Why nakedness matters- a brief look at Adam and Eve

One thing that always struck me about Genesis and its tragic telling of the fall of mankind and its seemingly odd emphasis on nakedness. Odd, but also missable, merely a passing comment, they were naked and felt no shame. This brief glimpse at pre fall life is actually very poignant. Today's society has attitudes ranging from extreme shame to complete idolisation and sexualisation of the human form along with a huge range of self esteem, health, anxiety issues and extreme cases of death by eating disorders all because of the views we have of our naked bodies. Yet they felt no shame.

Now, this is God's word after all so why was this little fact included? Was it purely to emphasise a relatable idea? Possibly, that because many experience shame over something so basic, that to emphasise the absence of shame was to highlight something about the absence of sin? Maybe.

So here is a question. Was the absence of shame to do with believing you are in the wrong and being found out? Often that is where shame comes from. The desire to hide something which is perceived to be wrong or bad by others. It hides to avoid judgement and social rejection. Lack of shame would imply lack of fear, pride, judgment etc. Innocence. They weren't judging each other, criticising, condemning or mocking one another or just selfishly lusting. They were innocent of all of that.

It makes perfect sense that they felt no shame as there was no need to hide themselves. No one was looking and judging. It just didn't matter. All of these things, and more, happen today all the time. Bodies are judged and not just in formal competitions!

Yet, they felt no shame. A gives a scene of innocence, purity, sinlessness.

Then...sin came. Or more specifically, knowledge of good and evil. Technically they sinned by eating the fruit not because of the fruit (another blog for another time). Again, a little glance and we miss it. Of all the things about sin and what it means God could have included to highlight sin and there it is again, nakedness. The first thing after eating the fruit that for some reason, becomes a problem. But why?

 Let's think for a minute about what gaining knowledge, specifically Knowledge of good and evil, means. Now, by gaining knowledge everything now becomes a good and evil issue. Knowing that they were naked wasn't a sin. The fact that they were naked was also not sinful. Yet, now they had knowledge they covered themselves. Firstly from each other by sowing fig leaves, and later they hid from God (if only they had Psalm 139 to read). Why was such attention given to this?

Firstly, they expected to be like God in knowledge, yet the first achievement of their great new knowledge was-they saw they were naked. Like a youth who wants to be treated more like an adult and told they have to do their own washing. They get what they want, and they don't like it. They knew they were naked, but why did this matter?

Secondly, they wanted to hide themselves, even from each other. They experienced shame. Yet, there was nothing wrong with them being naked, yet why the change? Their shame was the result of sin. Before knowing right and wrong, they felt no shame and did not hide from each other. Did they judge that being naked was wrong now? Interestingly, we have a clue, what is written in the text regarding what God said to them is key. 'Who told you that you were naked?' (Gen 3v11) God spoke. God already knew what had happened, but this is God's word. This question is important for us, to draw us in, not for him. They gained knowledge of good and evil. Knowing they were naked was new knowledge. They did not previously understand the concept. Now, they had knowledge of good and evil.

But they were able to sin prior to eating the fruit. They ate the fruit before they had the knowledge of good and evil. The issue was, the only wrong thing they had knowledge of was to not eat the fruit. God did not give them the knowledge of other types of wrong doing. They wouldn't be able to think of murder and then have to resist. The literal idea of killing someone was not within their knowledge. Now their minds would fill with good and evil. Again, breaking this down, they already had minds full of good. Go forth, multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. These were good instructions given by God. So wait, they had knowledge of good, they did not necessarily know it was good and they did not necessarily know all good. But they knew goodness and were told to do good things. They were naked yet, it was not regarded as evil, remember, God saw what he made and it was very good. That includes their nakedness. This is significant. But then they gained further knowledge: good and evil.

Moving back to the topic at hand, we can see that now they experienced fear and shame and they hid themselves. But again, we know being naked was not evil or bad. Yet they saw it as bad. Note this, they knew that they were naked and yet they responded with judging it as bad and something that needed to be hidden because they gained knowledge of good AND evil. But couldn't handle it. They, and we, were never meant to.

More specifically, aside from sinning by eating the fruit, they now sinned by judging what God had made as good (see Genesis 1) and seeing it as bad. So they had knowledge of good and evil yet they already judged something as bad, that God made good. They got it wrong straight away.

They gained knowledge of good and evil, and got it wrong. They gained knowledge of nakedness and also, logically, non nakedness. They gained knowledge of something good but judged it as bad. All of which we were not made to handle. Certainly not in any great quantity and not before God knew it was time to reveal to us. But humans wanted it all at once. And we haven't changed much since!

So we have in scripture, a brief mention, often overlooked, of one turnaround with a before and after thought pre and post fall. But this is there to draw us in and force us to ask questions. In this area specifically, we see that we took something that was made good and judged it. And we continue to judge bodies today. The issues we have with bodies is extensive. Now, I'm not addressing health related issues, but rather how we take something of God and judge to our hearts content. We judge bodies, and parts of bodies, of all ages as being good or bad. Whether ourselves, the same or opposite sex. We judge on multiple grounds, not just sexual characteristics, but we judge a persons' character based on their bodies, we judge aged bodies, pregnant bodies, kids bodies, bald bodies. We keep on judging, many in the west idolise youthfulness (no one gets plastic surgery to look older, except maybe those needing to change identities). Regarding sexual judging it gets a little crazy and consists of extensive, I believe, idolatry of what is regarded as 'good' sexual characteristics. We judge wrongly all the time.

Ever since Adam and Eve judged something good as something bad, we equally continue to judge wrongly. We have extreme cases of judging wrongly with problems like anorexia. People are valued or base their value of themselves on the condition of their bodies. God never intended us to engage with ourselves in this manner. But with knowledge of good and evil, we now judge everything in this way, rightly at times but very often wrongly.

Ever since we gained knowledge we were not made to handle we have got it wrong with our bodies. From the harsh judging of self and others to fear, anxiety, depression, obsession, insecurity, idolatry and much more. It is no wonder this issue was the first highlighted by scripture. Something so basic instantly corrupted with the knowledge of good and evil and highlights an issue with humanity which has existed ever since. People literally base whether they are good enough as people on their physical appearance!

So how can we respond as believers to this type of corruption? Now, there isn't space here to go into depth on every issue. But we can easily glean some key points from how Adam and Eve responded.

 -They judged something good as something bad.

Be healthy for sure, but that is a different issue from what I am addressing. People can be fit and healthy yet still struggle with their view of themselves or judge other people. We really need to learn to not judge bodies and criticise ourselves or others. Remember that bodies are good and in fact absolutely amazing machines God has made that glorify him. Our bodies are tools to live in this world. Tools to serve and honour the King of Kings. We can challenge the pattern of the world in judging bodies. We can encourage others more and not be boastful of ourselves both in our attitudes and how we dress. We can also turn away or turn off anything that encourages us to look down on ourselves because we aren't good enough, including social media. I am reminded of the scripture that says take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor 10:5). This is part of how we become transformed in our minds.

Society always wants to tell you how to look good and what you need to do (and buy) to get you there. But reading between the lines, this implies that unless you look a particular way, it is bad. But as with Adam and Eve, we get this judgement wrong.

Ultimately, we need to learn to find our security in Christ. Insecurity breeds body issues, and it is a big money maker. Adverts are designed to create insecurity so that you will buy into a product. But being secure in Christ is all that matters. One day your body will be gone. It is not something to idolise but something to use to glorify your maker. It is not something to constantly worry about as it won't add a productive hour to your life but worry will encourage you to spend a lot of money on yourself, and waste your time. Your body is good, it is amazing. Every cell carries your DNA. It even teaches us about the church which is meant to function as a body. All parts working together for good.

So next time you see yourself naked, maybe in a mirror after a shower, pause for a moment. Don't hide away OR seek to boast in your heart. Look without judging positively or negatively, accept and embrace, without lifting up or putting down and glorify God in that moment. Our bodies are for his glory not our own. When we make it about us, we get it wrong, we judge everything as good or bad and it is exhausting! But when we make it about it him, we can accept and be content and find a greater peace.