Genesis 3 is a crucial turning point in the opening narrative of the Bible. Everything about life, existence, man, woman, leadership, deception, lies, victory, salvation, and damnation - all of this, is evidenced in this single chapter. It is not an exaggeration to say that everything goes back to the Garden. This is why I coined the phrase: "Garden Theology" Over the next few writings I will seek to flesh this out in a small, but significant way.
As the title suggests, the first point of examination is understanding shame, its root cause and how to overcome it. This will involves showing a vital connection between chapter 2 and 3. This bridge is found in comparing chapter 2:25 and chapter 3:7. Those verses read as follows:
"And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:25)
"Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig
leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God
walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the
presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:7, 8).
The scripture teaches that the reality of shame only entered the heart and mentality of man when they made the choice to live opposite the wisdom of their Creator. We know this because in 2:25 we are told that they were naked and unashamed. Then, in chapter 3:7, after the account of their transgression, we are told that Adam and Eve's response to their nakedness was different. Now, once unashamed of their nakedness, they became ashamed of it covering themselves from one another and then hiding from God. The nakedness they saw and knew in chapter 2:25 is now the cause for their shame, demonstrated as self-protection. The reason for the change is as simple as it is chaotic: the sin in 3:1-6.
Sin is the root cause of shame because sin distorts and deforms one's perception of their true identity. In our day shame is described as those feelings that cause us to think less of ourselves than we should. While this is not altogether wrong, it is not the full story. Shame is a sense of feeling inferior due to something we have done or something that has happened to us. Yet, the power of shame is never the things to happen to us but the identity when begin to form of ourselves because of it. Whatever you think of yourself when you remember the sins in your past reflects the identity that most governs you.
Let that sentence sink in. Ponder it.
I have had several things in my life that caused shame upon my mental retrieval of it. I know the past is real, but I also know that nothing in my past can hurt me unless I allow it to have a present power. That includes traumatic experiences. All disobedience and, therefore, shame flow out of original sin (Genesis 3:1-6). Since this is the case, the remedy for shame is the same as the remedy for original sin: a transformative relationship with Christ.
I am not minimizing what one might feel because of a trauma in their past, nor am I dismissing acts of disobedience. What I am doing is showing that shame is like quicksand. It seeks to hold you in a kind mental and emotional position where its whispered threats of insecurity and inferiority take you captive. When Adam and Eve sinned their first response was shame's initial strategy: "run and hide it." Shame calls us to run because shame knows that exposed of it is its kryptonite. That is the real battle against and with shame: reminding ourselves of who we are in Christ.
What Christ has done for us is the eternal equivalent of what God did for Adam and Eve: He covered their nakedness (their sin) and thus vanquished their shame. Verse 21 says, "And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them" (Genesis 3:21). The only remedy against shame and the sin that produces it is God's righteousness that eliminates it. It is not that shame will not rear its ugly, tempting head. It is, rather, that the sting and stick of shame's accusations has been crushed.
The Lord, by our union with Christ, clothes us with Christ's righteousness so that, standing before the Lord on that last day, we are clean, forgiven and justified (Romans 8:1; Philippians 1:6). Here is the hope of being clothed against the stain of shame in and by the gospel.
"2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it
on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—
not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal
may be swallowed up by life."
Note the use of the words naked and unclothed (a picture of the consequence of Adam and Eve's sin, Genesis 3:7) as well as the use of "put on our heavenly dwelling" and "clothed" (a picture of the covering in Genesis 3:21). In Christ we are clothed (God-protected, and not self-protected, from sin and shame.