ECHOES OF GENESIS 3

Just to review a few familiar parts of this description of the Fall, after Adam and Eve had eaten of the tree of knowledge of good and evil:

    “Then their eyes were opened, and they realized that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made clothing for themselves.” (Genesis 3:7)

They subsequently attempt to hide from God but he confronts them with their sin and spells out the consequences for them and their offspring. They are then driven out of the garden, never to return. But I left out a key event that happened in between the last two sentences above:

    “And the LORD God made clothes from animal skins for Adam and Eve to wear and thus clothed them.” (Genesis 3:21)

Here are some interesting comments made by scholars regarding this dressing and re-dressing:

    Kline: “The similarity of 'erummin ('naked' cf. 'arummin, 2:25) and and 'arum ('subtle', 3:1) suggests a word-play: the kind of God-likeness that resulted from following the serpent's counsel was religiously a devil-likeness. The sense of shame attaching to physical nakedness (cf. 2:55) manifested consciousness of inner nakedness, the stripping of the glory of holiness from the soul.”

    Seevers also notes the same word-play and adds, “Although nakedness was not originally shameful, that became its normal connotation after the Fall.”

    Ellul: “Biblically, nudity is essentially a sign of fragility and weakness...And clothing is the sign of and search for protection. This is the essence of this marvelous discovery [of Adam and Eve] thanks to their opened eyes: humanity is weak and without protection or defense.”

    Dictionary of Biblical Imagery: “The biblical images evoked by the word naked are many and varied...Each of these various nuances needs to be carefully identified in each scriptural context, although, of course, there may be some degrees of overlap...[In Genesis 3] clothing is God's covering, his divine gracious response to human rebellion. Being unclothed thus becomes a metaphor for being exposed to the judgment of God.”

    Ellison: “The fear of nakedness in God's presence (v. 9) was hardly a bodily matter; they knew that what they had done could not be hidden from Him.”

There is one additional implication in Genesis 3:21 that is not brought out by any of the above commentators. Note that in order for God to properly cover them, one or more animals had to die. Thus, we have the first mention in the Bible of the necessity of an animal sacrifice to cover mankind's sins. This became a temple practice that foreshadowed Christ's bodily sacrifice to cover our sins.

This key passage in the OT goes a long way toward explaining some later NT passages:

Colossians 3:9-10

In these verses, Paul tells his audience that he and they “have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed ourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.” It doesn't take a Bible scholar to recognize the references here back to Genesis 1-3, but I will quote what some of them have to say anyway:

    Beale states that “in the light of the two allusions to the divine 'image' and 'knowledge' in 3:10 from Genesis 1-3, the reference to clothing in 3:9-10 may be an allusion to Gen. 3. In Gen. 3:7 we are told that Adam and Eve, directly after their sin, tried to cover their sinful nakedness by their own autonomous efforts...On the other hand, in an apparent expression of their beginning restoration to God after the fall...their first suit of clothing was removed and replaced by divinely handmade clothing, indicating that the handmade clothing was associated with their alienated condition and sinful shame and was an insufficient covering for those who have begun to be reconciled to God.”

    Seitz: “I believe Gen. 2-3 is making its force felt with the language of clothing and image and knowledge in the articulation of Col. 3:5-17.”

The word “creator” in Col. 3:10 is another strong hint that Genesis 1-3 provides the background for Paul's teaching here.

Despite these clear allusions back to the beginning, a surprising number of scholars do not even mention Genesis in discussing Colossians 3:9-10, but go in another direction entirely. Thus, R.P. Martin states, “All commentators agree that there is a baptismal motif in these verbs, taken from the activity of disrobing and re-clothing for the act of baptism when the new Christian enters the water.”

II Corinthians 5:1-5

In this somewhat confusing passage, Paul contrasts our present “earthly tent” with being “clothed with our heavenly dwelling” and not wanting to “be found naked.” The same basic disagreement exists here as in the above passage concerning its most appropriate context, so that Neyrey can say “the language reflects ritual process and its metaphors of divesting and investing which are equally applicable to the status transformation rituals of baptism / initiation or death.” However, most other commentators go straight for the possible implications of Paul's words as to the nature of the intermediate state of a believer in the time between death and the Final Judgment and resurrection.

Weigelt explains that the Greek word gymnos in v. 3 means “without a body covering. The theological interpretation is difficult and there are three possibilities.”

    1. Paul assumes that in the time between death and the Second Coming there is an intermediate state during which we exist without a body.

    2. This may be a description of the damned who do not get a glorified body.

    3. Paul was combating the Gnostic notion of the complete divesting of the body at death.

Another complicating factor is trying to correlate this passage with Paul's thoughts on the resurrected body in the last half of I Corinthians 15. Kreitzer cites Moule's belief “that in I Corinthians 15 the resurrected body is something superimposed upon mortal existence, while in 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 the resurrected body is something exchanged for it.” Kreitzer's own opinion is that the images in both these texts are “essentially metaphorical in substance, seeking to express the inexpressible, and neither should be made to carry more theological weight than it is able.”

Whatever the exact meaning of Paul's words are in II Corinthians, several evangelical scholars seem to be in basic agreement as to the general gist of the passage:

    Maile: “Naked in II Corinthians 5:3 may refer to appearing before God (at the Judgment) outside of Christ.”

    Dictionary of Biblical Imagery: “”The NT is very explicit in indicating that metaphorical nakedness is an undesirable state and that redemption means clothed with garments of God's salvation...The apostle Paul, in speaking of the eschatological hope of the resurrection body, longs not to be found naked but rather to be covered with the heavenly dwelling which God himself provides.”

    Rupprecht cites several OT texts to demonstrate that the Jewish conception of nakedness was associated with the idea of shame. So he feels that the meaning here refers to Paul's “abhorrence of a state of existence without a body denotes the shame of standing guilty before God.”

Inexplicably, none of the above sources even hints at the obvious parallel between Paul's words and the events associated with the Fall in Genesis 3.

The Book of Revelation

There are approximately seven references to “white garments” in this book, all referring to some sort of glorified state.

In Revelation 3:4-5, there are some at Sardis who have not yet soiled their clothes and are dressed in white because they are worthy. The Laodiceans are also counseled to “buy” from Christ white robes to clothe them “to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen.” This latter passage found in Revelation 3:18 has especial affinities with Genesis 3, although the following commentators do not specifically mention this fact:

    Walvoord: “Though they had beautiful clothes, they were urged to wear white clothes, symbolic of righteousness which would cover their spiritual nakedness.”

    Ruiz defines the putting on of white garments as “a metaphor for removing sin from one's life.”

    Beasley-Murray: “Salvation...is white robes because it covers the nakedness of our guilt and clothes us with righteousness, holiness, and joy in the Lord.”

    Ford: “The white garments will cover their nakedness; nakedness is a figure used to describe the confusion of the damned on the last day.”

    Mounce: “A contrast with the black woolen fabric for which the city was famous could be intended, but the figure of while garments as symbolic of righteousness is so widely used in Revelation...that no local allusion is necessary...in God's sight (certainly not their own!) the Laodiceans were walking about spiritually naked, not understanding their humiliation and needing the white robes of righteousness which could be purchased at no cost except the acknowledgment of their shameful condition.”

    DBI: “The NT is very explicit in indicating that metaphorical nakedness is an undesirable state and that redemption means being clothed with the garments of God's salvation. Revelation 3:18 speaks of the shame of nakedness being covered with white garments bought from the risen Lord.”

Finally, there is Revelation 16:15, which states, “Blessed is he who stays awake and is clothed, not going around naked and exposed to shame.” The cultural reference here, according to F.F. Bruce is the custom of removing and burning the clothing of any temple policeman on night duty who was caught sleeping in order to expose his guilt to all.

    Hendricksen simply states, “Hence, let the believer be vigilant. Let him keep his garments of righteousness unspotted, lest men see his sins.”

    Beale connects this passage with the earlier reference in the book: “If a believer so cares for his garments, then he will 'not walk about naked' and people will not 'see his shame.' This develops the same imagery in 3:18, where 'uncovering the shame of nakedness' was a metaphor used in God's accusation of Israel and other nations for participation in idolatry...'nakedness' signifies the lack of righteousness.”

Note the general agreement in all these NT passages that being properly clothed means having put on the garments of righteousness only available from God, rather than attempting to cover up our guilt with our own efforts. And all of this began with the original couple in the garden.