Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #28 of Genesis, chapter 3 and we are going to read Genesis 3:20-21:

And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam also and to his wife did JEHOVAH God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

I just want to finish discussing verse 20 before we move on to the next verse. Again, we saw that Adam called his wife’s name Eve because she was the mother of all living and, yet, she had not yet given birth. She was not an earthly mother of any kind. But, you see, the most important level of information in the Bible is the spiritual level, the underlying spiritual truth with which the Bible is chiefly concerned. God is the one who moved Adam to call his wife’s name “Eve” because she was the mother of all living and it was God who moved Moses to record these things so we would know this information. The reason was because of the spiritual picture that God was drawing in regard to Eve, the bride of Adam. Adam was a figure of Christ and Eve was a figure of the elect.

We also saw that the statement that she was the mother of all living corresponds to Galatians, chapter 4 in regard to Sara and “Jerusalem above.” Both Sara and “Jerusalem above” are a similar picture. God said in Galatians 4:23:

But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.

By the way, the Greek word translated as “freewoman” is the same word translated as “free” in Galatians 4:26:

But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

It is the same Greek word, Strong’s #1658, and the word woman was added because it was in the “feminine.” So, it says, “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all,” and the “all” that is in view is all the elect. “Jerusalem which is above” is that heavenly Jerusalem that came down adorned as a bride for her husband, in Revelation chapter 21 and it represents everyone that God would ever save. Sara is a similar picture and Eve is a similar picture. Eve relates with Sara and she relates to “Jerusalem above,” so it was said of Eve that she was “the mother of all living” even before she gave birth to an earthly child. This was the early stage of earth’s history and God had just created the world and created man and then formed the woman out of his side, but the Lord had already predestinated (from the foundation of the world) a chosen people to be saved, according to Ephesians 1, verse 4.

Already the Lord Jesus Christ had taken upon Himself the sins of all these people and suffered and died under the wrath of God in paying for their sin debt and then He arose from the dead to be declared the Son of God, an indicator of justification that He had been washed and experienced spiritual baptism in the washing away of the sins that were laid upon Him. Therefore, the entire company of elect (the body of Christ or the bride of Christ) was known at the foundation of the world as a “child knitted together” in its mother’s womb and then as history unfolded and God saved each one of these individuals it was the formation of this “child” or the formation of the body of Christ or formation of the bride, and so forth. But because the works were already finished from the foundation of the world, it can be said at this early point in history that Eve “was the mother of all living.” In dying for the sins of His people He guaranteed their salvation and they would be the “living” ones, out of the whole of mankind that would ever be born again and she was the mother of all that would “live,” in that sense.

Let us go on to Genesis 3:21:

Unto Adam also and to his wife did JEHOVAH God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

It is curious and it is something that is rather difficult to understand since Adam had consistently been a picture of Christ. Why is God clothing him along with his wife Eve? We understand that these coats of skins are a picture of God’s salvation and the covering over of sin. Up until this point, Adam and Eve were naked until they sinned. Eve was deceived by the serpent and Adam also took of the forbidden fruit and sinned. Prior to this, they had been naked and they were unaware of it and there was nothing shameful. Once they sinned, they realized they were naked and they tried to cover themselves. We talked about that in Genesis 3:7:

And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

We saw how this relates to man’s attempt to cover their own sins through their own works. Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together and to sew involves work. They sewed fig leaves together to make themselves aprons. In Genesis 3, verse 21 God is correcting what they have done. It is like He is saying, “The covering you have made is not sufficient when it comes to sin. There is no covering that you can provide of yourself.”

This was the fault of Israel of old. They thought they could do certain works in offering sacrifices and obeying the ceremonial Laws and it would cover their sins. It is the same fault with the New Testament corporate church, as people thought they could partake of the Lord’s Table, participate in water baptism or accept Christ, and so forth. They thought these good works could save them and cover their sins, but that is never the case. God is correcting that idea.

Let me refer to Isaiah 4, verse 1 where God speaks about seven women. These seven women identify with the seven churches we find in Revelation, chapters 2 and 3. It says in Isaiah 4:1:

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

This is what the corporate church likes to do. They want their own bread or their own kind of gospel and doctrines. It may be related to the Bible and built upon some Scripture, but they want their renowned theologians to lay out their own program of salvation and they adhere to that, but they do not compare Scripture with Scripture and allow the Holy Ghost to teach them. They want their own bread and their own apparel or their own clothing. They want to sew together “fig leaves” to cover their nakedness. At the same time they take hold of “one man,” who is Christ, and they want to be called by His name. They want to be called Christians to take away their reproach. They want some things of God, but they also want some things of their own and they try to bring them together, but that is not possible. It is only God’s bread and the true teaching of the Bible that is the daily bread for the children of God and God is the one that provides it. God determines what it is and God is the one that must rain it down from heaven above like the manna that fell in the wilderness.

Also, God is the one that clothes His people. He is the only one that can cover the spiritual nakedness and He covers them through His work and His righteousness, as we see in this verse in Genesis 3, verse 21. Historically, this is only telling us that Adam and Eve had flimsy or insufficient clothing, so God helped them by making coats of skin to clothe them. But, in order for God to make coats of skin, an animal had to be killed. Speaking of coats of skin, it says of Rebekah in Genesis 27:16:

And she put the skins of the kids of the goats upon his hands, and upon the smooth of his neck:

The coats of skins are of goats, in this case. How do you get that coat of skin? How did Rebekah get the coat of skin to put on her son Jacob? Did she apply the coat from a live animal? No, because there is no way to do that. The animal had to be killed and then she took the coat of skin from the dead animal.

This is what God did, when we read that God made coats of skin. It means that God killed an animal and He took the skin of the animal and he brought the coats to Adam and Eve and clothed them. God is drawing an early picture of sacrifice – it would require sacrifice to cover sin. It required the shedding of blood and the skin being taken from the animal in order to clothe them. God would eventually lay down the Laws regarding sacrifices. In the next chapter in Genesis 4, we will find that Cain and Abel were bringing sacrifices and this would have been during the first 130 years of earth’s history when both Cain and Abel lived. At that time there was no giving of the Law at mount Sanai and there were no Ten Commandments. There were not specific Laws requiring sacrifice and ceremonial Laws and, yet, already they were bringing sacrifices because God had let it be known. This is, perhaps, the first time God is letting that be known. There could be more information that God gave Adam and Eve regarding this, but we are not told and this is all God wants us to know – He killed animals and shed their blood and He took their coats to clothe Adam and Eve. In doing so, He is laying down a very important principal and that is “without shedding of blood is no remission.” It is the principal that is stated in Hebrews 9:22:

And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

There must be the shedding of blood in order for there to be forgiveness or remission of sins. That is why God is demonstrating that early on by making the coats of skin to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness. He is illustrating how sins can be forgiven – there must be the sacrifice of an innocent one. There must be the shedding of blood. God is not teaching that it is the shedding of animal blood that provides remission of sin because that is impossible and God makes that clear in the Bible, as it says concerning animal sacrifices, in Hebrews 10:3-4:

But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

God’s slaying of whatever animal it was did not take away sin and covering Adam and Eve with the coat of skins did not take away their sins. They were still guilty before God, but it pointed to the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ Jesus had already died and shed His blood because “the life is in the blood,” so if you give your life, you have shed blood in that sense. He was the “Lamb.” A lamb is an animal, but it points to Christ, as John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” He is the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. That is the work that was finished and that is when His blood was shed. It was before the world began because the Biblical principal is, “without shedding of blood is no remission.” Therefore, Christ had already shed His blood and made salvation available before the foundation of the world. Not long later, when men fell into sin, God would forgive the sins of certain (elect) people. Abel was called “righteous Abel” and he can only be called righteous because he had become saved.

You know, it is not possible to become saved after you have lived your life and died. Men become saved during their lifetime, so Abel had to have become saved during his short time in the world prior to Cain slaying him. He had been made righteous by God by having his sins forgiven and the blood of Christ applied to him or there could be no remission and, therefore, the blood had to be available at that time. Again, “without the shedding of blood” and without the death of the Messiah there would be no blood available, so it necessarily had to be that Christ first died in order to provide the reality of forgiveness available for Abel or for Noah (who found grace in the eyes of the Lord) and for every Old Testament believer that lived prior to the cross which occurred over 11,000 years after creation. That is a large block of time. It is 11 millennium. We are approaching the 2nd millennium since Christ went to the cross and we think that is an enormous amount of time, but imagine it being 11,000 years before He first came and died on the cross, which is where the churches and theologians and others insist that Christ shed His blood for sin. But what about Abel? What about Noah? What about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? What about Joseph? What about Moses? What about all the Old Testament saints of old? How were their sins forgiven and how could there be remission? There had to be the shedding of blood and the shedding of animal blood is not sufficient and it could never take away sin. God insists upon that.

Well, some people try to tell us, “It was in principal because Christ would come and because it was certain and God guaranteed it, therefore, God simply granted forgiveness and the remission of sins by the blood that would be shed at the cross.” That is a lot of language that is theological jargon and it is not in the Bible. The Bible does not say that. The Bible does not say, “Jesus is the Lamb that was slain in principal.” There is none of that. He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world and that is when He shed His blood for sin. Now everything makes sense, once we have that correctly understood. We realize that it had to be that way because the blood of Christ was ready and like the lamb in Egypt that was slain and the blood fell into a basin and they dipped the hyssop and were able to apply it to the doorposts. Likewise, the blood of Christ was “in the basin,” so to speak, of the Word of God and God could send forth His Word: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” It went forth all through history, right from the beginning with “righteous Abel.” God could apply the blood with the hyssop of his Word to the heart of Abel and forgive Abel’s sins because the blood was already available and it was there already. It was a finished work.

You know, you never hear anyone talk about that verse in Hebrews that says the works were finished from the foundation of the world. How do you say that the work is finished in theory or in principal? How can work be finished in principal? Work is something that involves “action” and “doing” and the only way a work can be finished is when it is finished and Christ did that work. He performed the glorious task of dying for the sins of His people under the wrathful hand of God the Father. He shed His blood, making it available all the way through the history of the world. There was never a time when the blood was not available to be applied to one of God’s elect, but there are insurmountable difficulties with the belief that Christ shed His blood at the cross and we have to mysteriously back track and somehow apply it. That is not how it was and the Biblical language will not support that idea. The Biblical language is certain and straight forward. He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world and the works were finished from the foundation of the world.