The response of the LORD God to their experiential need is one of deepest grace: he “made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them” (Gen. 3:21). Their agony needed more than the objective removal of their guilt in the forgiveness of God, a mercy he is always quick to offer. They needed the nakedness of their shame to be covered. They needed their eyes to be shielded from all that would remind them of their defection and betrayal. They needed their shame to be removed from the sight of all, both creature and Creator.
And the LORD, in all his sensitivity and kindness, provided them with that shelter. A covering that brought relief, that spoke not simply of sins forgiven but of the burial from sight of the ugliness of their shame. This is the same garment that the Lord Jesus wrapped around those he spoke forgiveness to - through his words that spoke acceptance and welcome and through his acts of compassion that sat he and they at the same table.
The gospel doesn’t only proclaim our forgiveness, it offers release from the shame that chokes our souls with the acrid smoke that rises from the pit of sin. Not only are we acquitted through the death of Jesus but we are accepted in the Beloved - clothed with God’s own Son, in the holiest ‘garment of skin’ there could ever be.
It falls to those who have been so clothed that they, in turn, become instrumental in relieving the shame of others: “My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring them back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the way of error will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.” (James 5:19,20).
It is, of course, vital to see that this is not a cover-up of sins, as though simply hiding them from sight could assuage the guilt and shame they bring. It cannot. This is the covering over of sin, through repentance and forgiveness. A forgiveness that isn’t simply objective but one that aims at full restoration and the unburdening of a conscience that has been tortured by self-inflicted shame.
That work of recovery must ever be done gently and in full recognition of our own brittle state (Gal. 6:1). Only those whose own shame has been comprehensively covered can lay that same garment upon others’ sin-blistered shoulders.
The Bible's story reads from cover to cover.
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I bring my sins to Thee,
The sins I cannot count,
That all may cleansed be
In Thy once-opened fount:
I bring them, Saviour, all to Thee;
The burden is too great for me.
My heart to Thee I bring,
The heart I cannot read,
A faithless, wandering thing,
An evil heart indeed:
I bring it, Saviour, now to Thee,
That fixed and faithful it may be.
My life I bring to Thee,
I would not be my own;
O Saviour, let me be
Thine ever, Thine alone!
My heart, my life, my all I bring
To Thee, my Saviour and my King.
(Frances Ridley Havergal, 1836-79)
