So that’s the comparison. Do you see the comparison? So it is possible for what one man does to effect many. Somebody asked a question well, it’s not fair. I mean how can we be held responsible for Adam’s sin when we weren’t there? How can we sin in Adam when we weren’t there? Well, ask yourself this: How can we die and rise in Jesus Christ when we weren’t there? Or, you say, how can we be held responsible for what Adam did? On the other hand, how can you be saved by what Jesus did? Well, the answer is because that’s the way God designed it. That’s how God designed it for his glory. God allowed this in order that sin might come; in order that he might destroy it so that it wouldn’t any more be a possibility. It would become a reality and he would destroy it and, in the process, he would save sinners who believed and judge sinners who did not and, therefore, He would put Himself on display as to His power, as to His grace and as to His justice. And He couldn’t display His power and He couldn’t display His grace and He couldn’t display His justice in that way if there weren’t sin. So God allowed it. And just as we fell in one man, we rise again in one man, the last Adam, Jesus Christ.
Well, that leads us to the last point which I will make in brief words. Shame. Back to Genesis 3. You go from the solicitor to the strategy to the seduction to the sin, and then comes the shame. And this is quite interesting, I think. In Verse 7: “The eyes of both of them were opened.” Immediately, bang, their eyes were opened. What did they see? They saw what? They saw evil is what they saw. They were aware of their wickedness. They “knew they were naked.” They had been naked for who knows how long? They “knew they were naked,” all of a sudden, and: “They sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.” Why do you think they did that? That sounds like a bizarre thing to do. Why didn’t they put a mask on their face? Why didn’t they cover their entire body, or why didn’t they cover their feet? What’s going on here? See, once they knew personal evil, because they did it, a whole new way of thinking entered their minds. They were wicked. They were evil, and they were embarrassed. They felt it. They felt self-conscious; they felt guilty; they felt fearful. And they were gripped by new emotions; wicked desire, evil desire, perversion, lust, and shame.
As Derek Kidner wrote: “This was a grotesque anticlimax to the dream of enlightenment.” As sin always is. They were in the same garden, looking at the same spouse, in the midst of the same creatures, under the same sky. But all of a sudden, into their pure world of relationship, into their sexual innocence, came perverse, evil thoughts, and sin clung to their innocence. And they felt it strongly, and they felt exposed, and they felt shameful about feelings they had never felt before. Their purity was marred. They were shocked by thoughts that were wicked and impure. Even that pure gift of marriage was so polluted as to make them feel that they needed to hide their loins from God and from each other. That very part of their body which was the source of joy and the source of life, became a source of guilt and a source of shame. And they were embarrassed to be naked. And they did an appropriate thing. They “sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.” This is a feeble effort to cover their shame and cover their guilt.
Now let me tell you something, folks: Wearing clothes is good. Do you know why? Because it covers our shame. Wearing clothes does not signal that you have abnormal inhibitions. That’s what the nudists would tell us. That’s what these wacky evolutionary anthropologists would tell us: We all ought to be running around stark naked in the jungle somewhere and return to being noble savages. Whether they’re nudists or exhibitionists or primitive tribal people or even anthropologists who celebrate nakedness, or whether they’re rock musicians, who seem to me to be mostly naked most of the time, or whether they’re movie actors and people who bare themselves, as if this is some testimony to their freedom from inhibitions, they would like us to believe that there’s a road back to the noble savage, who has no shame and no inhibitions.
Listen, folks. I’m going to say this carefully. The unembarrassed nudity of primitive tribes, the flaunted nudity of warped naturalists, the perverted nudity of pornographers, rock singers and movie actors, may be called freedom. It may be called a return to nature. It may be called a return to innocence. It may be called deliverance from inhibitions. But in reality, it does not and it cannot ever recover innocence. Do you know what it does indicate? That the person who is naked has accomplished a victory over reasonable shame. It indicates that the person has conquered normal, reasonable guilt and shame.
They covered themselves, and that was reasonable. It was a signal of their fall. It indicated that they had fallen. And people who are civilized understand that. People who are naked have triumphed over reasonable shame and guilt. And they do what they can by dressing appropriately, not to totally, unabashedly inflame their shameful lusts. Those people who are advocates of nudity flaunt their wicked desires.
One final thought. They could cover their bodies. It was a nice try. It was reasonable; it was a good thing to do. But they couldn’t really hide their sin. And there’s a beautiful picture of this. We’ll see it in Verse 21. It says: “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.” And I just point this — we’ll get to that later — but I just point: In order for God to make them a garment of skin, what did God have to do? Kill an animal. That’s the first time. And the little analogy that I would make here: You can try to cover yourself with your own fig leaves but, in the end, you can only be covered by God through a sacrifice. In the end, that’s for God to do, to cover sin. More on that when we get to Verse 21.
So let me sum up: Like Lucifer, Adam and Eve fell so far there was nothing good in them. They fell so far that they were absolutely embarrassed and full of shame. They fell, and an avalanche of sin was loosed that would never stop. They pulled a stone from the mountain, and were horrified to discover that the fatal rock slide would bury all humanity and its environment in the dirt and rubble of sin. Satan had done his work, and he disappeared from the garden. And they were left to face God. And we’ll see that in our next study.
Let’s pray.
That the entrance of your word gives light, illuminates our minds and our hearts and, Lord, we do learn so much when we understand the strategies of Satan. We understand what he wants to do is to kill and destroy, and that is exactly what he did in the garden, and he’s still endeavoring to do it. Lord, God, how we thank you that we’ve been delivered from death and delivered from destruction, because we’ve been delivered from sin by your grace. We praise you for it. We thank you for it. In our Savior’s name, Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
