Daily Encouragement: Nakedness Covered

This past week our evening study group covered the chapter in Girls Gone Wise called "Appearance." Now, before your eyes start glazing over, thinking rules and regulations and legalism, please keep reading. I think you will find this a little eye-opening.

Included below is an excerpt from the book, Girls Gone Wise by Mary Kassian, referring to the Fall, when Eve took the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and how God chose to work in the situation:

"It all started when Eve decided that she wanted to be like God and call her own shots. The Serpent convinced her that she would receive all kinds of benefits if she did. He promised that a whole world of knowledge and experience would open up to her. ("Your eyes will be opened.") He assured her that she would be equal with God--that is, she could be her own god. ("You will be like God.") Finally, he promised that she would be able to decide for herself what was right and wrong. ("Knowing good and evil.")

The Serpent's promises came true, but in a horribly twisted way. Eve's eyes were opened to a new world of knowledge and experience--it was awful. She felt the horrible, oppressive force of evil wrap its ugly black tentacles around her heart. She did act "like God"--it was a farce. In trying to usurp His position, she enslaved herself to the Prince of Darkness, who was cast from heaven for the same rebellious sin. She did make her own decision about good and evil--it was a disaster. Apart from God, she was totally inept at discerning right from wrong. Eve's sin was self-exaltation. She arrogantly refused to acknowledge that God alone was God. When she took the fruit, she defied who He was and made herself out to be something that she was not.

After she sinned, Eve's eyes opened to the fact that she was not the goddess she had presumptuously made herself out to be. Nor was she the woman that God had created her to be. Not anymore. A massive chasm had opened up between what she once was and what she had become. For the first time ever, she experienced imperfection. She was flawed. Feelings of inadequacy swept over her like the rushing muddy waters of a Mississippi flood. She was not who she should have been. Her created beauty was marred. And this resulted in excruciating shame.

Shame is a negative emotion that combines feelings of dishonor, disgrace, unworthiness, and embarrassment. Eve's attempt to clothe herself was a pitiful effort to conceal her disgrace. The ugliness in her heart made her feel physically ugly. For the first time ever, she felt unattractive. Imperfect. Flawed. Self-conscious. Her nakedness felt too revealing and too vulnerable. So she tried to conceal the gap between what she was and what she should have been by covering her most intimate, vulnerable parts with leaves.

The leafy apron Eve stitched together may have helped a bit when it came to covering the shame she felt in Adam's presence. After all, Adam had also sinned and had donned a leafy loincloth to cover his shame. But neither she nor Adam could cover their inadequacy before the Lord. When God drew near, they realized that the leafy aprons didn't suffice. They still felt naked. Eve couldn't cover her sin. Adam couldn't cover his. Nothing could hide the dishonor, disgrace, and embarrassment of their rebellion against their Creator. They could not conceal the fact that they no longer measured up to who He created them to be. So they ran and hid from His presence.

Pre-Fall nakedness symbolized the purity and innocence of humans before God. Post-Fall nakedness symbolizes the inability of humans to make themselves presentable before Him. God did what Adam and Eve were unable to do. He covered them and made them presentable. He shed the blood of an animal--probably a lamb--and clothed them with its skin. By means of a bloody sacrifice, He covered their sin and shame. Do you see the symbolism here? Do you feel the surge of hope? God's merciful solution to Adam and Eve's sin, and their inadequate attempt to cover shame, was to clothe them with something infinitely more adequate. The skin of the sacrificed animal pointed to the time when God would sacrifice His Lamb--the Lord Jesus Christ--to atone for sin, alleviate shame, and clothe us in His righteousness. 'And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them' (Genesis 3:21).

The Lord did not pretend that nothing had happened. He did not tell Adam and Eve to strip off the silly leaves and go back to being naked. He knew that Adam and Eve could never go back to their sinless state. It was impossible for them to return to their naked and shame-free existence. In clothing them, the Lord confirmed that they needed something other than their own skin. Covering up was the appropriate response to the disgrace of sin. The shame of their fallen condition demanded a covering, not to conceal it, but to confess and redeem it. This is a very important point. Clothing bears witness to the fact that we have lost the glory and beauty of our original sin-free selves. It confesses that we need a covering--His covering--to atone for our sin and alleviate our shame. It testifies to the fact that God solved the problem of shame permanently and decisively with the blood of His own Son. It also directs our attention forward to the time when we will be 'further clothed' with spotless, imperishable garments (2 Corinthians 5:3 NKJV, Revelation 3:5)."

I must say I had never made that connection before--I just thought, "Well, the leaves wouldn't hold up, so God must have made the animal skins because they would have been a more practical solution since Adam and Eve couldn't stand being naked anymore. My, what an awesome God we serve who provides for everything we need!

Today, I want to encourage you to consider what God has done for you to cover you, cover your sin and shame and redeem you through the shed blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. Also, consider what your clothing is to you, the purpose of it and God's plan for it. How does it cover you? Is there a change that needs to be made in the way you dress in the light of what you understand its purpose to be?

by Wendie Beddingfield

picture by Julia Freeman-Woolpert