Skin Game – Genesis 3:20-21

As with what kind of fruit was growing on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it is impossible to know what kind of animal’s skin was used to make garments for Adam and Eve.  God hasn’t told us because it doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that animals do not willingly give up their skin.  They have to die to make their skin available.

20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. (Genesis 3:20–21, ESV)

There are two firsts this passage.

There are the first conversions.  Adam and Eve have just received from God a declaration of their guilt and of the earthly consequences that will entail.  They have already experienced the death He promised for eating, a spiritual death that means separation from God spiritually and is evidenced in their shame at being naked.  But with the words of God to the serpent that describe how He is going to redeem this situation through an offspring of the woman, Adam calls his wife Eve, the mother of all living.  In faith they anticipate the fulfillment of God’s promise of redemption through Eve’s offspring.  This is a sign of repentance for their disobedience and of trust in God that they failed to exhibit when they disobeyed.  And this is why Genesis 3:15 has been called the proto evangelium, the first preaching of the gospel.

But faith in the promise of God, which, by the way, is the only basis for salvation ever given in Scripture, is not enough, in and of itself, to save someone.  So in this passage is the first sacrifice.  God clothes Adam and Eve’s nakedness, covers their shame and guilt, but at the cost of an animal’s or animals’ lives.  The animals cannot donate their skins without dying.  Adam and Eve learn that death is indeed the penalty for sin, but there can be a substitutionary death on their behalf to replace their death.  They have already been told that the offspring of the woman who defeats the serpent will be struck on the heal, which, if the serpent is a poisonous one, could cause death.  Do they make the connection that an animal sacrifice will never be enough to substitute for their payment of death as a penalty for their sin?  We don’t know.  But thus begins the lesson from God that the only way to be made right with Him is trust in His provision of a sacrifice on our behalf.

Adam and Eve don’t do good works to earn the covering God provides, the skins that signal forgiveness and restored relationship with Him.  They believe, they trust in His promise.