accomplish–”For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Heb. 10:4; KJV)—He completely REMITTED or REMOVED or TOOK AWAY the breach of sin and sinfulness, to the sublime extent of making redeemed mankind “holy and blameless before Him!” This unfathomable Divine doing, whereby he negated and countered the unspeakably horrific failure of the First Adam, He accomplished utterly and exclusively by the propitiatory shed blood and death of the Second Adam, the Son of God, Jesus Christ—”the Lamb of God who TAKES AWAY the sins of the world” (Jn. 1:29)!
Witness and marvel at the New Testament passages that pronounce this utterly incomprehensible and mind-blowing transaction that the sin-damned mankind creation should be miraculously transformed into The Redeemed who stand before God holy, blameless, and beyond reproach:
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love (Eph. 1:4)
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. (Eph. 5:25-27)
And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach— (Col. 1:21-22)
So, in view of all this, what happens to this original covering of lamb’s hide that God Himself provided to cover the nakedness of the mankind progenitors, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden, as delineated in the Book of the Beginnings, the first book of the Bible. Well, we see the lamb’s skin covering God provided to cover Adam and Eve’s shamefulness of nakedness, a covering for the natural man, in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, is surpassed and supplanted by the white robes or white garments with which the redeemed saints of God, who have obtained by faith righteousness or rightstanding with God, are clothed and adorned:
‘But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; and they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. ‘He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.’ (Rev. 3:4-5)
I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. (Rev. 3:18)
Around the throne were twenty-four thrones; and upon the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and golden crowns on their heads. (Rev. 4:4)
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; (Rev. 7:9)
Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “These who are clothed in the white robes, who are they, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “My lord, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Rev. 7:13-14)
And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. (Rev. 19:14)
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city. (Rev. 22:14)
Oh! How many words of extreme exultation, exaltation, and thankfulness pertaining to the glorious prize and precepts inherent in these passages telling about these fine linen, white and clean—whiter than any fullers’ soap could make them, made so by the “crimson flow” of Christ’s blood—robes of righteousness with which the Redeemed are forever clothed before God, could be here published, but such would require a book of its own! Suffice it to say that the wondrous works God wrought for the elimination of the breach Man’s apostasy produced in the Garden in order to achieve eternal fellowship and relationship with His Mankind Creation is worthy of perpetual honor, praise, and worship of the Author and Finisher of this unfathomable plan of reconciliation, salvation, restoration, purification, and eventual glorification. Such a “sacrifice of praise” (Jer. 33:11; Heb. 13:15) shall the Righteous Redeemed spend eternity expressing to the God who has wrought such marvelous and inexpressible things!
This is the essence and denouement of the covering provided by God to His Mankind creation. It is the standard set by God for coverings. Those faux coverings human’s purport to provide for fellows all pale into utter insignificance and ignominy when compared to the covering provided by God, for they can do nothing of what the Divine covering provides. Rather, they are nothing but complete counterfeits, completely void of anything beneficial or beneficent!
