dujavi said:
I aggree that we should all be modest, and by that I mean all clothes.
We live in a fallen world ever since Adam and Eve sinned. They were ashamed. God gave them cloths.
Talking about naturism in the garden of eden would be different.
Hi. Here is a section out of something I composed on the subject of nakedness. It regards what happened to Adam and Eve at the the fall with respect to the shame that they felt.
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In their state of innocence and ignorance of good and evil, Man's fall immediately imbued him with a strong sense of vulnerability - a vulnerability encompassing the whole person -- (contra gnosticism, which separates the two). In restoring them back to a covenantal relationship with Him, God refocused that vulnerability and dealt with the ethical reason for our parents' shame in the Garden: their sin. He did this by providing forgiveness and spiritual restoration. In short, Man was given a second chance to understand the creation (including his own body) rightly, and in light of God's revelation through creation.
The anti-naturist position
proves too much. If the animal skins were worn to hide (inherent) "shame", Adam and Eve could not very well have removed them to have relations without violating this moral, in-built law of nature.
The animal skins ceased their symbolic significance at least by the time of Abraham, when circumcision began to visibly identify those who were members of God's covenant.
Today, our sacramental covering (atonement) is BAPTISM (water). It is
permanent, unlike the animal skins (barring apostasy), which could be removed at any time. The woman has an additional "covering" of subordination, which is her long hair (I Cor.11).
ii) The creation environment was cursed by the fall, resulting in harsher climate conditions, and including "thorns and thistles". Naturally, Man would need clothes for the very practical purpose of protection from the environment.
iii) God
accommodated Adam and Eve by
allowing (not "commanding") them to wear clothes. (Interestingly, this comes from a quotation by R.C. Sproul in a talk on nakedness from Genesis.) Their new knowledge (which came before its appointed time, ref. Jordan), rather than opening their eyes to the inherent "shame" of nudity, opened their eyes instead to the reality of sin, and consequently to the ways in which the body could be perverted, abused or made vulnerable. On this occasion, God accommodates them in their infancy by providing clothes to deal with the confusion of their immature state and childlike understanding until they reached a more mature understanding of the world through experience.
Had they not sinned, remaining faithful to God's command to abstain from the tree of knowledge of good and evil during their probation in the Garden, they would have eventually been granted this knowledge. Knowledge of good and evil in the Bible is always associated in Scripture with
WISDOM AND GODLY RULE:
a. Solomon prays to be given "an understanding heart to judge your people, to discern between GOOD AND EVIL. For who is able to judge this your weighty people?" ( I Kings 3:9).
b. The wise woman of Tekoa said to David, "For as the angel of god, so is my lord the king to discern GOOD AND EVIL (II Sam.14:17).
c. God appears to Laban and warns him not to pass judgment on Jacob: "Take heed to yourself that you do not speak to Jacob either GOOD OR EVIL (Gen.31:24).
d. Infants (in knowledge), such as Adam and Eve were, do not have the wisdom to know good and evil in this judicial sense (Deut.1:39), and frequently the aged lose this capacity due to senility (II Sam.19:35).
e. Had Adam and Eve matured in the covenant by learning obedience, God would have weaned them off their milk and given them "solid food" (the Tree of Knowledge): "For everyone who partakes of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a BABE; but SOLID FOOD is for the MATURE, who because of practice have their senses exercised to DISCERN GOOD AND EVIL (Heb.5:13-14).
As Mankind steadily matures in Christ through knowledge of good and evil, he learns discernment and wisdom, which includes being able to distinguish between healthy, normal nudity and nudity that is intended to evoke sinful responses and behaviors. In short, we learn that nothing (including the naked body) is unclean in and of itself (to paraphrase Paul in Rom.14).
Nakedness can be enjoyable and honorable, or it can be twisted and perverted through sin. Wisdom knows the difference.
