Basics of Salvation
How did God begin to deal with Sin?
Since sin violates God’s nature, and all sin is really against God, then only He can really step in to do anything about it. The first eleven chapters of Genesis show the utter failure of humanity in trying to make things right. Matters only got worse, and this led to judgments like the flood. This is God’s right because He is the Creator, and He is the One against whom all have sinned.
When Adam and Eve sinned, God acted to make them animal skins (Gen 3:21). An animal had to die in order to act as a covering. Further, Adam and Eve were told that they, too, would die and return to the dust because of the sin. Why was death necessary? Among other things, death demonstrates just how serious the problem of sin really is. While we tend to downplay the problem, death reminds us that this is quite serious.
Yet God wasn’t stopping with that punishment. Death, in fact, becomes the means by which He would make it possible for sins to be forgiven. This would happen through sacrifice. God's grace was in action.
Yet also in the consequences of sin, there is a promise of hope in Genesis 3:15. A promise that there would a “seed” (descendant) of the woman who would finally crush the head of the serpent (the devil). The devil would be defeated by this seed, and the rest of the Bible is showing how this was done.
To see how this seed promise went through Abraham, click here.
