I hope you agree with me that God’s first and foremost thought is to Love His creation, evidenced by His first act of Grace and Mercy when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit. They discovered their nakedness, and made themselves aprons / armor to cover their bodies, not just their you know what, with leaves, Genesis 3:7. God, wiser and more sensible, made them garments / coats of skin, Genesis 3:21. This is the first act of Love, Grace and Mercy in our Bible. God made them garments of skin.

This is also what humanity has deemed as the FIRST SACRIFICE. For God to make garments of skin, then God had to kill an animal to make the skin garments. The account of this is;

• Man sinned
• God killed an animal as a sacrifice for the sin
• Now the skin is available, so God made garments of skin from the sacrificed animal

The model we teach and have accepted for thousands of years is as follows;

Sin = Punishment

To avoid punishment = Sacrifice

Sin + Sacrifice = Sin wipe or Sin absolve or make up for the sin

But wait a second. If this is so, then God atoned, wiped, made up for Adam and Eve’s sin…………..

No, no wait, it is much more complicated than that……….. It really is not. If we believe and teach this model, which we do, then this is the road we’ve paved. Here are some details on it. Call it road #1 as there is a road #2 to follow.

Road #1:

• This account is God setting up the example of how to atone for man’s sin. When you sin, you need to sacrifice something to avoid punishment. But wait Adam and Eve were punished…..
• Did Adam and Eve get a double jeopardy? Punished and a Sacrifice given for their sin??
• One may ask, then why did God do the act himself? Why did He not say, “Adam, go kill an animal and sacrifice it to me to atone for the sin you’ve done?”
• We can always try and explain away the questions above, but let us track the offering of a sacrifice that we have in the Bible;
  > Able and Cain offering sacrifice………… this was in thanks to what God has provided
  > Noah landed offering………… this was in thanks for God saving them
  > Abraham offering the ram…………… thank you indeed for stopping me from killing my son
  > Jacob after talking with God……….. thank you and what a privilege to commune
  > Then we have Moses’ laws of all sorts of detailed offerings and sacrifices about detailed sins
• From Adam to Moses, regardless of whom you believe, there are thousands of years, thousands. If the model we believe and teach is that crucial to God and how man atones for his/her sin, the question that as to be asked is; Why is there no mention of the sacrificial giving for sin acts until the laws of Moses?
• Of course I cannot prove anything, but the only thing I can offer is Exodus 32. Moses goes up the mountain. Israelites mold the golden calf and worship it. God tells Moses to go down as your people Moses have made themselves an idol. I, the Lord God, will wipe them away and start fresh with you. Moses pleads, God says, alright alright, and God did not bring on this disaster on the people. In essence did not punish them for their sin, although this is the UTMOST SIN of worshiping an idol. Rather, God had Grace and Mercy on them. Now, Moses, with the foreknowledge of all that, goes down, sees the idol and the people sacrificing and goes wild………….. Orders acts of killing and 3,000 die. So the Lord had Mercy and Grace, He forgave the ultimate sin, but Moses went ballistic.
• A humble conclusion, road #1 is a pretty complicated and just gets us, humanity, in all sorts of corners and pits we cannot get ourselves out of. Pits of agony, turmoil and indeed leave a bad taste in our mouth about our Lord God and Creator. This is the road that mankind has followed, and the pits became points of contention about God meant this, and no God meant that…….

Road #2:

• God created us with the freedom to choose
• Choices have consequences and the consequences have to be navigated
• God loved Adam and Eve so much that he wanted them protected, so he made them garments of skin for that is what they needed as they existed the garden and worked the Earth
• The animal killing to get the skin is an act of God’s Love, an act of His Mercy and an act of His Grace
• God is always with us through whatever choices we make. He is holding us up navigating the consequences of our choices no matter what, may they be easy or hard roads to navigate
• A humble conclusion, road #2 sounds a lot more like the God you have grown to know, isn’t it? This is a road that if man chooses to follow, the points of contention will hopefully be at a minimum, and mankind would find more to unite around than to split over
• Please know that in this road as well, God indeed did come to earth in the form of Jesus, and He was crucified and risen as our Lord, to express, demonstrate and prove His LOVE to us as this has been His message since the beginning

It is time to encourage you to ask these questions; Did God intend to have so many divisions within His church? Is God’s LOVE for man means to fight over what Jesus said or meant? Is God looking at us delighted about our divisions or sad? Simple questions begging a simple answer, and that answer is; we have created the divisions and we can undo them and reunite. It is possible not impossible, for it is indeed God’s plan for us to be united in Him. ALL united in Him. Till next week 🙂