Imagine that you are Adam, God's first creation in His image, created to be a reflection of God's glory, His greatness and his holiness. Only a short while ago you walked in perfect harmony with Him, living and laboring every moment with God and for God. Each day was filled with peace, in fact each day was only peace. Each day you and the flesh of your flesh, your wife, lived hand in hand without even the knowledge of pride, of anger, of selfishness, or fear. Instead, together you worshipped God, adored Him, and tended His creation so that He would be constantly worshipped and adored by that creation. There was no death.
Then just a few dark days ago, the enemy of God, sly as a serpent, bright and shining, spoke so convincingly to your wife that she believed him and so did you - that to disobey your loving Creator would bring even greater pleasure than the life of obedience to Him. You would be the great knower or decider of what is good and what is evil. And so you took a bite...
In an instant, you recognized your nakedness, you were angry at your wife, you thought things that were never possible before. Somehow you knew from your own body would come sons and daughters that would kill each other, hate, divide, lust, lie, and create God's after their own imagination rather than worship the only wise, holy, loving, and good God with whom you had sweet fellowship only moments ago.
You could not be seen by His holy face so you hid. If He were to find you, your shameful nakedness would give away your disobedience so you made a covering for yourself from leaves of the garden which you had cultivated with your own hands.
Then He called... your creator, the very one who had given you life and with whom you had walked and talked. But you had rebelled against Him; you feared the death He had promised and you thought to preserve your life by blaming your disobedience on your own sweet helper, your own flesh, your wife. Ashamed, she could do nothing but blame the shining one - the enemy of God, who had appeared so lovely yet had deceived her.
To hear God's voice was terrifying. Before that day, you would run to hear his voice. But today, what terror, a feeling you had never had before, the sentence of death was being passed down. As you listened and expected his crushing blow, you can hardly believe your ears... final and crushing condemnation was promised to the shining one and not only that but this crushing would come from... a child of your own wife. Can this be you had thought? There will be a child? There will be a child of my wife who though wounded by Satan will ultimately destroy this enemy of my creator?
Then God, the one from whom you were now estranged spoke to Eve and promised pain even in the midst of the most wonderful parts of living, that she would seek to rule over you but that you would rule over her. What painful words those were to hear. Never had there been conflict between you and your wife but now... what painful consequence for turning from your creator.
Shocked that your heart was still beating in your chest, you could not lift your eyes as you heard him tell of your life that would now be full of difficulty. Your skill would be constantly hindered and in the end of it all, you and your wife would be turned back into the dust from which you had been created.
Yet there was hope promised... hope enough that you could turn and call your wife Eve, "the mother of all living". Your loving Creator at promise life that would come from her own body. But how?
A hint of the answer came quickly and almost took your breath away. You turned and saw one of your precious lambs for what you had tenderly cared lying with blood all around its body. The crushing blow which you had expected on your own head had come. The life-giving blood of all the living had never been spilt before this moment; you almost fainted to see this innocent lamb who had done no wrong lying there in a pool of blood.
You could not bear to look as the white robe of that innocent lamb was torn from its body, divided and then your own shameful covering was discarded as your creator lovingly clothed you.
As you were driven by your own Creator from the paradise of perfect fellowship with him to walk in a fallen world with death, toil, and pain, you hoped yet in that child of promise - the one who would crush the life from the shining enemy of the creator
The scene of the innocent lamb lying in blood, it's spotless robe torn from its body to clothe you reminded you constantly of the Creator's mercy by the slaying of the innocent to cover the shame of the guilty.
You could never have imagined the heartbreak to come as God would show mercy through the same bloody sacrifice to your son Abel but your son Cain would seek to worship God in his own way just as you had done. He would murder your own beloved son Abel after his self-righteous sacrifice was rejected by the Creator. What heartache sin has brought! What salvation God has provided through the shedding of innocent blood!