Foreshadowed, Part 1

We said that this Gospel is found in the Old Testament written long before Jesus ever came to this earth. We find the very first mention of the Messiah that would come in Genesis 3:15. You have heard the story of the fall of Adam and Eve, how they sinned in the garden when they ate of the fruit that God told them not to eat. When God offered to make them right in His eyes, what did He do? In Genesis 3:21 we read, ‘Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.’ Here we have, in the Old Testament, the Gospel of Jesus Christ foreshadowed.

The word foreshadowed means ‘a picture.’ If I were to show you a picture of my family, I would say, ‘Here is my family.’ You would understand what I mean. The picture is not my family, it merely reflects my family. It is a representation of my family. It points to the real thing. My family is made up of people, not a picture. The picture lets you see what my family looks like, but the picture is not my family. If you study the picture, and some day happen to meet one of my family members, you would recognise them immediately because you had seen this picture.

That was what God was doing in the Old Testament. He was giving pictures in the Old Testament of what He was getting ready to do when Jesus came into the world. When God clothed Adam and Eve with animal skins, He had to kill the animal to get the skins for them. When you kill an animal, blood has to be shed. The killing of the animals to clothe Adam and Eve is a foreshadowing of the fact that one day Jesus would come and shed His blood to pay for our sin. He died in our place just like that animal had to die in the place of Adam and Eve.