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Fig Leaves or Christ’s Robe?, December 30
Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and
clothed them.
Genesis 3:21
.
The Lord Jesus Christ has prepared a covering—the robe of His own
righteousness—that He will put on every repenting, believing soul who by faith
will receive it. Said John, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of
the world” (
John 1:29
). Sin is the transgression of the law. Christ died to make it
possible for every man to have his sins taken away.
A fig-leaf apron will never cover our nakedness. Sin must be taken away, and
the garment of Christ’s righteousness must cover the transgressor of God’s law.
Then when the Lord looks upon the believing sinner, He sees, not the fig leaves
covering him, but Christ’s own robe of righteousness, which is perfect obedience
to the law of Jehovah. Man has hidden his nakedness, not under a covering of fig
leaves, but under the robe of Christ’s righteousness.
Christ has made a sacrifice to satisfy the demands of justice. What a price for
Heaven to pay to ransom the transgressor of the law of Jehovah. Yet that holy
law could not be maintained with any smaller price. In the place of the law being
abolished to meet sinful man in his fallen condition, it has been maintained in all
its sacred dignity. In His Son, God gave Himself to save from eternal ruin all who
would believe in Him.
Sin is disloyalty to God, and [is] deserving of punishment. Fig leaves sewed
together have been employed since the days of Adam, yet the nakedness of
the soul of the sinner is not covered. All the arguments pieced together by all
who have interested themselves in this flimsy robe will come to nought. Sin
is the transgression of the law. Christ was manifest in our world to take away
transgression and sin, and to substitute for the covering of fig leaves the pure robes
of His righteousness. The law of God stands vindicated by the suffering and death
of the only begotten Son of the infinite God.
The transgression of God’s law in a single instance, in the smallest particular, is
sin. And the nonexecution of the penalty of that sin would be a crime in the divine
administration. God is a judge, the Avenger of justice, which is the habitation
and the foundation of His throne. He cannot dispense with His law; He cannot do
away with its smallest item in order to meet and pardon sin. The rectitude, justice,
and moral excellence of the law must be maintained and vindicated before the
heavenly universe and the worlds unfallen.—
Manuscript 145, December 30, 1897
,
“Notes of Work.”
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