God’s grace is amazing! He gives us what we don’t deserve. He offers the free gift of grace without conditions or strings attached. And it all started with his grace in the garden.

Genesis 3:21
And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

God’s grace was abundant, and his instruction was clear. Man could “surely eat of every tree of the garden” (Genesis 2:16). Adam and Eve lacked nothing for food and enjoyment. But there was one forbidden tree from which man could not eat. “For in the day that you eat of it,” God said, “you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). The death God was speaking of was physical, spiritual, and eternal. The disobedience separated man from God. The separation was so vast a chasm that man could never build a bridge over it and make his way back to God. Even with the experience of abundant grace and with clear instruction, Eve ate the fruit of the banned tree and shared it with Adam. Their eyes were opened, and for the first time, they realized they were naked. They found fig leaves to cover themselves and tried to hide from God.

Hiding from God is futile, as Adam and Eve discovered, and we discover, too. He always finds us. He found the first couple covered and afraid. After God explained the consequences of their sin, he did an amazing thing. Remember, God said that disobedience deserved death. But there in the garden, God graciously provided a substitute. An animal died on their behalf, and God used the “garments of skins and clothed them.”

That first sacrifice and the sacrificial system instituted in the Old Testament was a forerunner of what was to come. The sacrifice reminded the worshiper that sin deserved death and revealed the need for a Perfect Sacrifice who would pay the penalty of sin and clothe us with his righteousness. Jesus came to die. He is our one-time-for-all-time sacrifice for sin. The Lord put on him the sins of us all (Isaiah 53:6). Peter explained it this way, “[Jesus] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

The grace in the garden is our grace today. Have you trusted in the Perfect Sacrifice as the only way to have a relationship with the living God? If not, I invite you to say this prayer with me.

Heavenly Father,
I know that I have sinned against you. And I know my sin separates me from you. I know that there is nothing I can do to bridge the great chasm of separation. But I know you sent your Son to pay the penalty for sin once and for all. Today, I trust in him as the One who paid my debt. I trust in Jesus alone as my sin-bearer and my Savior. In Jesus’ name. Amen.