The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:21-24)
The introduction of sin resulted in the broken world in which we now live, a domain red in tooth and claw.
Adam and Eve’s sin erased their innocence. Nakedness became a human problem which must be resolved. None of the trees in the Garden of Eden could provide a remedy for Adam and Eve’s sin, so God sacrificed animals to make garments of skin to cover their nakedness. Continuous animal sacrifices became a temporary remedy to cover sin until the appointed time when Jesus’ blood on the tree of salvation would permanently remove sin, something that animal sacrifices could not do.
In the meantime, death reigned. The path back to the tree of life was blocked by cherubim with flaming swords. God drove Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. The long, dark sorrow of the knowledge of good and evil had begun its sordid history in the human race.
If future hope had depended upon the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve to rescue themselves from this disaster, all would have been lost. But God had a plan. Not surprisingly, his idea for rescue involved trees. A lot of trees! That’s where we’ll resume our walk among the Trees of the Bible next time.
Prairie Pastor 