Instead of Hiding, We Are Free
“Then he added, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will.’ He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” Hebrews 10:9-10
Did you know that the word “testament,” the word we use to describe the old and new parts of the bible, means promise? The resurrection of Jesus splits the bible and all of history into two different promises of God with the new arriving and putting death to the old way.
We see the beginning of these promises in the very first chapters of scripture. As soon as sin enters the world when Adam and Eve take a bite of the apple, the first thing they try and do is cover themselves up. By their own strength, they try to fix the problem at hand by putting on a few fig leaves. As they quickly realize, leaves do not make good shirts and pants and as it turns out, their efforts to fix what they had broken failed them.
But God intervenes, and He makes them clothing out of animal hides. An animal had to be killed, to be sacrificed, so that it could be used as a covering for Adam and Eve. With this, God sets into motion a plan that will be complete in Jesus.
See for the first half of the Bible, in the Old Testament during the old promise, the people of God had to try and do and do and do to be right with God. There was a list of rules that they were made to follow so that they could be in a right standing with God. But tried as they might, they could never get it right. They always seemed to follow the rules but ended up coming up short. It didn’t matter how many fig leaves they sewed together, they never succeeded at solving the problem of their nakedness.
In Jesus, God says ENOUGH with this way of doing things. There is a new testament, a new promise that is fulfilled in His son. Now all it takes to be in right standing with God is to believe in Jesus!
There is no more doing, no more trying to be good, no more following rules, and absolutely no more tying together fig leaves. You see in Jesus, God did what He only hinted at in the garden with the animal hides.
God says no more to our fig leaves, to our trying, and covers us with something that will work- a sacrifice. But not with the hides of an animal, but with the blood of His son Jesus that was poured out on the cross for us. Because of His great love for us, we are free from the old way of doing things and have hope in the new promise of God that finds us secure in the arms of our Savior, Jesus.