The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

—Genesis 3:21

My Bible has titled Genesis chapter three, “The Fall of Man.” It didn’t even take three chapters for humans to mess things up big time, and things just went downhill from there. By chapter four the first murder has occurred. By chapter six, corruption is so widespread, God tells Noah to build a really big boat.

That all seems really grim and discouraging. If that’s all we look at, humanity seems to be in a situation we can easily classify as hopeless, stuck in a downward spiral we can’t escape from. But thankfully, we don’t have to wait very long for the first hint of Jesus’s light to shine into the hopeless situation of humanity.

As soon as God finishes delivering the sentence for Adam and Eve’s sin, before chapter three ends, God provides a tangible illustration of how He will save the people who turned their backs on Him. He performs a sacrifice. He allows an animal to take the punishment Adam and Eve deserved, and He used the animal’s skin to make clothes for them.

Just like we don’t know what kind of fruit grew on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we don’t know exactly what kind of animal was sacrificed, but I can’t help wondering if it was a ram. 

Whether it was a ram or not, the result is a substitutionary sacrifice that God uses to cover the guilt and shame of His children. It’s a promise that another, better sacrifice is coming. One that won’t result in a temporary covering of guilt and shame, but a permanent cleansing of it.

Then things shift a bit: “Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’—therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.” (verses 22-24)

A few verses ago, we got to see a representation of Jesus acting as a substitute on our behalf, of Jesus as the lamb Whose blood covers our sin. Now we get to see Him be our Good Shepherd. 

That may seem strange given the language in these verses. Driving someone out sounds harsh, like a reaction fueled by anger. And the motivation—not letting them eat from the Tree of Life again—can seem vindictive, but I think there’s more to it than that.

When the Holy Trinity decides to send Adam and Eve from the garden, it’s not just because He’s mad about them not following His instructions. Their decision to disobey Him was sin, the one thing that was able to cause a separation between God and man. Sin demands the price of death. Without death, Adam and Eve would never be able to be close to God the way they had been, so if they had eaten from the Tree of Life after sinning, they would be separated from God for eternity with no way to get back to Him.

When God sends humans out of the garden, He is protecting them from a hopeless future and beginning the process of redeeming them.

This passage highlights two things that I think are incredibly important. First of all, Jesus’s sacrifice was never plan B. God knew what He was getting Himself, He already knew the redemptive measure He would take to get His children back, and He was ready to show His children what was to come. 

Second, our God is passionate about our redemption. He will always do what’s best for us, even if that thing will seem harsh to us, because more than anything, He wants to be close to us again. Not to mention, it takes a whole lot of commitment to stick with people who routinely reject you for thousands of years.

That’s truth worth resting in. The world often portrays God as harsh and unloving, but we know the truth—even when life gets hard, our God is working for our good and our redemption. He will never abandon that purpose, and He will never fail to achieve it. I pray this week that we can all find peace in this truth!