Naked and Not Ashamed

Read Genesis 2:25-3:7

One of my truly favorite things about growing up, becoming less prudish, and getting my own apartment is the ability to walk around naked when no one else is at home. It’s a very freeing experience that I highly recommend. It’s all about being comfortable in your own skin; and, let’s face it, you know God already knows what you look like because he made you that way. The one catch about it is that you have to be alone and have to be in private somewhere for this to ever really work out. One cannot simply go parading about in their birthday suit whenever they see fit, there are laws against that kind of thing aside from it being totally inappropriate.

Before the fall of man humanity had that comfortableness with themselves before others and before God. In the beginning, “The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”(Gen 2:25) We see a wholeness of trust and honesty between both man and wife and between them and God. There’s no need to hide anything, and there is completeness about their relationships that only God can provide. What I think is interesting to note is just how Satan tries to go about breaking this unity up. One of the first things he asks the woman is, “Did God really say . . . ; questioning the goodness and truthfulness of God. Reflect for a moment on your own life, do you ever hear those questions being asked of you? Is God really good? Is God really faithful? Does God really have your best interests in mind? I hear it at least on an everyday basis. Satan plants the seed of doubt first, even before he begins to lie.

Another thing, let’s take a look at this dialogue:
Satan: “Did God really say, you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” – No, only the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But there’s a definite try to make Eve doubt.
Woman: “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.” - Hold on Eve, God only said not to eat it. Best to defend God using God’s words not your own.
Satan: “You will not surely die.” - Well not if you touch it no, but if you eat it you’re toast. Now there’s the original doubt and the twisted lie.
Satan: “ For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” – Technically your eyes will be opened, but not to anything you would want to see, so lie. You will be like God. Sounds familiar, isn’t that Satan’s greatest downfall? I guess if it worked on him he figured he could try it out on others. Lie. Knowing good and evil. Ironically, man is oh so much better at knowing evil than we ever were at knowing good because of that choice. Lie.

Lots of deception. We can see it clearly, why couldn’t Eve? Already the doubt had taken hold. In the moment that she took her eyes off God and his goodness, the lies surrounded her and she foundered, but then again, isn’t it the same for us? John the apostle speaks of the sinful nature of man in 1John 2:16 “For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.” Temptation is the same now as it was then. “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food (cravings of sinful man) and pleasing to the eye (lust of the eyes), and also desirable for gaining wisdom (boasting of what he has and does), she took some and ate it”(Gen.3:6). Eve’s sin was the same as ours today. Her temptation was the same temptation.

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” Gen.3:7. I was just thinking about what it must’ve been like for Adam and Eve who were enjoying the fellowship of God, the completion of themselves, each other, and creation in Him, to suddenly feel the loss of it upon sinning. Us without God was never what God created us or intended to be. We were never meant to be focused on the self, we were always created to be focused on God, fulfilled by God, and to be bearers of his image. So, there is this sense of profound loss, brokenness, and shame when we come to the realization of what we are without communion with God. We are naked in so much more than just a physical state of being, we ourselves are bare and utterly helpless. I think that this is the nakedness that Adam and Eve felt in those first moments of loss. It must’ve been a death in itself in some way, a terrible foreshadowing of the real eternal separation from God.
Notice Adam and Eve knowing the moment they sinned that they were utterly alone and naked tried to cover themselves with fig leaves. You feel the sense of everything being not as it should be and you want to fix it, but you make the second great mistake by presuming you are the type of person that can fix the problem. Adam and Eve perceiving that they are naked try to clothe themselves immediately creating another barrier –a physical barrier- between them and God, and also between each other. All the relationships become broken when we are not united in God. What are the barriers we put up in trying to restore our relationship with others and God on our own strength? However, all hope is still present. Jesus who is our great Healer and Reconciler created through himself the Shalom that reconciles us with God as we continue to grow and have faith in Him; and it is also reconciling us with each other. Reflect and ask God to work his reconciliation in your brokenness with Him and with others.