There is a theme that I want to spend time developing on one level which is very simple to understand. But it’s much deeper than I sometimes think we take time to think through.
Very simply, God formed Adam, placed him in this garden of great abundance, gave him a purpose within that, a job, a work, and there was a relationship here. And then God crafted Eve, Aam’s counterpart, his compliment, his partner (Genesis 2:7-8, 15-18, 21-22).
And then It says: “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed (Genesis 2.25).
There’s two really deep core ideas here. They were both naked and they weren’t ashamed. In Hebrew, this word “naked” does mean unclothed, so they were bare. But in Hebrew, something we might not also understand is that nakedness carries this figurative idea of being exposed, of being open, of being even transparent and raw. It can imply vulnerability, the absence of deceit or pretense. And in this moment, they were physically naked before God, and it makes sure to tell us they weren’t ashamed. There was nothing in them that felt shame.
Shame is the second critical concept here. The Hebrew root of “shame,” carries the idea of guilt. That guilt leads to shame within us, and it also exposes disappointments, and within all of that, it causes us to lose confidence in the relationship; So in Adam and Eve’s physical nakedness, they had no reason whatsoever to feel guilty about anything, or to feel exposed. They had no reason to lose their confidence in the relationship they had with their Almighty Creator God.
But equally, what’s also being communicated here is what’s happening emotionally, internally for them in their hearts and minds. They were up to this point in their life, “bare” before God. They were transparent. They were exposed. And in that complete openness and absence of any pretending, there was no need to pull back away from that relationship. There was no feeling of guilt or shame. They did not have any reason to think that God would be unhappy or disappointed with them. So, there was no reason for them to lose confidence in their standing before God.
Then, we are introduced to the serpent and everything changes: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, … a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings” (Genesis 3:6-7).
The Hebrew for “opening their eyes” carries the figurative meaning of a “new mental perception”. There’s a new awareness, an awakening to a new condition. All of a sudden, they see their physical nakedness. Their emotional spiritual exposure that they experience is vulnerability, guilt and fear. After being laid “bare”, there is something they desire to hide from God. They no longer feel open to be transparent. They don’t like this feeling of vulnerability, so they work to cover themselves.
It’s the first human attempt to cover the part for which they are now ashamed. It’s self-made shame management, a human attempt to hide guilt. It is a temporary covering of leaves that is destined to fall apart and crumble. That’s a human attempt to hide guilt. Their natural human gut instinct was to hide, to conceal, to cover. So for the first time, they felt shame and they felt fear.
“And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden” (Genesis 3.8). In this moment, their leaf loin cloth covering wasn’t enough. They went and now hid behind trees. They withdrew, they pulled back, and they concealed themselves. They are seeking avoidance, to avoid the relationship with God. And all of this was instinctive. They weren’t taught this.
Is it not still natural for all of us at moments of our lives to try to hide from God?
We can still hide because of sin which can lead us to stop praying when we should actually draw close to God. Because of our shame, we stop having daily conversations with God. We knew we messed up. We knew we gave in to some temptation. We sinned, we missed the mark. And in our feeling of exposure, we lose confidence in our standing with God. So we pull back. We even pull back from each other. If I messed up in my relationship with you, I might try to avoid having a conversation with you. And then relationships become naturally more distant; the relationship suffers.
We can also hide from taking responsibility by blaming others (Genesis 3:11-13). Instead of, in this moment, feeling their exposure, feeling that shame and responding with acknowledgement, with accountability, with repentance, with seeking God’s forgiveness, repairing of the breach and being reconciled, They blamed others for their behaviors and their choices.
Some also hide through isolation. If I pull back from people, stay away by myself, avoid relationships, then no one can see me. I’m not exposed. If no one gets close to me, no one can see my faults, no one can see my failures.
Some hide through busyness. Some feel better working than conversing in relationships.
Sometimes we can have hidden motivations. Serving can be easier than having open honest relationships. A work can become a shield. Note the story of Mary and Martha. Mary is engaged in an relationship with Jesus, but it says that Martha was distracted with much serving. And she wanted Christ to correct her sister and make her come join her. But Christ corrected Martha’s perception (Luke 10:41-42).
Some also hide behind a facade. Jesus Christ was often very critical of the religious leaders of His day. Of the Pharisees, “those religious leaders”, Christ said in a series of criticisms that they were hiding behind a lie (Matthew 23:27-28). They wanted others to believe that lie, to see them through the lens of their false façade. Some do end up believing their facade is reality, and they lie to themselves.
And then yet others hide behind substances to numb shame, and the feelings of exposure. They use numbing instead of healing. And this is the reality of what we as humans do. But notice how quickly God wanted this pattern revealed in the Bible. That within these first few chapters in Genesis, this has been brought to the surface, to the forefront because it’s at the core of who we are and what we do.
However, this isn’t the end of the story. Adam and Eve both sinned, both became emotionally and spiritually vulnerable before God. They were hiding. But what does God do? “Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3.9). God does not abandon them and this theme is echoed throughout Scripture (Luke 15:4-7). He searches until He finds what is lost. . There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents. This story’s about repentance.
It’s a call to change one’s direction or to change one’s mind, to reconsider, to turn back after reflection and go in a different direction. It’s to have a transformative change of heart and direction; a change of mind that leads to a change of life.
Adam and Eve’s sin caused a separation, a pulling back from God (Isaiah 59:2). And yet, God sought them. But each person has to desire to be in a relationship with God, to walk with Him. The Bible clearly shows we can’t just willfully choose to go our own way, willfully defying God, and then still want God to come and bless us.
Still in Genesis 3, there’s another powerful theme connected to all this. Not only does God seek out Adam and Eve, He covers. They made for themselves an insignificant fig leaf covering that would become frail and fall apart. God made tunics of skin to clothe them, to cover (Genesis 3.21).
So, Adam and Eve made a covering that could not last and could not repair the breach. God made a covering that came at the cost of a life, the shedding of blood. Let’s look a bit at this idea of this covering: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11). Atonement in Hebrew means to cover. Hebrews 9 reveals the fulfillment toward which all these previous atonement sacrifices pointed. (Hebrews 9:11-14, 10:4,14).
Let’s recap a little bit the pattern through the Bible: Sin exposes and we feel shame. We might be afraid. We might pull away. We might hide. And all this breaks or puts separation in the relationship between us and God. We attempt to humanly deal with that exposure. We make frail coverings that don’t do much of anything. God provides the real lasting covering through the sacrifice of blood of His one and only perfect Son. Christ became the perfect atoning sacrifice, the perfect covering of our sins by His righteousness, with His blood, His life.
So, how do we stop this process of hiding from God?
• The first is to recognize and admit when we are hiding.
Adam’s first step of coming out of hiding was to respond. Adam said, “I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.” God is searching for us. And He knows when we’re hiding. But for our sake, we have to respond. We have to say, “God, I’m here. God, I was afraid. God, I was ashamed because of my behavior. That honesty helps break hiding.
• Step into the light.
Step into the light, because hiding is rooted in shame, that feeling that we’ll be exposed. Shame convinces us that if God does see us, that God will reject us. Shame doesn’t want us to face the reality of what we’ve done because we’re embarrassed or we know better, so we hide and we try to cover ourselves. Christ says there is nothing covered that will no be revealed (Luke 12:2-3) and He encourages us through John to be in the light. Christ is just and faithful to forgive us, to cleanse us (1 John 1:7-9). Note also Psalm 32:1-2,5,7, and James 4:8.
• Put your faith in who God is.
Satan wanted to cause Eve to doubt who God was and is. Satan tries to get us to believe that we won’t be forgiven. That God’s too upset with our continuous failure. That we will only be loved by God when we somehow reach this level of righteousness, of perfection in this walk and then God will love us. Yet the truth of the Bible is not that: “And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, …” (Exodus 34:6-7).
• We confess what God already knows
Confession is about admitting what we already realize, and what God knows already, so we can be free to repent and move on. We’re to acknowledge our sin. We’re not to hide in our iniquities, but we’re to confess our transgression and God forgives: “for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).
That’s why Christ came, to seek and to save. God provided the perfect covering. All the other shadows and types and sacrifices all pointed to Christ. And it doesn’t end at baptism with the forgiveness of our sins. We have to put on that covering. We have to put on Christ (Galatians 3:27).
So, we have to stop hiding, step into the light, let God cover what we can’t fix, and draw near to the One who already knows, already sees, and still chooses you.
Troy Phelps