^21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. ^22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” ^23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. ^24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

For better or for worse, football season is in full swing. We got a good look at the obvious pick for 2009 MVP, Aaron Rodgers, who would have looked perfect last week with a little more help from the offensive line (or so my son tells me). It got me thinking about the difference between team sports and individual sports. In team sports, much of the time you are reacting to what the other team is doing. The defense has a strategy to stop the offense, but even the perfect play is worthless unless you can react to what the offense is doing. If the play calls for the linebacker to move one way, but the running back is headed in the opposite direction, the linebacker must be able to react to the circumstances and immediately change his plan. When you multiply the numbers of players by the number of plays, in a single football game, there can be hundreds if not thousands of reactions and strategy changes. However, running a sprint is nothing like this. A sprint has a single strategy—run at full speed until you cross the finish line. If in the first 50 meters of sprint you realize that your opponents are running faster than you, do you suddenly adjust what you were doing and say, “Well, I guess I should run a little faster”? A sprint has one and only one plan and a sprinter does not react or change his or her plan.

God works like a sprinter, not like a linebacker. God does not react, he simply works out his perfect, sovereign plan. But if you are not careful, you might conclude that God was reacting in verse twenty two. And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” It almost sounds like God is thinking out loud to himself. “Hmm, let’s see…when we created the universe, we did not consider this possible contingency. We failed to factor in the stupidity of these humans, so now we can’t let these little critters live in the garden anymore.” God was not surprised by these turn of events. He did not react to the actions of Adam and Eve and then change his plan accordingly. Verse twenty two is not a description of God deciding what to do, it is a description of what God had already decided would happen. He is giving us a glimpse into his sovereign plan.

It is vital that we make this distinction because what happens next is the final step in the fall from perfection in the garden. Adam and Eve were about to be kicked out of God’s house, as it were. Paradise was about to be lost. To complicate matters, the topic of these two trees comes up again. As we know, Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord himself said that as a result, they had become like Him. They were not suddenly all knowing or all powerful, but they had become like God in the sense of becoming morally autonomous. They had not merely decided to disobey God’s rules—they had decided to make their own rules. They wanted to change the rules by which the game of life was played.

Eating from the first tree ruined their lives—and ours—but were they to eat from the second tree—the Tree of Life—things would get even worse. This is one reason this passage has the appearance of God reacting to the circumstances. It’s almost like God is saying, “Oh no, they made it to the first tree when we didn’t want them to. Maybe we should have placed a guard on that tree. Oh well, we won’t make the same mistake twice. We’ll kick them out of the garden and place our best security guard at the gate.” If they had eaten from the Tree of Life they would have “lived forever.” Before we see why that would have been such a problem, let’s make sure that we understand what this second tree was all about.

But before we get to the Tree of Life, I want to make a few comments about the covering of skins. Recall that last week I showed you how this passage was relevant to the young age of the earth. I don’t think it was the main point of the passage, but the information was still there. In the same way, though it is not the main point of the passage, there is also relevance to the issue of modesty in God’s covering of animal skins. We see pictures, even like the one I have used, and we see Adam and Eve clothed with little pieces of animal skin in about the same way we imagine them covered with leaves. In other words, they are barely covered. But this is not an accurate picture. The garment made by the Lord out of animal skins was a kuttonet, from the root word meaning, “to cover.” In Hebrew, the verse literally reads, God clothed them with a covering. He didn’t just slap a few squirrel pelts on their bodies. A kuttonet was a long robe extending from the neck to below the knee, often to the ankles. As one person wrote, “This was not a fur bikini or a speedo made out of goat hair. This was a full body covering.”[1]

We see this kuttonet several other places in Scripture. When God designed the clothing for the priestly clothes, they included a kuttonet. When God wore clothes in the person of Jesus he wore a full robed Kittuna. When God clothes the saints in heaven with their heavenly white robes, He uses a kuttonet.[2] In other words, whenever God prescribed clothing, and especially when he took on the role of butcher, tanner and tailor in Genesis three, he always completely covered the human body.

Now if we applied this passage in a legalistic manner, we would require that all Christians wear robes at all times and the truly righteous ones among us would wear robes made out of animal skin. If we only get fixated on the robe we will miss the principle of modesty: when God covered his people he always completely covered them. But our culture is far more interested in uncovering the body. Modesty is unfashionable and sexy is cool. We mock the oppressive ways of Muslim women who cover their bodies. Many of them live in a burka culture, but what I see from Scripture is that the Muslim burka culture is closer to Biblical modesty than our bikini culture. This past summer, Muslim swim wear was in the news several times. The controversy has been about a swim suit called a “Burkini” Normally I would never consider showing a swim suit in church, but this time I can make an exception. There was a municipal swimming pool in the U.K that would not allow women to wear these. I find it interesting that the top Olympic swimmers are now wearing something very similar to this. They have discovered that the fastest suits are full-bodied suits. Obviously, they are not doing it for reasons of modesty. 

I have recommended this resource in the past and I want to do so again. The best article I have ever read about modesty is from a book about worldliness by C.J. Mahaney. The chapter in question is called, God, My Heart, and Clothes. I have copies available in the foyer in our new literature rack. I have also included a two page article called Modesty Heart Check written by four women which is a type of checklist for women’s and girl’s clothing. Who should read these articles? Any girl above the age of ten should read them because you will soon be making decisions about your clothes. All mothers who have daughters of any age should read them because you probably buy most of your kids clothes and you can talk about modesty while you do your shopping. Finally, every dad with daughters of any age should read these articles because what your daughter wears in public is primarily your responsibility.

It’s easy to take the path of legalism and say that you must wear dresses and it’s just as easy to take the path of libertinism and say that God doesn’t care about your clothes and you can wear whatever you want (or if you never say anything, by your silence, you do not believe that God cares.) We don’t dictate what you should wear, but we are going to tell you that the gospel impacts things like your clothing decisions. For the Muslim culture, holiness is important, but remember that their holiness is meant to lead to salvation. It is just the opposite for Christians—our salvation is meant to lead to holiness. Please don’t get these two reversed.

Like I said, this is not the main point of the passage, but I wanted to make sure we saw the relevance of the passage to modesty. Now we can get back to the subject of the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life is mentioned a total of seven times in all of the Bible—three of them appear in Genesis and four in Revelation. Let’s look at the verses in Revelation.

Revelation 2:7  He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.                                       

Revelation 22:2  down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Revelation 22:14  “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.

Revelation 22:19 And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

The Tree of Life is the gift of eternal life. But why did God want to prevent them from eating from this tree? Doesn’t God desire that we gain eternal life? God didn’t merely prevent him from eating from the Tree of Life, but verse 23 says that God banished Adam and Eve from the garden. Verse 24 is even stronger when t records that God “drove the man out.” God commanded that they not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but this time around God was not trusting to man’s obedience—he drove them out of the garden and away from the tree. I can think of at least three reasons he could not allow them to eat from this tree. First, banishment was an act of compassion. We must remember that Adam and Eve were in a fallen state. They were now living in a sinful world and if they had eaten from the tree, they would have been cursed with living forever in a sinful world. Eating from the Tree of Life would have done away with the problem of death but it would not have covered over the misery of sin. Who would want to live forever in that sinful, miserable state? To have lived 800 or 900 years would have been painful enough—but to have lived forever in sin would have been an abandonment to Hell with no hope of redemption. God’s mercy sent them away so that they could be redeemed at a later time. The fact that they would eventually die was a form of mercy. It was an act of mercy to banish Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.

This is consistent with the fact that throughout Scripture, punishment is often a form of mercy.

Hebrews 12:6 says that “the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” Those are some difficult words. Since God loves you, he must discipline you. Since you are his son or daughter, he must punish you. To not discipline or punish us would be a betrayal of his Fatherly love and care. But is this the usual way that we view discipline? How many of you love to be punished? I think it is interesting that the writer of Hebrews uses both of these words—discipline and punishment. We usually think of discipline in more of a positive sense and punishment in a negative sense. We may not like to be disciplined, but at least it might be for the right reasons, but how can punishment be something positive? Punishment is punitive, right? Punishment is almost a type of revenge, isn’t it? Obviously, the Bible uses both words as nearly identical—punishment is discipline and discipline is punishment. But if you must make a distinction between the two words, I would say that discipline becomes punishment depending on how we respond to it. For example, if I do something wrong and I am disciplined for it, I have two possible responses. Either I can try and learn from the discipline, in which case the discipline will be restorative and beneficial, or I can just get angry and not learn any lessons, in which case the discipline will be punitive. God may intend for the discipline to be restorative and beneficial, but I may perceive it to be punitive, therefore, for me, it will be. God’s intention is the same but how I respond to it makes all of the difference in the world.

If you are going through a rough time right now, have you considered that it is a result of God applying some loving, Fatherly discipline in order to get your attention? In the absence of direct revelation or a handwritten note from God which says, “Dear child, I am about to apply some loving discipline in the form of financial difficulties. Love, God,” we will not know for certain if the difficulty is just random problems or if it is directly caused by loving discipline. Or, perhaps God uses random problems to apply his discipline. Either way, we should always consider this possibility. I hate to beta a dead horse, but when a tornado struck the church where the ELCA delegates were meeting last month, it should have been fairly obvious to them. Not “if,” but “when” God disciplines you, will you be able to see it as an act of love or will it feel like punishment?

Discipline is a form of mercy. Banishment from the Garden was an act of mercy, just as much judgment is merciful. Look at these two verses from Revelation.

Rev. 9:20  The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands.

Rev. 16:9  They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.

Judgment presents people with the opportunity to repent and turn toward God. It functions as a divine fire alarm. Through judgment God warns us saying, “This is bad, but very soon it’s going to get worse. Now is the time to repent. Yes, banishment from the garden was an act of divine justice. God had every right to drive them away. But his divine judgment was also divine mercy.

Rich Maurer

September 20, 2009