Adam and Eve are expelled from the presence of God.  The unity of their being, body and soul, has suffered catastrophic judgment under the curse of God, which begins a life of dying towards death.  The situation, as dire as could be, was not without hope though.  God pronounced his plan in the form of a promise.  That promise looked forward to One that would tend to the souls of their (Adam/Eve) progeny as a shepherd to His flock.  

Before continuing on to question 24 pertaining to sin,  it seems best if we pause to define some important ideas. Let us go for a bit down this by pass meadow and consider some important ideas before resuming our course through the confession of faith.

We haven’t spent any time considering the effects of sin and so we do that now. One of the first effects is that we see Adam and Eve attempt to cover their own nakedness with fig leaves.  Related to this, they also attempted to hide from God. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” (Genesis 3:7–8)

Adam and Eve were ashamed of their nakedness in that they tried to hide it from God.  Shame arises from guilt for violating the command of God.  The relationship between guilt and shame is important and we often are tempted to use these interchangeably but they are not interchangeable.  Guilt is a verdict/judgment concerning a violation of law.  Shame is the correct emotive consequence of a just finding of guilt.  It is good that Adam and Eve felt shame and wanted to hide from the Lawgiver because they were in fact (as a matter of law) guilty of breaking God’s command.

Instead of God, the Lawgiver, leaving them in their self fashioned misery of fig leaf nakedness we read the compassion He has on them.

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