Who Told You That You were Naked?

Last week we explored Jesus’ question to His disciples, “Who do you say I am?” We saw that Peter could speak the right words and still miss the reality of who Jesus truly was. His confession was correct, yet his understanding remained shaped by his own expectations. This week we return to the very beginning, to the garden, where God asked the first searching question of all: “Who told you that you were naked?”

Genesis 2: 8-9 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

15-16 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.  And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

Genesis 3: 1-11 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”  The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ ” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.  But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 

In Genesis, God planted two special trees in the middle of the garden: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. At first glance, they may seem like two equal options for humanity, but Scripture does not present them that way.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is the only tree that was named, explained, and forbidden. It is the only tree that became a conscious moral choice. Note that God does not call it the tree of evil but the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In other words, it is the tree of discernment and measurement. Once its fruit is eaten, life can no longer be simply received; it must be explained, defended, and justified. Evaluation follows. Comparison follows. Judgment becomes necessary because measurement demands it.

By contrast, the Tree of Life is the source of God’s creative and sustaining power. It is, simply put, the tree of grace and of oneness with God. God does not explain this tree, place no restrictions on it, or weaponize it as a test. It stands within reach of Adam and Eve and is theirs to eat from. Life is offered there as a gift. Eating from this tree blinded Adam and Eve to the knowledge of evil. 

When Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, their eyes were opened. But they were not physically blind before; they were blind to the knowledge and consequences of evil. Their eyes were opened to a new way of seeing. They now saw themselves through the lens of judgment.

And the first thing they judged was themselves. 

They looked at their own bodies and concluded, “We are naked.” That is striking. Before they blamed each other, before they defended themselves, before they explained what happened, they first experienced shame. The first fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil was not wisdom. It was self-judgment.

This is what measurement does. It turns the self into the center. Am I safe? Am I acceptable? Am I exposed? Am I enough? Once that question enters the human heart, life can no longer be simply received as a gift. It must be defended.

So they sewed fig leaves together.

That is the first human attempt to fix shame without God. It is the first attempt to cover what only grace can cover. The fig leaves are not salvation. They are self-protection. They are the beginning of the human instinct to hide, to manage appearance, and to make ourselves acceptable apart from God.

Then God comes walking in the garden, and Adam and Eve hide.

Isn’t that strange?

A drowning person normally reaches for the hand extended from the boat. A lost child normally runs toward the parent’s voice. A sick person normally looks for the physician. But here Adam and Eve do the opposite. The Source of life comes near, and they move away from Him.

Why?

Because something had changed inside them. God had not changed. His voice had not changed. His presence had not changed. But their experience of His presence had changed. The same God who had been their life now felt like a threat. The same presence that once meant communion now produced fear.

This is what shame does. Shame does not merely make us feel bad about what we have done. It changes how we experience God. It makes Grace feel unsafe. It makes love feel exposing. It makes the presence of God feel like judgment before God has even spoken.

That is why grace is so hard for us to accept. The problem is not that God is unwilling to come near. The problem is that when He comes near, we often hide. We assume His first movement toward us must be condemnation. So we cover ourselves, defend ourselves, explain ourselves, and distance ourselves from the very One who has come looking for us.

And then God asked the first question recorded: “Where are you?”

Of course, God knows the physical location of Adam and Eve. This is not a question of geography. It is a question of relationship.

God is asking, Where are you now, Adam? Where are you in relation to Me? What has happened to the oneness we had?

So, God’s question is not an information question. It was meant to help Adam and Eve recognize their own condition. God was inviting them to speak the truth about where they stand now spiritually, especially in relation to Him.

And Adam’s answer is quite revealing. 

“I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

Notice the order: I heard, I was afraid, I was naked, I hid.

Before Adam confessed what he had done, he revealed what sin had done to him. He heard God’s voice, and instead of joy, there was fear. He felt exposed. Then he hid from God.

The relationship had changed from communion to fear, from openness to concealment, from oneness to distance. 

This is the first wound of sin. It separates us from the One who gives life, and then it convinces us that hiding is safer than being found. That is what evil is. 

We often think of evil mainly in terms of evil acts: violence, cruelty, dishonesty, immorality. But evil is not merely an act. It is also a state of being, a condition of separation from God. Before evil shows itself in what we do, it has already distorted where we stand, what we fear, and whose voice we trust.

That is why God’s first question was, “Where are you?” Because the deeper issue is not only that Adam and Eve broke a command. The deeper issue is that they have moved away from God. They are no longer standing in the freedom of God’s Grace. They are no longer in the presence of the Tree of Life.

The next question that God asked Adam was, “Who told you that you were naked?”

That is a remarkable question.

Adam and Eve were naked before. Genesis says:

Genesis 2:25 The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

So nakedness itself was not the problem. They had always been naked. Their bodies had not changed. Their physical condition had not changed. What changed was their perception of nakedness.

Before they ate from the tree, nakedness meant openness. It meant innocence. It meant there was nothing to hide, nothing to defend, nothing to cover, and nothing to fear. They could stand before one another and before God without shame.

But after they ate, the same nakedness now felt dangerous. The same openness now felt like exposure. What once was innocent has now become shameful.

So the problem was not what God saw. The problem was what they now saw. Their new knowledge had given them a new way of interpreting themselves. The knowledge of good and evil taught them to evaluate, to measure, to judge, and finally to condemn. They looked at themselves and concluded, “Something is wrong with us. We are exposed. We must hide.”

That is why God asks, “Who told you?”

In other words: What voice taught you to see yourself this way? Who gave you this interpretation of yourself? Who taught you to call your nakedness shameful? Who told you that being seen by Me was dangerous?

This question matters because shame always comes with a voice. Shame does not simply say, “You did something wrong.” Shame says, “You are wrong.” Shame gives us a new identity. It tells us that our failure is now the truest thing about us.

But that was not God’s voice.

God had not told them they were shameful. God had not told them to hide. God had not told them that nakedness made them unacceptable. That conclusion came from another voice. It came from the voice of the serpent, and then it became the voice inside themselves.

This is what the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil does. It gives human beings the dangerous burden of interpretation. It makes us think we can define good and evil, worthy and unworthy, clean and unclean, acceptable and unacceptable.

But that knowledge was never meant to belong to us in that way.

Only God can know good and evil without being corrupted by it. Only God can judge without becoming proud. Only God can see sin without losing love. Only God can name what is wrong without reducing a person to what is wrong.

When human beings take that knowledge into themselves, it does not make us more like God. It makes us afraid. It makes us judges. We begin by judging ourselves, and then we judge one another.

That is why the first fruit of the tree is shame.

Adam and Eve do not become wiser in the way they expected. They become self-conscious. They become fearful. They become defensive. They become hidden.

The serpent promised that their eyes would be opened. And they were opened. But opened eyes are not always healed eyes. Sight is not always grace. Some sight leads us away from life. Some sight teaches us to measure what God meant us to receive.

Grace is not about that kind of sight.

Grace does not begin by teaching us to see everything wrong with ourselves and others. Grace begins by calling us back to the One who sees us fully and still comes near. Grace does not deny sin. But grace refuses to let sin become our deepest identity.

So when God asks, “Who told you that you were naked?” He is challenging the voice of shame. He is asking Adam and Eve to examine the story they now believe about themselves.

Who told you that you are unacceptable? Who told you that you must hide? Who told you that exposure means rejection? Who told you that My presence is unsafe? Who told you that your nakedness is stronger than My grace?

This is where the gospel appears in the garden. God comes looking for those who are hiding. He questions the shame that has captured them. He exposes the false voice that has replaced His own.

Because the real tragedy is that after they disobeyed, they trusted shame more than they trusted God.

And we still do.

We still eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil whenever we make spiritual life about measuring ourselves. We still eat from it when we define people by their worst act. We still eat from it when we assume God sees us primarily through our failure. We still eat from it when we turn faith into a system of comparison, judgment, and fear.

But grace invites us back to the Tree of Life.

Grace says life is not earned by perfect moral measurement. Life is received from God. Grace says you do not have to become your own judge, your own defender, your own covering, or your own savior.

That is why God’s question still matters. Who told you that you were naked? Who taught you to see yourself outside of grace?

Once Adam and Eve accepted the voice of shame, their next instinct was to cover themselves. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

The first human response to sin was not confession and repentance. It was self-covering. They tried to repair their shame with something their own hands could produce.

This is the beginning of self-salvation.

The fig leaves represent every human attempt to make ourselves acceptable apart from God. We cover ourselves with religious performance, moral comparison, spiritual language, public respectability, theological correctness, discipline, success, service, and sometimes even humility. We learn how to appear clothed while still hiding.

But fig leaves cannot heal shame. They can only conceal it.

That is why Adam felt naked even after he had already made a covering. The fig leaves did not solve the problem. He was still afraid. He was still hiding. He was still separated from God.

This is the failure of every human covering. It may hide us from others, but it cannot restore us to God. It may help us manage appearance, but it cannot bring back communion. It may make us look acceptable for a while, but it cannot give life.

Grace does something different.

Later in Genesis 3, God makes garments of skin and clothes Adam and Eve. That is the first act of grace after the fall. God understood their shame, and He covered them.

Adam and Eve made fig leaves. God gave them garments.

That difference matters.

Fig leaves are what human beings make when they are afraid to be seen. God’s covering is what grace gives when we finally stop hiding. Fig leaves may conceal shame for a moment, but they cannot heal it. They cannot restore communion. They cannot make the heart unafraid.

Grace does not merely hide shame. Grace heals shame.

And the final completion of that grace will come when Jesus returns. Then, once and for all, our shame will be removed, and we will stand covered by the robe of His righteousness. What began in the garden as God covering Adam and Eve will end in the kingdom with God’s people fully clothed in Christ.

But those who depend on fig leaves will still feel naked when God appears. Their coverings cannot hold. Human achievement cannot cover the soul. Religious performance cannot cover fear. Knowledge cannot cover shame. Reputation cannot cover the distance from God.

The key is not to cover ourselves better.

The key is to let God see our nakedness and let Him cover us.

This is why the words of Jesus in John 3 matter so deeply. 

John 3: 16-21“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned, but those who do not believe are condemned already because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”

That is grace.

Christ did not come into the world because God was eager to condemn. He came because God wanted to save. Light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than Light. Why? Because light exposes. And when we live by fig leaves, exposure feels like condemnation.

That is the old fear from the garden, because we are afraid of what the light will reveal.

But grace changes the meaning of exposure. In judgment, exposure means condemnation. But in grace, exposure becomes healing.

The same voice that told Adam to fear a loving God still speaks to us. It tells us that the light of Christ is condemnation. But Jesus says the opposite. The Son did not come into the world to condemn the world, but to save it. Just like the Father in the garden, Jesus came to question the voice that lied to us, to expose our shame, and to cover what we cannot cover ourselves.

So the safest place for our shame is not darkness. It is the light of Christ.

So the question, “Who told you that you were naked?” is not only a question for Adam and Eve. It is a question for us. We still live among fig leaves. We still hide behind what we do, what we know, what we achieve, what we believe, and how others see us. We still try to make ourselves acceptable before we let God find us.

But God’s first movement toward fallen humanity was not abandonment. It was pursuit.

He came walking in the garden.

He called, “Where are you?”

He asked, “Who told you that you were naked?”

He exposed the false voice.

And then He covered them.

That is grace.

Grace does not pretend that Adam and Eve did nothing wrong. Grace does not erase the seriousness of sin. But grace refuses to let sin have the final word. Grace comes looking. Grace questions shame. Grace exposes the false voice. Grace covers what human hands cannot cover.

So the question comes to us now with unusual force: What are our fig leaves?

Are we still trying to make ourselves acceptable before we let God see us?

What would it mean to come into the Light and let Christ cover what we cannot cover ourselves?

The Tree of Knowledge opens our eyes to shame, measurement, comparison, fear, and judgment.

But the Tree of Life still stands as the invitation of grace.

Life is not found in hiding, self-covering. Life is not found in measuring ourselves as good or evil.

Life is found in coming into the Light of the God who sees us, calls us, saves us, and covers us with a grace we could never make for ourselves.

Discussion Questions: 

• What are our “fig leaves”?
• Jesus said the Son did not come to condemn but to save. What would change in our spiritual life if we truly believed that God’s light exposes us to heal us, not reject us?
• If this belief took root in us, how would others experience grace through us?

C-J: Kiran, as you were talking, I had this question: Why would God put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden right next to the Tree of Life? Because He knows all things, the beginning and the end. So I’m thinking there had to be a purpose. There was no surprise here.

I don’t think God wants us to be codependent. I think God wants relationship. Like a parent, sometimes you let a child fall, knowing that child is going to fall and get hurt. When a baby falls, you pick the child up and say, “Oh, good job. Try again.” But if you fall and get really hurt, other things begin to happen in the child. “Where’s Mom? What if I get hurt? Can I take care of myself?” That’s how we mature. That’s how we’re able to learn discernment. It’s through pain, through observation, and it has to be practiced.

You have to become not self-reliant, but coupled with God. That’s why we pray God’s promises. I can’t do this. I can’t produce my own grace.

Those fig leaves you’re talking about—I’ve been reading a book on multiple personalities and how people become fractured and then come back together again. If I liken that to the experience in the Garden of Eden, it becomes, “This is the only way I can protect myself. I have to create this other person.” My identity now is this because I’ve made this mistake and I can’t figure it out. I don’t know where this piece in the puzzle belongs.

It takes an adult to understand that it wasn’t a mistake; it was a process. You are not responsible for the harm that came to you. But the thing that was layered over everything was the trick, the lie: “Oh no, you’ll become just like God.” That means you’ll always be safe, right? You’ll have knowledge, understanding, discernment, power, access—all those things.

That lie was so powerful because Adam and Eve lacked the relationship of discernment and that sustainable covering. It doesn’t have cracks. It doesn’t become brittle as the leaves dry out and people begin to see the exposure of the truth, where we are lacking.

I think we all struggle with that. But when we come into relationship with God fully—with humility, grace, and gratitude—that relationship changes. We say, “I can do nothing without God.” God says, “You can do all things through Me.” It’s a very different paradigm.

We know our limitations. They’re connected to obedience. To me, obedience can sound like a harsh word, but love is the encompassing word. I do it out of love and gratitude.

How can you really explain the forgiveness of God to someone? The degree of pain and suffering that sin produces is unique to each of us and to how we internalize it. So when you say God is all-loving and forgiving, what does that mean to someone who has never experienced safety, security, love, or provision? They don’t really know what that looks like. They don’t even know how to engage with it. They’re always on the periphery.

So that gap is the lie. “Come close to Me as I draw close to you. Be not afraid or ashamed to come before Me, for I am the healing. I am not only a God of forgiveness; I am a God of restoration. I will restore you to being My sons and daughters.” All those promises are yours. They’re not denied to you because you believed the lie. You just have to understand how you got there. It’s in your head, not in God’s promise.

It’s really very profound. But what stuck out to me was: Why would God put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil right next to the Tree of Life? And what was the trigger? A lie.

Don: Kiran asked about what the fig leaves are, and I was struck by something that happened last night. I got a message from a friend of mine in Mecca, Saudi Arabia—a surgeon whom I know quite well and with whom I’ve had many conversations about spiritual things. He sent me a YouTube video explaining why Jesus Christ is not the Son of God or God Himself, but merely a prophet.

As you were talking, I found myself thinking that one of our fig leaves may be theological correctness. The metaphor of the two trees in the garden—which represent grace on the one hand and our own works on the other—really does have merit. If grace is the way we are saved, then theological correctness is not ultimately very important. It’s only important if it helps tell the story more clearly and more compellingly.

Yet my friend sent this to me because he wanted me to understand the theological correctness of the claim that Jesus is not God but a prophet.

C-J: I believe Jesus was a prophet as a man, but I believe He is God in terms of Spirit. When He transcended, He crossed dimensions. Do I believe the blood sacrifice literally lines up with the Jewish tradition? Yes. The Muslims have those first five books down pretty well. But I think we want God to be frosting on the cake—smooth and sweet. Whenever I try to put God in a box, I stumble. I always stumble when I want to say, “God is this,” because God is always revealing Himself through the finite dimension in which I live.

I’m constantly growing. I’m constantly saying what Kiran said today: “If this, then that.” God is not a metric. God is an energy that I don’t think we can fully grasp. We use symbols and things around us to help us find equilibrium, but I don’t think we can begin to fathom the power that created the universe, loves all creation, and wants to preserve it.

I don’t want God in a box. I want God to use me as an instrument. I want to see and understand even the difficult things: war, sickness, selfishness, cruelty. Somehow God uses those things. Does that mean God loved one person more because they didn’t experience all that ugliness? I can’t accept that. I think there’s a special grace for people who struggle.

I don’t want to choose sides. I want to be available to God so He can transform me in every moment of every day, even in my dreams. “What are You teaching me, Lord? How is my subconscious trying to find peace with these things in my mind—about war, about family, about love?”

God is a living reality. He creates and recreates. That is profound to me.

Kiran: I was reading Matthew this morning, and the repeated theme is that the Pharisees claim Jesus is healing on the Sabbath, His disciples are eating on the Sabbath, they’re not fasting, and so forth. In other words, they’re not theologically correct. “If you’re truly a person of God, you would follow everything in the law.”

Jesus responds in a couple of ways. He points to examples in Scripture, and then He says, essentially, “If you truly understood how God works, you would know what God desires.” He says, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

It’s not just Pharisees and Jews or Muslims or Christians who hide behind theological correctness. That’s a wonderful disguise. We can spend hours arguing on YouTube about who is right and who is wrong while staying very far away from God.

Because when God comes, He’s not arguing with us. He’s seeing our shame and covering us up. That personal relationship is not something we get through theological discussion. I’ve seen some of those debates online. The Muslim argument is that Jesus never called Himself God and therefore isn’t God, and that the Bible is corrupted because the Quran says it was changed. That’s a circular argument. The Jews have a similar argument. Jesus can’t be the Messiah because He didn’t unite the world and fulfill certain expectations.

David: Is religion, then, a fig leaf?

Kiran: That’s what I’m beginning to believe. There is a point to religion. It is supposed to point us to this loving God and teach us about Him. But often, because religion is full of sick people, there’s more sickness than healing. I don’t know how else to say it. Our sickness is what makes religion so problematic. Yet despite all that, it is still a hospital where healing can be found. That doesn’t mean God doesn’t have other avenues through which He can heal us.

My point is not to abandon religion, but not to make religion your center. Christ should be your center.

C-J: I think social norms carried through what we might metaphorically call the mandate of heaven are important. We have to work cooperatively and respectfully. We have traditions that unite family and community—sharing, taking care of the sick and elderly, helping strangers. In the Muslim tradition there is hospitality; whoever comes to you may be an angel unaware.

But I also think religion can become a millstone, a burden, whereas relationship with God is liberty. Through the Christian narrative, both literally and spiritually, I have come to believe that God awakens us as we walk by faith toward communion. “I don’t understand this, Lord, but I will continue to do this because it bears good fruit.”

What I’m really seeking is that garden relationship again, where there is no shame, where I trust that God is always in the room. We are our own worst enemies—our ego, our pride. Where am I on the food chain? It’s horrible.

God is saying that we are always in community through this experience of grace—being humble before God and asking for grace. Not my wisdom, Your wisdom. Not my way, Your way. Not my timing, Your timing. Not getting out in front of God. “Well, if You’re not going to do it, God, I’ll do it because I need it now.” Then afterward I realize it wasn’t necessary. It didn’t go badly; it just wasn’t necessary.

Sharon: My fig leaves are really not so much about my nakedness with my Savior, but I had a very traumatic experience this week involving an acute sense of shame and nakedness while filling out an application to teach an adjunct class at an unnamed Adventist institution of higher education.

I was asked many behavioral and very personal questions about whether I was “good enough”—everything from the length of my skirts to my eating habits to my daily worship with the Lord. The application was twelve pages long, and I had to type out all the answers.

I was amazed and shocked. I knew all the rhetoric. I could certainly talk the talk, and in many respects I probably do walk the walk. But when I finished the process, I felt ashamed, violated—literally violated.

To have so much of holiness construed in terms of these behavioral indicators and then to be evaluated as to whether I would be holy enough to teach their students—it was really an ugly experience of nakedness.

While I knew the words and put the words on the form because I wasn’t sure whether the Lord wanted me to pursue the opportunity or not, I’ve reflected on it ever since Monday. I’ll never be good enough. I’ll never be good enough to teach their students.

I think some of what we have to address regarding shame is the cultural impositions placed upon us. They lead us to question the robe of righteousness that we cognitively know we have. Yet culturally we are thrown into the arena and forced to fight over good and bad.

It left me feeling completely violated and naked this week. Thank you so much, Kiran, for bringing this topic up, because it brought back a flood of feelings from that experience.

Carolyn: Am I a stumbling block? Will I never be good enough? And even if I am, what are my actions based on? I like the realization that my worth is based only on my relationship with Jesus. I’m still in that limbo stage where you feel naked and uncertain. But I really appreciate what everyone has shared today.

Who is Jesus? He is my God, my Savior, my beloved, and my gift of grace. Everything comes from Him.

C-J: Sharon, I’m so sorry that you had that experience. I think experiences like that keep people out of the church regardless of what the doctrine says. It’s the condemnation. I am so sorry, because you have done so much as a human being through faith. You’ve made so many wonderful contributions. You’ve lifted people up, adopted children, and loved them. That’s just from the little I know about you.

You are a remarkable person. For them to put you through that is an atrocity. Forgive me if I offend anybody here, but you are so much more than that. Thank you for sharing, and I am so sorry.

Donald: I’m going to come at this from a slightly different angle. Yesterday, twenty of us gathered here in Rochester to honor my mother’s life. When we got back to the hotel afterward, we reflected on the people who had sat around the table and shared a meal together.

There were people from early in her life, people from the middle years, and people from the end of her life. There were people who thought of themselves as part of the family—sons of my mother and brothers to me. There was obvious family, but there was also a remarkable diversity in the group.

If we had gone around the table and asked everyone to explain who they were and what their faith journey had been, it probably would have created anxiety for some of us.

What I’m trying to say is that if I can be generous enough to say, “This is the way you think and this is the way I think, but I’m glad you’re as committed to your faith journey as I am to mine,” then I don’t necessarily need to correct you.

Instead, we need to figure out where we can join arms and stand together rather than against one another. I know that somewhat conflicts with how we often think as a faith group. Historically, when we talked about bringing people to Christ, we often meant bringing people into the subculture of the church. We wanted them to become more like us. But we’ve learned a great deal over the last several decades.

I think there’s much to be gained by quietly listening to other people share their deepest convictions and lifelong journeys with one another.

David: I’m curious. It seems that since we fell—since we ate from that tree—we clearly have to have some kind of covering, whether it’s fig leaves or the skins that God made. I’m assuming those skins were animal skins. But the implication seems to be that we need some sort of covering. We can’t go back. 

Would you agree with that? Or is Jesus actually telling us to go back? Are we supposed to become naked again, like a newborn baby? That’s probably the most blessed state a person can be in, and newborns are generally naked.

C-J: I don’t think so. I don’t think God wants us to go back. I think God has always wanted us to go forward and do great things as a witness and testimony to life. This world is transient. We are meant to be builders of community and creators of good things—libraries, hospitals, schools, all the wonderful and creative things human beings have done. We don’t always use them for good, but every parent wants their children to move forward, be fruitful, multiply, do good works, make the world a better place, remember family and community, and remain in relationship with God.

Being in relationship with God is the core of all of that. Knowing which religious tradition you identify with isn’t nearly as important as understanding that without God, none of this would exist. There would be no plan. Perhaps there wouldn’t even be time as we understand it.

I think God wanted us to be free to choose liberty responsibly—to understand that we are stewards of one another and of the planet. And we can’t really understand that without the grace that comes only from God. We can be nice to one another. We can say, “That was kind of you.” But God’s grace isn’t measured in cups or portions. It simply flows.

And regarding the covering, I don’t think we can fully understand it.

Michael: It seems to me that everything around us tells us that we’re naked. Our culture, society, religion—everything seems to tell us that we’re naked. But I wonder, at the time of the Fall, how much of that existed. And I wonder whether there is something inside each of us, independent of culture and society, that also tells us we’re naked.

I wonder if that’s the more important thing to understand.

Carolyn: I think we have the joy of having the Holy Spirit within us to combat the ugliness of the serpent and all his suggestions about who we are and what we are.

As I look at my own life, I don’t know if I’ve learned to listen as closely as I should or rely on the Holy Spirit as much as I should. Then we stop looking at every short skirt or every external covering, and instead we look to Jesus and to His grace alone. I’m just walking. I’m just a novice. I need His grace. I need His Holy Spirit. I need all of it together.

Sometimes I’m not mature enough to fully understand it, but I know I can be taught. I know I can look toward the light. It may come slowly, but that’s what I have to rely upon.

C-J: I think leadership is so important in a covenant spiritual community. Like a parent who can see danger coming down the road and says, “Honey, don’t do that,” or, “Have you considered this? I’ve seen this before.” Good leadership rightly divides the Word of God—not with condemnation, but with grace and love. “I put this story here for you. I put this lesson here for you. Look at the cost of sin when it goes unaddressed.”

I don’t think most people intentionally go out looking for sin. Some do, but those who have walked with God for a long time can often see it coming. We can smell it. We can hear it. We say, “Oh no. I’m out of here.” But we need leadership. We need one another. Confession of weakness and mutual prayer strengthen us. When we say, “I’m lost. I’m confused. I’m afraid,” we go before the Lord with those things. In community, someone can say, “Come on. Let’s take a walk. Let’s pray. Let’s claim God’s promises over this situation.”

We’ve been given that gift. And we demonstrate it by the way we live. Those are the leaves Kiran was talking about—not leaves of hiding, but reminders that we too are fragile without God’s covering. I am deeply dependent on the good teaching I received when I was young. I also remember the bad teaching I received.

We are all humble before God. And we are all naked before God.

Robin: Regarding Jesus being a prophet—amen, He was a prophet. But He was a prophet who was better qualified than God Himself only if He actually was God. There were several times when the Jews wanted to stone Him because He claimed powers that they understood belonged only to God.

In John 10:30, Jesus says, “I and the Father are one,” and they wanted to stone Him for blasphemy. In John 8:58, Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Again, they recognized this as a claim to divinity and wanted to stone Him. Another example is when He forgave sins. They understood that only God had the authority to forgive sins.

So I would say that a prophet who lies about who he is would not be a prophet at all.

And then, Dr. Weaver, do people who are perfectly healthy and have no problems come to see you? Or is it people who need help because they’re looking for a physician or surgeon who can make them better?

Don: The latter, of course.

Robin: Exactly. Those who are well don’t need the physician. We need the physician because, even when we do our best to listen to the Holy Spirit, none of us can do it perfectly all the time. In fact, even the power to resist temptation is grace itself.

And then—this may sound a little silly—but speaking as a taller woman, I’m five foot eight. I’m not six feet tall, but I’m taller than average. When you buy dresses or skirts off the rack, clothing manufacturers design those lengths for the average American woman, who is about five foot four. So how do you think those hemlines fall on me?

Now, modesty still matters. There are mini-skirts and micro-mini-skirts, and we see that all over television. But to judge someone’s fitness to teach students based on skirt length? Do all skirts and dresses have to fall below the knee in order to qualify as modest? There are parameters, certainly, but they can become too strict. Then we come across as judgmental. On the other hand, we can’t go to the opposite extreme and act as though we have no responsibility to maintain modesty.

Lately I’ve seen something else that concerns me. Some people seem to use grace as an excuse. They say, “Well, if I have a habit of viewing pornography, I don’t need to worry because God gives enough grace.” I think that’s an abuse of grace. If Jesus wouldn’t do it and Jesus wouldn’t approve of it, then I don’t think we can simply say, “Well, there’s enough grace, so it doesn’t matter.” Otherwise sin wouldn’t matter at all.

There are extremes on both sides.

Don: I wonder whether the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was actually a fig tree, and whether the leaves Adam and Eve sewed together came from that very tree. It’s a powerful metaphor. The story of the two trees in the garden really is profound, and you’ve done a nice job outlining it, Kiran. 

To think that at humanity’s first fall the concept of grace was already being shared metaphorically with Adam and Eve is a powerful reminder of something important for us to consider.

David: I was thinking exactly the same thing—that perhaps the fig tree was the Tree of Knowledge. If so, wrapping ourselves in fig leaves would, in a sense, be wrapping ourselves in knowledge. It becomes the thing that protects us from the world. And that’s what we do.

Something else struck me. I had never noticed until Kiran’s presentation that the word “wise” is also associated with the tree. The serpent says that eating from it would make them wise. So it isn’t merely a tree of knowledge. Apparently it is also a tree of wisdom—or at least the promise of wisdom—which is very interesting to me.

If we’re wrapping ourselves in a garment of wisdom, is that sufficient? Is that perhaps the garment God made for us in our fallen state? The text simply says skins. I’m assuming animal skins, but given that this is the Bible, you have to wonder whether there is something more symbolic happening there. Maybe not. Maybe it just means skins. But I suspect there may be something deeper in the metaphor.

C-J: I think the skins point back to blood—to sacrifice. A life for a life. I don’t think it’s primarily about the material itself. I think it’s about what it cost.

As for wisdom, how many times does Scripture warn us about being wise in our own eyes? We have limited understanding. It’s only God’s covering that brings true enlightenment.

So many times I find myself back on the same sidewalk. It may look a little different. It may be a different neighborhood. But somehow it’s the same sidewalk. And God says, “I’m not testing you, C-J. I want you to know that I carried you here. You could have wandered off the sidewalk, but I carried you here so that you can be merciful and forgiving to people who live here—people who have caused great harm.”

You could have gone somewhere else, but God says, “I am with you.” That’s God’s wisdom, not mine. Why am I back on that sidewalk? Am I ready? No. Do I want to be there? No. I don’t trust myself. I don’t want to become dirty. I don’t want to be in that unhealthy environment.

And yet God says, “I want you to go over here.”

Kiran: Regarding what Michael said, I don’t think it is the external voice that first tells Adam and Eve they are naked. It is they themselves who judge themselves as naked.

And David, coming back to your point, it is the serpent who tells them they will become wise.

As for the garments in the Garden of Eden, God covers them with garments of skin.

But ultimately, at the resurrection, the Bible says we will be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. That will be our final garment. The Bible doesn’t speak about us making our own garments. It speaks about being clothed with His.

Don: Well, very provocative thoughts.

And thank you, Kiran, for your help.

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