Jesus and the Scarlet Thread
“And she bound the scarlet cord in the window.” (Joshua 3:21)
The Bible contains several stories involving a scarlet thread, but a larger symbolic one flows throughout the Old and New Testaments, signifying God’s plan of redemption.
The scarlet thread appears right away in the book of Genesis and the story of Adam and Eve. God required a blood sacrifice because they sinned by eating the fruit. So He made atonement by killing an innocent animal and clothing Adam and Eve with its skin. The sacrifice is not solely out of love but also as a representation of how He covers our sin with His righteousness (Genesis 3:21). Pastor Ernest Angley explains it this way:
“Man had tried to cover himself after he sinned; he sewed fig leaves together, but without shedding of blood there is no remission (Heb 9:22). Without the shedding of blood, man has no covering to blot out his sins from the sight of God. The blood of the Son of God is the only way the sins of man could be washed away.”
God’s plan of redemption was already in motion even before Adam and Eve ate the fruit. He did not want to separate from His finest creation, but He could not (and still will not) tolerate sin in His perfect, holy presence; therefore, He required a sacrifice.
