The Covenants

by Robert Boyte Crawford Howell

How full of instruction are these facts! I may say, adopting the quaint language of Henry:11"These coats of skin had a significancy. The beasts whose skins they were, must be slain; slain before their eyes; to show them [our first parents] what death is;" "that they may see themselves as mortal, and dying." "They were slain not for food, but for sacrifice, to typify the great sacrifice which in the latter end of the world, should be offered for all. Thus the first thing that diedwas a sacrifice, or Christina figure;" a representation of "the woman?s seed," whose heel was to be bruised, or who was to suffer death for the sins of men." "These sacrifices," he continues, "were divided between God and man, in token of reconciliation; the flesh to be offered to God, a whole burnt offering; the skins given to man for clothing; signifying that Jesus Christ having offered himself to God a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savor, we are to clothe ourselves with his righteousness as with a garment, that the shame of our nakedness may not appear." Such were the explanations given in the forms of worship instituted in the beginning of the world, of the character and work of the Redeemer promised in the covenant.

Matthew Henry comments on the typological nature of the animal sacrifice for Adam and Eve pointing to Christ.