You’ve had the dream before, probably more than once. You’re at school or at work. Everything and everyone around you seems pretty normal. There’s nothing unusual…until you suddenly notice that you’re not wearing anything but your underwear! You immediately think to yourself, “How in the world did I make it all the way here without realizing I forgot one very important detail this morning…getting dressed!” Just then you realize that everyone is looking at you. They’re staring, they’re pointing and they’re laughing. You feel the weight of their judgment and the embarrassment. It is a nightmare. It is horrible. And then, just when you can’t take the shame and humiliation any more, you finally wake up. Whew!!! It was just a dream. Thank God.
Almost of all of us have had dreams like that one. But, have you ever asked yourself why? Why is this type of fear of exposure and scrutiny so basic to the human condition? I believe this is yet one more reminder of our universal need for the Gospel. It points to our shameful condition apart from the grace of God, and our need for the grace of God.
When our spiritual parents, Adam and Eve, were in the garden before the Fall, the Bible says something about them that makes us scratch our heads: “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25). How is this possible? How could they be completely naked, completely exposed and yet not feel shame?
Here’s the simple answer: There was no sin yet! There was nothing wrong. Shame did not exist. There was nothing judge-able and nothing to be ashamed of. Adam and Eve were everything God intended them to be.
Once they made their dreadful choice of fruit over God, however, everything changed. For the first time, they sensed that something was wrong. They felt guilt and shame. They felt vulnerable before the eyes of God and others. What did they do? Did they run back to God for help? Nope. Rather than trusting in the goodness and graciousness of God, they got to work trying to solve their own problem. They sewed fig leafs together in an attempt to cover themselves. And clothing has existed ever since.
Clothes represent our efforts to hide ourselves. Our outward coverings are emblematic of our desire to cover ourselves inwardly, to hide our flaws from the eyes of others. Those embarrassing dreams we’ve all had reflect our innate aversion to exposure and vulnerability. We don’t want to be seen for who we really are beneath all the artificial, man-made coverings. We don’t want to be judged, especially by people.
You see, deep down, we all know that we are judge-able. We all know that there is something wrong with us, that we are flawed, that we are not what we should be. On the inside, we are ugly sinners. In our honest moments, we know it is true. And we want to cover it. We want to hide it. We want to convince people that we’re not as bad as we know ourselves to be. That’s our only hope for acceptance, approval, and escape from judgment and shame.
There are basically only two options for us.
We can, like Adam and Eve, try to solve our own problem. We can continue the human game of trying to cover ourselves and trying to hide. We can continue fleeing to the darkness and avoiding the Light (John 3:20). We can keep drinking in the poison of our self-esteem culture; we can continue trying to convince ourselves that we are not that bad, hoping that if we say the lie enough to ourselves we’ll believe it. We can keep turning our spotlights of scrutiny onto others in hopes that we won’t be noticed. We can keep playing a game which is ultimately unwinnable—everyone is eventually exposed for who they really are—or we can run back to our gracious God who is willing to cover.
Let’s return to the story of Adam and Eve. Despite being pushed out of their lives, God re-inserted Himself into their lives as a compassionate coverer. In a beautiful foreshadowing of the crucifixion, God killed an animal and covered Adam and Eve with its skin (Gen. 3:21). It was a symbol of His commitment to deal with the human problem of guilt and shame.
This gracious act of God providing physical covering points us to the spiritual covering He has provided for us in Christ. Jesus came and lived a life of perfection and shamelessness and then died a death of sin and shame in our place so that we might be saved, rescued from our miserable plight. At great cost to Himself, He was willing to provide clothing for our souls. He, like that animal back in the garden, was killed so that we might be clothed in His righteousness forever. The book of Revelation portrays the people of God wearing white robes, washed by the blood of Christ (cf. Rev. 7:14-17; 22:13-14). That is how God sees us.
In Jesus, we have become un-judge-able. Oh, people can still scrutinize us. They can poke and prod us with criticism and condemnation. It’s a free country. They can say what they want. But, in the final court of arbitration—the only one that really matters—the verdict is in and it favors us. Because of Christ, we are Innocent, Perfect, Right! We are hidden in Him. There is nothing wrong with us. We are all what we were originally meant to be. In heaven, there will be no trace of guilt or shame, not the slightest feeling of embarrassment or vulnerability. We will be safe forever in the gaze of God and others and we will forever have Jesus to thank.