Weekend Quote: Bonar on Coverings for Sin

From_ Light and Truth, Bible Thoughts and Themes_ by Horatius Bonar, in reference to Adam and Eve covering themselves with fig leaves after eating the forbidden fruit in the garden.

Man thinks he can cover himself.  He knows not the greatness of the evil; he does not calculate on the penetration of the all-seeing eye.  He sets to work and makes himself a covering, and he says this will do.  What sin is, or what the sinner needs or what God requires, he has no idea of.  Each sinner has his own way of covering himself; he weaves his own web, whatever may be the substance of which it is composed.  He wishes to be his own coverer, the maker of his own raiment.  He thinks he can do it himself.  He has no idea that it is utterly beyond his power.  He trusts to the skill of his own hands to provide the dress that shall hide his shame from the eye of God and man.  He thinks it an easy thing to deal with shame, and fear, and conviction, and conscience.  He will not believe that these can only be dealt with by God.  This is the last thing that he will admit.  He will try a thousand plans before accepting this.  He will make and try on many kinds or sets of raiment before betaking to himself that which God has made.  The unbelieving man's whole religious life is a series of plans and efforts for stitching raiment for himself, with which to appear before God and before men; nay, with which he hopes to appear before the judgement seat.  It is with this man-made, this self-made clothing, this earth-made, or priest-made, or church-made religion, that he robes himself; with this he soothes conscience; with this he quiets fear; with this he removes the feeling of guilty shame.....  That which covers sin, and renders the sinner fit to draw near, must be of God, not of man.  God only has the right, God only can, prescribe to man how to draw near....  The only thing that will relieve the sinner from guilt and shame is atonement; the only atonement is by blood; for without shedding of blood is no remission; and therefore the only sufficient covering must be one connected with atonement, - one which represents death, - one which tells of the payment of the righteous penalty and the removal of the righteous condemnation.