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9 And
the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? 10 And he said, I heard thy voice
in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. (Genesis 3:9-10)
The immediate penalty and fruit of sin
is shame and fear. Nakedness represents the complete exposure of our sins
before the eyes of the Lord. Nothing is hidden from His purview. Sin results,
not from free will, but rather from a will that is in bondage to mammon and the
devil. The only will that is free is that will which accords with the will of
God. Just because the chain about our necks is twenty feet long does not mean
that we are free. Certainly, we can take seven steps on our own volition ere
the chain restrains us, but we are yet prisoners of the chain. That is what
free will without God is all about. The will of man that does not comport with
the will of God is under the absolute bondage of the will of the world and of
the devil. Man can neither do, nor even imagine, a good thing apart from the
Holy Will of God.
We are utterly naked before God
without a covering for our sins. Suppose a man, without that covering, believes
he can, by his will, do sufficient good for salvation. Can he? Imperatively,
NO, he cannot! 20 Therefore
by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by
the law is the knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God
without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and
upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: 23 For all have sinned, and come
short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:20-24) If no man can be righteous under the
claims of the law, even if he wills to do so, proves that man’s will is not
free until he has received that imputed righteousness and covering offered by
our Lord Redeemer.
No respectable person would appear
naked in public. It would be a tremendous embarrassment! Adam had no idea what
nakedness truly was until he had sinned before God and came under a conviction
of sin resulting from disobedience. Suddenly, he had a knowledge of the
sinfulness of, not only nakedness, but every other offense against the
Sovereignty of God. Where
would Adam, or any other man, obtain a covering for his nakedness if not from
God. We own nothing on our own right. 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. (Gen 3:6-7) All things are made, and owned, by God. I am reminded of
a story that mentions a meeting between God and the Devil. Prompted by his
arrogance and pride, the Devil said, “God, I would like to inform you that I
can do anything that you can do.” God, half-smiling, says, “Really? Can you
make a man?” “I sure can,” boasted the Devil. “Fine,” answers God, “You go
first, Devil!” So the Devil reaches down and picks up a handful of dirt from
which to make his man, but God exclaims, “No, no! Mr. Devil, you must get your
own dirt!” Fig leaves cannot cover our sins because those, too, belong to God.
The great European reformer Martin
Luther had something to
say regarding the illusion of free will without Christ:
"For if man has lost his freedom, and is forced
to serve sin, and cannot will good, what conclusion can more justly be drawn
concerning him, than that he sins and wills evil necessarily?" Bondage of the Will pg. 149 and "the
commandments are not given inappropriately or pointlessly; but in order that
through them the proud, blind man may learn the plague of his impotence, should
he try to do as he is commanded." Ibid, pg. 160.
Sin prevents us from attending to the
privileges of worship. It appears from the text of Genesis 3 God communed with
the couple of Eden during the coolness of the day; they heard the voice of the LORD God
walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid
themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. (Gen 3:8) Sin places a gulf between man and His
Maker. God was in the place
prescribed for communion, but Adam was not due to his sins. He was rather
hiding in the bushes and trees due to his shame and fear of being found in his
sins. Thousands, and millions, in America today have likewise erected a wall of
separation in worship between God and themselves – often and shamefully in the
very sanctuary of backslidden churches themselves. Now his fear and shame has
driven him away from the presence of God – just as it does in our day. God
never moves – it is the sinner that moves away.
God called upon Adam, knowing
beforehand all that had caused him to hide: And the LORD God called unto
Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? (Gen 3:9)
When caught red-handed in our sins, a confession may be forced upon us, but we
yet attempt to wiggle out from under the condemnation of guilt by equivocation
and attempts to shift the blame from ourselves. God asks, Who told thee that
thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree,
whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat. And the man said,
The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and
I did eat. (Gen 3:11-12) Notice how Adam attempts to shift blame to anyone other
than himself – not only does he blame Eve, but he blames God Himself for giving
him such a woman! Such denial of sin begins at birth. The baby, with chocolate
smeared from cheek to cheek, denies that he has stolen the cookies. There are
no guilty convicts in prison – to hear their stories, they are all innocent of
any evil or criminality. We are all naked without the proper covering that God
provides to cover our sins – the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us review, for a moment, how that
covering was purchased for us by our Lord. The circumstances found Adam and Eve
naked before God in the Garden. If man could live, God could not allow such
nakedness (uncovered sin) to continue. There had to be an intermediate and
temporary covering for that nakedness while the Great Tailor prepared a
sufficient covering for all sin. Remember that all of Creation was made by the strong
love of God for all that He created. 20 And God said, Let the waters
bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may
fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21 And God created great whales,
and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth
abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw
that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be
fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply
in the earth. 23 And the evening and the morning
were the fifth day. (Gen 1:20-23)
You already know from your Bible study that God is the Author of all life. God
created these creatures with a deep and abiding love for them. But now God is faced
with a choice that He had made long before He had created man – He must take
the innocent life of one of his beloved creatures in order to cover the
senseless nakedness of Adam and Eve. So God killed an innocent animal, deprived
it of its own covering, and gave this as a covering to Adam and Eve. 21 Unto Adam also and to his wife
did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. (Gen 3:21)
I can assure you taking the life of
any of His creatures is not a thing which God takes lightly, but the taking of
the beautiful robes that covered an innocent animal must have broken the Heart
of Divine Love. In the taking of that innocent life, God recognized that a
greater sacrifice would be necessary if a permanent solution were to be provided
to redeem men from their sins – that of His beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.
17 For a testament is of
force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the
testator liveth. 18 Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. 19 For when Moses had spoken every
precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and
of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the
book, and all the people, 20 Saying, This is the
blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. 21 Moreover he sprinkled with blood
both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. 22 And almost all things are by the
law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. 23 It was therefore necessary that the patterns
of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things
themselves with better sacrifices than these. 24 For Christ is not entered into
the holy places made with hands, which
are the figures of the true; but
into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: 25 Nor yet that he should offer
himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with
blood of others; 26 For then must he often have
suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the
world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And as it is appointed unto men
once to die, but after this the judgment: 28 So Christ was once offered to
bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the
second time without sin unto salvation. (Hebrews 9:16-28)
Just as the Prodigal Son found, with
the gift of the finest robe of his father, a covering for the filth of the pig
sty; so may you and I have a covering for our sin and nakedness by that pure,
white Robe of Righteousness purchased for us by our Lord at Calvary.
Are you still running about
disgustingly naked? If so, seek the covering that was purchased for you. This
is the only means by which you can be freed from the Bondage of the Will to
Satan, and enjoy the privilege of that Perfect Law of Liberty made available in
Christ. omnipotence and foreknowledge of
God, I repeat, utterly destroy the doctrine of 'free-will'...doubtless it gives
the greatest possible offense to common sense or natural reason, that God, Who
is proclaimed as being full of mercy and goodness, and so on, should of His own
mere will abandon, harden and damn men, as though He delighted in the sins and
great eternal torments of such poor wretches. it seems an iniquitous, cruel,
intolerable thought to think of God; and it is this that has been such a
stumbling block to so many great men down through the ages. And who would not
stumble at it? I have stumbled at it myself more than once, down to the deepest
pit of despair, so that I wished I had never been made a man. (That was before
I knew how health-giving that despair was, and how close to grace.) Luther BW pg. 217
