The Lost Sheep

Scripture: Genesis 3:1-24, Genesis 22:1-14, Exodus 11, 12; John 1:29, Matthew 26:2-28, John 19:16-30, Revelation 5:1-7

This first lesson in hindsight is about Sacrifice and the meaning of it from the beginning to pre-Sinai. It’s important to understand the foundation of why the Sanctuary was initially created for and the purpose of it. So in this lesson it focuses on three initial stories.

Now mind you if you are joining me you can refer to the lesson itself but I will be following it very loosely and continuing with my own thoughts and questions as I go. 

Substitutionary Sacrifice- an innocent takes the place of the guilty.

Story One: Eden

(Genesis 3:1-24) Now the serpent….. said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” 4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” 10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” 11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me — she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Serpent cursed: You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” The woman’s pain will be increased in childbirth. Her desire will be for her husband, and he will rule over her. The earth is cursed because of Adam’s sin. Through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” 20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. 21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden and a Cherubim with a flaming sword was stationed to guard the way to the tree of life. 

To begin with, let’s review the story of creation. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God created the word and day after day he said it was good. Which means it was perfect. Even the first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve, were perfect. They had everything they wanted and even more they had God, a close, personal relationship with no sin to come in between however there was one rule. 

(Genesis 3:3) “But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”

A choice gets made, and consequences must follow. An ultimately good and ultimately just God has to follow through but with the consequence come a promise of salvation, 

(Genesis 3:15) “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

(Romans 16:20) “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.”

Then God does the first sacrifice. Because they were naked after their eyes were open and they tried to cloth themselves with fig leaves God instead then dressed them. With what we don’t know but what we do know is that something had to die and death was brought into a world that was once only life.

(Genesis 3:7) “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.”

(Genesis 3:21) “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.”

This was the first Sacrifice/first death/First kill mentioned in the bible. What we also can see is that the choice to disobey was human. No one forced Eve or Adam to eat the fruit and some have mentioned that if God hadn’t put the tree there then it wouldn’t have been an option. But that’s the thing about freewill and choice. You need to have options to know you have freewill. The serpent’s whole ploy was that God essentially lied to them, that God was a liar. He was withholding truth and knowledge and that the consequences weren’t real. Yea, God probably could have stopped them but then it could have been said that it wasn’t freewill, that God was controlling. God warned them like a parent telling a child don’t touch fire it’s hot. And despite their perfection, their genius, their close relationship with God that should have told them more about who God was than a serpent they still chose to eat the fruit.

They chose to sin. 

Which, sidebar, I think a lot of people consider sin as this ultimate darkness that comes in and consumes people, we’ve certainly seen a lot of movies like that. With demons and monsters and crimes against humanity. But in the Hebrew the sin that gets talked about in this context is 

Chata (חָטָא) / Chet (חֵטְא): this word closer means to missing the mark, or going astray. 

It’s like a small deviation of an arrow missing the target. It doesn’t have to be big, but it exists. Adam and Eve weren’t bad people. They probably had no understanding of what sin could eventually do to the world but their choice was still their own and the world as we know continued to spiral further and further from the mark, or the standard of God. 

God has to follow through because God isn’t a liar but God who is ultimately just is also ultimately loving. When Adam and Eve sinned God had to separate them from himself.

(Genesis 3: 22,23) “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: 23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”

(Isaiah 59:2) “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.”

But he didn’t stop there. Even after sin separated us he chose to enact a plan that would bring us back. 

(2 Corinthians 5:19) “that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”

And so after humans have committed their first sin he also completes the first sacrifice, a blueprint and beginning to a greater plan that he will unfold for us in his own promise to bring us home. 

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