The third layer forming the roof of the tabernacle was made of leather, rams' skins tanned and dyed a deep crimson red color which was placed over the lower two coverings of the linen and goats' hair curtains. "Make for the tent a covering of ram skins dyed red......" (Exodus 26:14).
The rams' skins pointed to Jesus in the role of a Substitute for sinners. It speaks of the substitutionary atonement made by the blood of Jesus in our behalf. The color red as it occurs in the tabernacle, speaks of the blood of Jesus and the atonement which He made for sins. The skins speak of the complete covering for the sinner who dwells underneath this canopy.
The first mention of skins is in Genesis 3:21 when Adam sinned by eating the forbidden fruit. He had sewn fig leaves together in a vain effort to cover his sin by the work of his own hands. But the Lord would not accept Adam's fig leaf garments. Instead, the Lord slew an animal, poured out its blood, and from the skin made a covering for Adam and Eve, our first parent. The first record of death and its implications is definitely made clear by the Lord. Adam was under the sentence of death, and must die for his sin unless a substitute could be provided. The animal was a substitute for Adam - it took Adam's place, and it died Adam's death. The substitute had to die and give its blood before the sinner could be clothed by the covering of the skin of the substitute. This is the lesson God's plan of substitutionary atonement laid down at the very dawn of creation, and there has never been any departure or deviation from this rule.
It became a fixed rule for all acceptable, substitutionary sacrifices thereafter. There was to be no deviation from this God-given plan. Cain tried it and failed. He brought an offering, but God refused his attempt to cover himself once again with fig leaves of his own making. Without death and the shedding of blood there can be no substitution.
Abel brought a ram, a firstling of the flock, killed it, shed its blood, and God accepted it in the place of Abel, and showed His acceptance by causing fire to fall from heaven and consume the sacrifice upon the altar. The ram took Abel's place in substitution, and the blood made an atonement for his sins. The ram was a type of our Substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, and when He came He was the fulfillment of that substitute which God provided for Adam and Eve, and also the one Abel presented in faith before the Lord. He came to cover the sinner with His own blood, just as the priest, in the tabernacle was sheltered under the ram's sin, the leather scarlet-red curtain overhead. The ram is a symbol of the substitution of God for the sinner.
Jesus came into the world to be a substitute for guilty sinners. He came to take the place of condemned men and women. He came to exchange places with those who were under the sentence of death. He took the sinner's place on the Cross of Calvary, so the believing sinner might take his place in the Father's house.
