Guilt and Shame (Genesis 3)

 Guilt and Shame

When God created men they were naked.


[Gen 2:25 NKJV] 25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.


They were naked and unashamed.
But then they sinned. And something happened:


[Gen 3:7 NKJV] 7 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.


They realised they were naked and all of a sudden they clothed themselves. Technically fig leaves would be enough to cover literal nakedness. But more was going on here. When God showed up, they still felt naked:


[Gen 3:8-11 NKJV] 8 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. 9 Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, "Where [are] you?" 10 So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." 11 And He said, "Who told you that you [were] naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?"


They had clothed themselves but they still felt ashamed.

Why?
Because they had sinned.

Guilt and the shame that comes with guilt is a similar experience as nakedness. We don’t want to be seen like that. We wish to run away or to get some kind of clothing as soon as possible. We feel ashamed because of it. It feels vulnerable.

The worst part is: the feeling of guilt makes us hide from God. It gives a natural alienation towards God where we tend to hide. We don’t want God to see us and that’s why, even though He sees everything, we try to hide or cloth ourselves with our self-made clothes.

But all this doesn’t help. 

We can run and try to hide behind stuff, but it will not hide us from God's all-seeing eye. He sees everything inside and out. 

We may try to cloth ourselves with excuses. Maybe we try to minimize what we did and what it means for our eternal life. Maybe we compare ourselves to others. Maybe we just ignore our sin. Maybe we point the finger to another naked person to keep the attention away from us like Adam and Eve did by the way:


[Gen 3:12-13 NKJV] 12 Then the man said, "The woman whom You gave [to be] with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." 13 And the LORD God said to the woman, "What [is] this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."


Maybe we try to ignore our nakedness by distracting ourselves with pleasure and other stuff. 

Maybe we try to hide our nakedness by trying to make up for what we did by living the rest of our lives perfectly and doing certain things to hide that naked shame that, despite our efforts, never really goes away.
Or worse, maybe we start embracing our nakedness and walk around without any shame for what we did.

But in the end, when God shows up, we will always feel naked again. We may try to blame others, but God sees through our rationalizations. He knows us very well and there we stand helpless.

There is only one way to get rid of this nakedness and shame. But it’s a paradox. It will feel unnatural and it will take courage.

What we have to do is go to God, naked as we are, acknowledge our sins. We have to stand before His searching eyes where we will only feel more sinful and bad.

And yet, when we do this it solves the problem. 

Cause what is God’s character in all of this? What is His first act immediately after judgment has been enacted against the sinner?

It is to cover:


[Gen 3:21 NKJV] 21 Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.


God Himself gave a clothing that would work. He Himself provided. We need to trust in Him to cover our nakedness.

It is in His nature, in His character to do this.

While our character speaks of guilt, shame and denial, His character speaks of sympathy and care.


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