Articles
“Clothed”
And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Genesis 2:25
Why don’t animals have to wear clothes? That was the question posed by my daughter, who was three years old at the time. We may turn her question over and ask why humans shouldn’t go around naked because open nakedness was not always shameful.
In the beginning, Adam and Eve “were both naked and were not ashamed.” And why would they be? They didn’t know what nakedness was, let alone shame. They were, much like little children, ignorant and innocent of evil (1 Cor. 14:20). But after they had rebelled against God in the garden, they became aware of their nakedness for the first time and sought to hide their bodies from each other and from God in shame (Gen. 3:7-11). They bought their new knowledge with great pain (Gen. 3:16-18, 22-24).
From that point on, open nakedness became shameful. To see someone exposed is to witness their open shame (Gen. 9:22-23; Ex. 20:26; Lev. 18:6-18; Rev. 3:17-18; 16:15). To publicly expose a person’s nakedness was considered a form of punishment (Isa. 47:3; Hos. 2:3; Nah. 3:5). Idolatry was illustrated as “uncovering one’s nakedness” to strange gods (Ezek. 16; 23:18), whereas, covering another’s nakedness was an act of mercy (Ezek. 16:8; 18:7, 16; Hos. 2:9; Mt. 25:36).
After God’s pronouncements on the Serpent, Eve, and Adam, there are two rays of hope. First, Adam names his wife “Eve, because she was the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20). “Eve” means ‘life-giver,’ which is especially hopeful in light of God’s earlier promise that the “seed of woman” would conquer the serpent (Gen. 3:15). Death slithered its way into God’s world but Life would crush it.
The next ray of hope comes through clothing. Though Adam and Eve had made clothes for themselves out of “fig leaves” these were evidently insufficient. In an act of mercy which foreshadowed greater acts to come, God made Adam and Eve “garments of skins and clothed them” (Gen. 3:21). Perhaps he did this because things “made with human hands” (Heb. 9:11) are inherently flawed. Also, notice the different material: animal hide instead of leaves. This more substantial covering indicates that the alienation of humanity from God was greater than they had realized. We are not told how God came by this skin, but it is not unreasonable to think that it required the death of the animal. If this is so, it would only be the first of many casualties to come in the war against sin.
This story teaches us at least two things. First, like Adam and Eve, we can never hide our nakedness and shame from God (Heb. 4:13). Second, God can cover our shame through the atoning sacrifice of Christ. The word translated as “atonement” has many nuances of meaning including “to cover.” In the Law, God allowed the blood of animals to make “atonement for your souls” (Lev. 17:11). The Israelites needed to know that sin invites death into the world and life was the only payment. Animal blood may have been better than “fig leaves” but it could never fully cleanse the conscience of the sinner and atone for sin.
John explains that “the blood of Jesus… cleanses us from all sin…” and “he will forgive us our sins…” because "he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 Jn. 1:7, 9; 2:2). John could see how Jesus fulfilled the entire sacrificial system of the Law. The Jewish Day of Atonement (Lev. 17) pointed to Jesus, a fact made plain by the Hebrew writer (Heb. 10). Therefore, what the blood of bulls and goats could never do, Jesus did by offering himself as a once-for-all atoning sacrifice to cover us. In Christ, we are “clothed” with him in baptism (Gal. 3:27) as we “put on” the new self (Col. 1:3-10) and wait to be “further clothed” in our resurrection bodies (2 Cor. 5:4).
