We all have a default mode of running from God. Our natural bent is towards sin. It doesn't always seem that obvious. It's easy to deny it. After all, we're "good people," but doing good things is never enough. Robert Thune and Will Walker write, "Sin is not primarily an action; it's a disposition. It's our soul's aversion to God." We're born runaways. A lot of times, though, it's simpler to live in denial, to ignore it. We go back again and again to the same old ways, like addicts returning to our cocaine. It's an old familiar thorn, our desire for other things.
Adam and Eve were the first ones to feel its ugly sting. They desired "the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life" before God (1 John 2:16). They turned from God and rebelled, and then they ran away. They tried to hide their sin and their nakedness from God by hiding behind a bush and covering themselves up with fig leaves. Their subterfuge is so flimsy, considering that they're hiding from the all-knowing, omnipresent God. Somehow, despite the fact that I'm a sinner of the same order, I never identified with them. Yet, they're me. I turn from God, and I run away, as if He cannot see. I try to hide in the idols of my heart. Thune and Walker say this about sin: "When we turn from God, we turn to other things to find our life, our identity, our meaning, and our happiness. These things become substitute gods- what the Bible calls idols- and they soon enslave us, demanding our time, our energy, our loyalty, our money- everything we have."
That's the nature of sin. That's the trap we find ourselves in every day. How can we be set free from our very natures? We can't go against our natural bent. It's impossible. We need new hearts and minds. We need new life. In Ezekiel, God tells the people of Israel "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules"(Ezekiel 36:25-27). That's the gospel. In 2 Corinthians, Paul writes, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17).
If you keep reading after Adam and Eve run away, you see that God finds them. In His righteousness, He can no longer live with them because of their sin, but before Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden, something amazing happens. It seems so trivial, you almost miss it. Genesis 3:21 says, "And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin and clothed them. He covered their nakedness and clothed them. It's such a picture of the gospel! You see, the fig leaves of our righteousness are too flimsy to cover our sin. We try to hide and run away, but God still sees and knows. We are deserving of His condemnation. Yet, the amazing thing is that He loves us. Just like God had to kill an animal to clothe Adam and Eve, God's Son had to die to cover us with His blood and clothe us in His righteousness. Sin demands a punishment, and that punishment is death and God's rightful wrath. Jesus took all of that upon Himself.
We need the gospel every day. You need it. I definitely need it. We've been running in the wrong direction. We've been hiding in the wrong places. We're tainted. We're addicts. What God does is He draws us close to Him by the cross. He sent His Son to live the perfect life on our behalf. Where we ran away, Jesus stayed close. He died for us, terrible and broken and messed up as we are! So, we don't have to stay that way. We don't have to run anymore. We can turn to Jesus. You and I can be hidden safe in His righteousness. All He asks is that we trust in Him. He did it all!
