Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.
After their disobedience in Eden, God Himself provided garments of skin to clothe Adam and his wife as they left the garden in sadness to labor under the curse. The clothing was a merciful act of continuing love and care, protecting them from the heat and cold of an atmosphere now changed to extremes. To furnish those skins the first death Adam ever witnessed had to take place, with his own hand slaying an innocent victim in a trembling and painful act that established the system of sacrificial offerings. That innocent beast suffering for human guilt pointed forward to Christ the spotless Lamb, whose shed blood would make atonement and pledge pardon, teaching that sin causes death and only the death of God's Son could expiate transgression. The provision shows God's law could not be changed to excuse disobedience, yet the Son stepped in as substitute and surety to bear its penalty of death and give the fallen race another trial on probation.
Fall in Eden
Genesis 3:21 stands after Adam and Eve lived in holy innocency in beautiful Eden, enjoying communion with God and sinless angels, permitted to eat of every tree except one. It belongs to the inspired history of the race given to every individual, tracing the introduction of sin and its results, recording disobedience and impenitence and just retribution. They were placed with that single prohibition, yet lost the beautiful Eden God had given them when they ate the forbidden fruit.
They were tempted by the serpent through Eve to her husband, and ate of the forbidden tree. They were led into sin by indulging a desire for knowledge God had withheld, when if they had never touched the forbidden tree God would have imparted to them knowledge with no curse upon it bringing everlasting joy. Adam violated the express injunction and law by indulging appetite and passion, and Eve to her husband indulged intemperance in desire. Satan told them eating would give higher perceptions to know good and evil and make them like angels in heaven, they believed the great apostate, and by listening to the tempter gained only acquaintance with sin and its results. Indulgence of depraved appetite weakens power to resist evil and enables Satan to fasten evil habits and ensnare, so preparing for Paradise restored requires bringing perverted appetite under strict control.
By taking the forbidden fruit they ventured to transgress God's prohibition, broke His command and law, were seduced from loyalty, became sinners, fell under Satan's power and needed redemption. That fall brought sorrow in heaven and proved Satan's words a lie. The act was not simple or unworthy of notice but brought awful consequences, though apparently small it closed the gates of Paradise against them. Eve initially felt pleasure rather than harm, yet consequences followed the laws of nature, and feelings or apparent effects cannot make disobedience right when it conflicts with God's command.
Their disobedience opened the floodgates and flood-gates of woe upon the world, causing the holy pair to fall and lose Eden through expulsion. Through the fall sin marred the divine likeness, bringing weakened powers, dimmed spiritual vision, and subjection to death. Each passing generation inherited disease and the physical and moral effects of vice to its children, beginning human suffering, woe and disease passed to children. God drove the transgressors from the garden in humility and sadness to dwell where the curse rested, shut them out to labor outside and to work among thistles, brambles, thorns and weeds brought by the curse which Satan had sown. He set cherubim and a flaming sword to guard the way of the tree of life so man could not approach and eat its fruit which perpetuates immortality and become immortal sinners.
By their disobedience humanity was estranged from God and earth was separated from heaven. After the fall Satan claimed to be prince of the power of the air with control of everything in nature. God permitted him to sow tares and work out evil principles while protecting from his wrath those who desire heaven's principles, and the beautiful things in nature first seen in Eden and preserved to be beheld express God's love and direct minds from nature to nature's God.
Coats of Skins
After they left the garden the Lord God Himself made coats of skins and clothed Adam and his wife. The clothing was given after transgression and disobedience and expulsion from Eden. The animal skins also belong with the sacrificial system, for in the innocent animal suffering the penalty of human sin was seen Christ prefigured as the perfect offering, teaching that redemption would come through Him.
The coats were mercifully provided as they left Eden in humility and sadness to dwell upon the earth where the curse of sin rested. Though an apparently small transgression had closed the gates of Paradise against them, divine benevolence was not cut off. God's love and care still flowed earthward to the fallen race. That mercy was shown in providing garments of skins after their sin and departure from Eden.
The garments protected them from the chill and heat, the cold and heat, they would face outside the garden. The atmosphere had changed after disobedience. Once mild and uniform in temperature, it was now subject to marked changes and extremes of heat and cold upon the earth.
First Sacrifice Foreshadowing
To clothe Adam and his wife in skins, beasts had to be slain, and that slaying was the first sacrifice, offered by Adam himself after his fall. From that act God established the system of sacrificial offerings and taught Adam to teach it to his descendants. The slaying was done by the shedding of beasts' blood, whose flowing blood signified atonement and stood as a pledge of God's pardon through the great offering to be made.
The ceremonial system thus set up with Adam after his fall was ordained to point to the Redeemer to come and to last only until the death of Christ. Before the Flood it was corrupted, and again by those who separated from the faithful to build the tower of Babel, who had no faith in the coming Redeemer and sacrificed to gods of their own choosing.
For Adam it was the first death he had ever witnessed. His own hand must be raised to take life which only God could give, and as he slew the innocent victim he trembled in a most painful ceremony. The innocent animal suffering the penalty of human sin prefigured Christ, the spotless Lamb and perfect offering, whose death alone could atone for sin. Its shed blood pointed forward to a Redeemer to come and die for the sins of men, with no virtue in the blood of animals itself but in the future sacrifice it prefigured.
God ordained these offerings to be a perpetual reminder and penitential acknowledgment of sin and a confession of faith in the promised Redeemer, to impress upon the fallen race that sin caused death. They taught that had Adam been obedient there would have been no death of man or beast, and that nothing but the death of God's dear Son could expiate transgression. The sacrifice reminded Adam of his guilt and acknowledged his sin, giving him a deeper and more vivid sense of the greatness of his transgression. By offering such sacrifices man signified sorrow for transgression, repentance for sin, obedience to God's appointed ordinance, and faith and hope of salvation through Christ, acknowledging his own sinfulness, weakness, dependence upon another, and need of a Redeemer.
Refusal to offer blood showed pride and lack of submission and obedience to God's appointment. It slighted the blood of the atonement by refusing with dependence and humiliation to acknowledge need of a Redeemer. As Adam learned that his own sin must shed the blood of the spotless Lamb of God, he marveled at the infinite goodness that would give such a ransom to save the guilty. He gained hope through the promised sacrifice of Christ, and a star of hope illumined his dark and terrible future and relieved it of its utter desolation.
Law Justice and Mercy
The history around the making of the coats of skins stands as a warning that God's law carries a penalty for disobedience and that sin brings death, for God's justice does not fail and the transgression that lost Eden reveals His justice. The law of God could not be changed and altered to meet man in his fallen condition, for if change had been possible Adam would have been pardoned and retained his home in Eden, but the penalty of transgression was death and the law is changeless in its character. The very need of the fallen pair for redemption from sin's penalty shows the law's unchanging character, and the provision made for man did not abolish God's law to give unconditional pardon.
God did not treat the taking of the forbidden fruit with lax mercy but with severe retribution, and the inspired history records the disobedience and impenitence of man and the just retribution for sin, yet He gave His darling Son from heaven to save the fallen race. Mercy does not excuse the sinner or lessen the guilt of transgression and does not cover sin while continued in, but covers guilt only after sin is repented of and forsaken, for the Father did not set forth benevolence at the expense of justice, which would set aside righteousness and the principles of righteousness, exalt the impenitent sinner in sin, and encourage transgression instead of abating it. The valuable sacrifice pays the debt of man's transgression and exalts the sacred character of God's law, making it possible for fallen man to be elevated by the merits of Christ to keep the law through the merits of His blood.
The Son of God stepped in and pledged His own life as the penalty for transgression, becoming man's substitute and surety by taking human transgressions and their just penalty upon Himself. To do this He laid aside His robes of royalty, His high command and His riches, clothed His divinity with humanity, and came into the world as the Majesty of heaven living as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, walking as a man among men and suffering insult, reproach and mockery. He proposed the only means acceptable to God to give the fallen pair, fallen under Satan's power and helpless with the loss of Eden, another trial and place them with all their posterity on probation. He would humble Himself to humanity and identify with fallen people, delay the execution of the death sentence and provide a refuge from wrath, and through firm obedience show that Adam's failure could be redeemed and lost Eden regained, opening hope even while the floodgates of woe stood open upon the world. God's plan of salvation thus provides a probationary life and aims to restore people marred in divine likeness with weakened powers, dimmed spiritual vision and subjection to death to the perfection in which they were created.
In contrast to Adam, who by disobedience became a law to himself so that discord and unhappiness came into his life and separation was made between him and his God, Christ lived perfect and constant obedience to set an example all can follow. In the wilderness of temptation He passed over the same ground where Adam fell and redeemed that disgraceful failure and fall, meeting and conquering the prince of darkness and placing the human family on vantage ground with God so that they may overcome for themselves through the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour. He saw men so weak in moral power that overcoming in human strength was impossible, and made an infinite sacrifice to save the race from eternal death and bring divine aid, so that as men accept this aid they can claim certain victory through Him and come into possession of an immortal inheritance.
Warning and Restoration
The record of the fall stands as a warning to every person about disobedience and its consequences, showing that divine law carries a penalty, that sin brings death, and that justice does not fail. It traces our first parents in holy innocency enjoying communion with God and sinless angels, then the introduction of sin and its results upon the race, including disobedience, impenitence, and just retribution. Adam lived nearly a thousand years among men as a witness to the results of sin, commanded to instruct posterity in the way of the Lord, carefully treasuring what God revealed, describing Paradise to his children and children's children to the ninth generation, repeating the history of the fall and explaining obedience and salvation. He faithfully sought to stem the tide of evil, yet few gave heed to his words and he was often met with bitter reproaches for the sin that brought woe upon his posterity, even as merciful provisions for salvation were made and sufferings taught the necessity of strict adherence to the law.
Adam's fall began a history of repeated human falls through the same disobedience to express injunctions, and the race did not stop falling with him but continued in a succession of falls. By indulging appetite and passion he violated the express injunction and law, bringing sin and unutterable woe into the world, and his example warns against doing as he did. Each passing generation repeats that fall as it inherits disease and the physical and moral effects of vice, men became more and more disobedient until with few exceptions the world was given to depravity and corruption, and later violations of moral and physical laws greatly aggravated the evils. Though the transgression that closed Paradise seemed small, ever since sin has increased in volume and prevalence and is still increasing, yet divine benevolence was not cut off and love and care still flow earthward to the fallen race.
That disobedience broke the charm of obedience and caused people to lose sight of obedience as an absolute necessity, so that humanity came to treat obedience or disobedience as a choice governed by its own will. From the eating of the forbidden fruit and the opening of the floodgates of woe, evil grew worse until the world was destroyed by a flood, and their disobedience is repeated whenever people discard God's plain command.
Adam and Eve lost their beautiful Eden home and their right to it because they transgressed God's law, for the law could not be changed to meet man in his fallen condition, and if change had been possible Adam would have been pardoned and retained Eden, but the penalty was death and the law is changeless in character. Their fall disproves the doctrine of once in grace always in grace and demonstrates the sure result of transgression, with the condition of the race today testifying to its awful results. Choosing that same disobedience now forfeits a person's right to Eden restored and will cause loss of heaven.
Their example should lead every soul to avoid sin and abhor it as the hateful thing it is, feeling in view of the sufferings sin inflicts that it is better to suffer loss of all things than to depart from the least of the commandments. Their disobedience shows that love is tested by having and keeping the commandments, and warns the whole family to obey the light about the binding claims of the law and to lift the cross before the world.
Indulgence of perverted and depraved appetite weakens power to resist evil and enables Satan to fasten evil habits upon man and ensnare him, so preparing for Paradise restored requires bringing appetite under strict control and not repeating Adam's disobedience in eating what God had forbidden. No one can overcome in human strength or be cleansed by the righteousness of the law, but the same perfect obedience by which Christ overcame is available to bring people back to the Eden home and point others heavenward. Christ in the wilderness passed over the same ground where Adam fell and redeemed that disgraceful failure, placing the family on vantage ground with God and making it possible to overcome through the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour. By faith believers receive saving knowledge of Christ, His imparted righteousness for obeying the law and His imputed righteousness through believing He is their Saviour who died obedient to every requirement, while to disregard the law, the transcript of His character, is to disregard Christ Himself.
After the fall Satan claimed to be prince of the power of the air with control of everything in nature, and God permitted him to sow tares and work out evil principles while protecting from his wrath those who desire to work out heaven's principles. The beautiful things in nature, first seen in Eden and preserved to be beheld, remain an expression of God's love to direct minds from nature to nature's God. The account belongs to the outline from Genesis to Revelation revealing Christ's first advent, incarnation, divinity, atonement, wonderful heavenly life as advocate, and the office of the Holy Spirit as golden links in a perfect chain of truth reaching to eternity, together with the relation of the Son to the Father, His position in heaven, and His mediatorship between man and the Creator. The fall is thus named as the beginning of the race's experience of sin within history showing Satan's continuing influence, and beautiful Eden stands degraded by the introduction of sin.
After their disobedience in Eden, God Himself provided garments of skin to clothe Adam and his wife as they left the garden in sadness to labor under the curse. The clothing was a merciful act of continuing love and care, protecting them from the heat and cold of an atmosphere now changed to extremes. To furnish those skins the first death Adam ever witnessed had to take place, with his own hand slaying an innocent victim in a trembling and painful act that established the system of sacrificial offerings. That innocent beast suffering for human guilt pointed forward to Christ the spotless Lamb, whose shed blood would make atonement and pledge pardon, teaching that sin causes death and only the death of God's Son could expiate transgression. The provision shows God's law could not be changed to excuse disobedience, yet the Son stepped in as substitute and surety to bear its penalty of death and give the fallen race another trial on probation.
Fall in Eden
Genesis 3:21 stands after Adam and Eve lived in holy innocency in beautiful Eden, enjoying communion with God and sinless angels, permitted to eat of every tree except one. It belongs to the inspired history of the race given to every individual, tracing the introduction of sin and its results, recording disobedience and impenitence and just retribution. They were placed with that single prohibition, yet lost the beautiful Eden God had given them when they ate the forbidden fruit.
They were tempted by the serpent through Eve to her husband, and ate of the forbidden tree. They were led into sin by indulging a desire for knowledge God had withheld, when if they had never touched the forbidden tree God would have imparted to them knowledge with no curse upon it bringing everlasting joy. Adam violated the express injunction and law by indulging appetite and passion, and Eve to her husband indulged intemperance in desire. Satan told them eating would give higher perceptions to know good and evil and make them like angels in heaven, they believed the great apostate, and by listening to the tempter gained only acquaintance with sin and its results. Indulgence of depraved appetite weakens power to resist evil and enables Satan to fasten evil habits and ensnare, so preparing for Paradise restored requires bringing perverted appetite under strict control.
By taking the forbidden fruit they ventured to transgress God's prohibition, broke His command and law, were seduced from loyalty, became sinners, fell under Satan's power and needed redemption. That fall brought sorrow in heaven and proved Satan's words a lie. The act was not simple or unworthy of notice but brought awful consequences, though apparently small it closed the gates of Paradise against them. Eve initially felt pleasure rather than harm, yet consequences followed the laws of nature, and feelings or apparent effects cannot make disobedience right when it conflicts with God's command.
Their disobedience opened the floodgates and flood-gates of woe upon the world, causing the holy pair to fall and lose Eden through expulsion. Through the fall sin marred the divine likeness, bringing weakened powers, dimmed spiritual vision, and subjection to death. Each passing generation inherited disease and the physical and moral effects of vice to its children, beginning human suffering, woe and disease passed to children. God drove the transgressors from the garden in humility and sadness to dwell where the curse rested, shut them out to labor outside and to work among thistles, brambles, thorns and weeds brought by the curse which Satan had sown. He set cherubim and a flaming sword to guard the way of the tree of life so man could not approach and eat its fruit which perpetuates immortality and become immortal sinners.
By their disobedience humanity was estranged from God and earth was separated from heaven. After the fall Satan claimed to be prince of the power of the air with control of everything in nature. God permitted him to sow tares and work out evil principles while protecting from his wrath those who desire heaven's principles, and the beautiful things in nature first seen in Eden and preserved to be beheld express God's love and direct minds from nature to nature's God.
Coats of Skins
After they left the garden the Lord God Himself made coats of skins and clothed Adam and his wife. The clothing was given after transgression and disobedience and expulsion from Eden. The animal skins also belong with the sacrificial system, for in the innocent animal suffering the penalty of human sin was seen Christ prefigured as the perfect offering, teaching that redemption would come through Him.
The coats were mercifully provided as they left Eden in humility and sadness to dwell upon the earth where the curse of sin rested. Though an apparently small transgression had closed the gates of Paradise against them, divine benevolence was not cut off. God's love and care still flowed earthward to the fallen race. That mercy was shown in providing garments of skins after their sin and departure from Eden.
The garments protected them from the chill and heat, the cold and heat, they would face outside the garden. The atmosphere had changed after disobedience. Once mild and uniform in temperature, it was now subject to marked changes and extremes of heat and cold upon the earth.
First Sacrifice Foreshadowing
To clothe Adam and his wife in skins, beasts had to be slain, and that slaying was the first sacrifice, offered by Adam himself after his fall. From that act God established the system of sacrificial offerings and taught Adam to teach it to his descendants. The slaying was done by the shedding of beasts' blood, whose flowing blood signified atonement and stood as a pledge of God's pardon through the great offering to be made.
The ceremonial system thus set up with Adam after his fall was ordained to point to the Redeemer to come and to last only until the death of Christ. Before the Flood it was corrupted, and again by those who separated from the faithful to build the tower of Babel, who had no faith in the coming Redeemer and sacrificed to gods of their own choosing.
For Adam it was the first death he had ever witnessed. His own hand must be raised to take life which only God could give, and as he slew the innocent victim he trembled in a most painful ceremony. The innocent animal suffering the penalty of human sin prefigured Christ, the spotless Lamb and perfect offering, whose death alone could atone for sin. Its shed blood pointed forward to a Redeemer to come and die for the sins of men, with no virtue in the blood of animals itself but in the future sacrifice it prefigured.
God ordained these offerings to be a perpetual reminder and penitential acknowledgment of sin and a confession of faith in the promised Redeemer, to impress upon the fallen race that sin caused death. They taught that had Adam been obedient there would have been no death of man or beast, and that nothing but the death of God's dear Son could expiate transgression. The sacrifice reminded Adam of his guilt and acknowledged his sin, giving him a deeper and more vivid sense of the greatness of his transgression. By offering such sacrifices man signified sorrow for transgression, repentance for sin, obedience to God's appointed ordinance, and faith and hope of salvation through Christ, acknowledging his own sinfulness, weakness, dependence upon another, and need of a Redeemer.
Refusal to offer blood showed pride and lack of submission and obedience to God's appointment. It slighted the blood of the atonement by refusing with dependence and humiliation to acknowledge need of a Redeemer. As Adam learned that his own sin must shed the blood of the spotless Lamb of God, he marveled at the infinite goodness that would give such a ransom to save the guilty. He gained hope through the promised sacrifice of Christ, and a star of hope illumined his dark and terrible future and relieved it of its utter desolation.
Law Justice and Mercy
The history around the making of the coats of skins stands as a warning that God's law carries a penalty for disobedience and that sin brings death, for God's justice does not fail and the transgression that lost Eden reveals His justice. The law of God could not be changed and altered to meet man in his fallen condition, for if change had been possible Adam would have been pardoned and retained his home in Eden, but the penalty of transgression was death and the law is changeless in its character. The very need of the fallen pair for redemption from sin's penalty shows the law's unchanging character, and the provision made for man did not abolish God's law to give unconditional pardon.
God did not treat the taking of the forbidden fruit with lax mercy but with severe retribution, and the inspired history records the disobedience and impenitence of man and the just retribution for sin, yet He gave His darling Son from heaven to save the fallen race. Mercy does not excuse the sinner or lessen the guilt of transgression and does not cover sin while continued in, but covers guilt only after sin is repented of and forsaken, for the Father did not set forth benevolence at the expense of justice, which would set aside righteousness and the principles of righteousness, exalt the impenitent sinner in sin, and encourage transgression instead of abating it. The valuable sacrifice pays the debt of man's transgression and exalts the sacred character of God's law, making it possible for fallen man to be elevated by the merits of Christ to keep the law through the merits of His blood.
The Son of God stepped in and pledged His own life as the penalty for transgression, becoming man's substitute and surety by taking human transgressions and their just penalty upon Himself. To do this He laid aside His robes of royalty, His high command and His riches, clothed His divinity with humanity, and came into the world as the Majesty of heaven living as a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, walking as a man among men and suffering insult, reproach and mockery. He proposed the only means acceptable to God to give the fallen pair, fallen under Satan's power and helpless with the loss of Eden, another trial and place them with all their posterity on probation. He would humble Himself to humanity and identify with fallen people, delay the execution of the death sentence and provide a refuge from wrath, and through firm obedience show that Adam's failure could be redeemed and lost Eden regained, opening hope even while the floodgates of woe stood open upon the world. God's plan of salvation thus provides a probationary life and aims to restore people marred in divine likeness with weakened powers, dimmed spiritual vision and subjection to death to the perfection in which they were created.
In contrast to Adam, who by disobedience became a law to himself so that discord and unhappiness came into his life and separation was made between him and his God, Christ lived perfect and constant obedience to set an example all can follow. In the wilderness of temptation He passed over the same ground where Adam fell and redeemed that disgraceful failure and fall, meeting and conquering the prince of darkness and placing the human family on vantage ground with God so that they may overcome for themselves through the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour. He saw men so weak in moral power that overcoming in human strength was impossible, and made an infinite sacrifice to save the race from eternal death and bring divine aid, so that as men accept this aid they can claim certain victory through Him and come into possession of an immortal inheritance.
Warning and Restoration
The record of the fall stands as a warning to every person about disobedience and its consequences, showing that divine law carries a penalty, that sin brings death, and that justice does not fail. It traces our first parents in holy innocency enjoying communion with God and sinless angels, then the introduction of sin and its results upon the race, including disobedience, impenitence, and just retribution. Adam lived nearly a thousand years among men as a witness to the results of sin, commanded to instruct posterity in the way of the Lord, carefully treasuring what God revealed, describing Paradise to his children and children's children to the ninth generation, repeating the history of the fall and explaining obedience and salvation. He faithfully sought to stem the tide of evil, yet few gave heed to his words and he was often met with bitter reproaches for the sin that brought woe upon his posterity, even as merciful provisions for salvation were made and sufferings taught the necessity of strict adherence to the law.
Adam's fall began a history of repeated human falls through the same disobedience to express injunctions, and the race did not stop falling with him but continued in a succession of falls. By indulging appetite and passion he violated the express injunction and law, bringing sin and unutterable woe into the world, and his example warns against doing as he did. Each passing generation repeats that fall as it inherits disease and the physical and moral effects of vice, men became more and more disobedient until with few exceptions the world was given to depravity and corruption, and later violations of moral and physical laws greatly aggravated the evils. Though the transgression that closed Paradise seemed small, ever since sin has increased in volume and prevalence and is still increasing, yet divine benevolence was not cut off and love and care still flow earthward to the fallen race.
That disobedience broke the charm of obedience and caused people to lose sight of obedience as an absolute necessity, so that humanity came to treat obedience or disobedience as a choice governed by its own will. From the eating of the forbidden fruit and the opening of the floodgates of woe, evil grew worse until the world was destroyed by a flood, and their disobedience is repeated whenever people discard God's plain command.
Adam and Eve lost their beautiful Eden home and their right to it because they transgressed God's law, for the law could not be changed to meet man in his fallen condition, and if change had been possible Adam would have been pardoned and retained Eden, but the penalty was death and the law is changeless in character. Their fall disproves the doctrine of once in grace always in grace and demonstrates the sure result of transgression, with the condition of the race today testifying to its awful results. Choosing that same disobedience now forfeits a person's right to Eden restored and will cause loss of heaven.
Their example should lead every soul to avoid sin and abhor it as the hateful thing it is, feeling in view of the sufferings sin inflicts that it is better to suffer loss of all things than to depart from the least of the commandments. Their disobedience shows that love is tested by having and keeping the commandments, and warns the whole family to obey the light about the binding claims of the law and to lift the cross before the world.
Indulgence of perverted and depraved appetite weakens power to resist evil and enables Satan to fasten evil habits upon man and ensnare him, so preparing for Paradise restored requires bringing appetite under strict control and not repeating Adam's disobedience in eating what God had forbidden. No one can overcome in human strength or be cleansed by the righteousness of the law, but the same perfect obedience by which Christ overcame is available to bring people back to the Eden home and point others heavenward. Christ in the wilderness passed over the same ground where Adam fell and redeemed that disgraceful failure, placing the family on vantage ground with God and making it possible to overcome through the merits of the crucified and risen Saviour. By faith believers receive saving knowledge of Christ, His imparted righteousness for obeying the law and His imputed righteousness through believing He is their Saviour who died obedient to every requirement, while to disregard the law, the transcript of His character, is to disregard Christ Himself.
After the fall Satan claimed to be prince of the power of the air with control of everything in nature, and God permitted him to sow tares and work out evil principles while protecting from his wrath those who desire to work out heaven's principles. The beautiful things in nature, first seen in Eden and preserved to be beheld, remain an expression of God's love to direct minds from nature to nature's God. The account belongs to the outline from Genesis to Revelation revealing Christ's first advent, incarnation, divinity, atonement, wonderful heavenly life as advocate, and the office of the Holy Spirit as golden links in a perfect chain of truth reaching to eternity, together with the relation of the Son to the Father, His position in heaven, and His mediatorship between man and the Creator. The fall is thus named as the beginning of the race's experience of sin within history showing Satan's continuing influence, and beautiful Eden stands degraded by the introduction of sin.