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Thoughts of...Walking Around Naked
In Gen 2, we read of Adam and Eve walking in fellowship with God in the Garden of Eden. The chapter ends with, “And they both were naked, man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” Walking around naked with God. With my best Rock (the wrestler/actor) impersonation with raised eyebrow, I wonder about that. It is such a foreign thought both culturally and theologically – I don’t walk around naked anywhere, and certainly not with God! Walk around naked? Not me, no way. Yet they did. Why?
In Scripture, nakedness is associated with sin and shame. Why are Adam and Eve not ashamed in ? Quite simply, they had nothing to be ashamed of before the fall in Gen 3. In Gen 2 they had no shame. Their wrong choice when tempted by the serpent resulted in immediate shame and an awareness of their nakedness. Sensing the shame and sin, Adam and Eve attempted to cover up with a sporty new line of fig leaf clothing. However, the fashion statement served only to highlight their shame and their nakedness, so they hid from God ().
About 2,438 years later, Moses lost his cool and, in an outburst of misdirected “Deliverer” zealousness, killed an abusive Egyptian. Knowing this was against God’s will (), Moses moved immediately to cover up his sin by burying the Egyptian (, ). However, the Jews () called Moses to task on his sin, prompting him to flee into the wilderness in shame.
About 500 years later, King David was someplace he should not have been – at home on his roof while the army was out at war (2 Sam 11). Up on the roof he spots, then gazes at, a very beautiful woman taking a bath. Rather than being on the battlefield being led by the Lord of Hosts, he is on the roof being driven by his flesh. David and Bathsheba’s sin of adultery resulted in the conception of a child. Their sin would be found out and they would be publicly shamed, maybe even stoned to death! Therefore, David launches a dastardly campaign to cover up his sin. You all know the rest of the story.
Adam and Eve, Moses, and David are example to us of the truth that there is no such thing as secret sin. We might be able to cover our sin from the eyes of man, but we cannot hide it from the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (, , ). Said another way, we are naked before God. We are not able to cover our sin and our shame. We need God to cover our shame just as He did for Adam and Eve in Gen 3 – by shedding the blood of an innocent life. Our sins can only be covered by the blood of the Lamb (, ). When we place our faith in Jesus Christ, our sins are covered by God and we no longer have any shame (, , ).
In our walk with Christ, these truths demand our CONSTANT awareness:
1. God is near
2. We are naked before God
Every day we make scores of choices. By our choices we either honor the Lord or we dishonor Him, we either sow to the flesh or we sow to the Spirit. Being continually aware of the above two truths lead us to make right choices and to abide fruitfully in Christ.
Walk around naked? Yes! We all do. So acknowledge the fact that you do walk around naked and make God-honoring choices all day, every day. And be not ashamed.
Pastor Doug
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