Genesis 3:7–11

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.

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.

Then the LORD God called to Adam man and said to him, “Where are you?”

So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

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?”

What’s wrong with being naked?

Nothing; the Bible doesn’t say that their fear was rational. Remember, before the fall they weren’t afraid of anything—even a talking snake.

Now, all of a sudden, they see good and evil all around them. That creates a kind of sensory overload and they’re overwhelmed by it all. Before, they weren’t afraid of anything; now everything is scary.

So they’re afraid of being naked, even though they already had covered themselves. Then again, if there are no-see-ums in the garden, maybe their fear isn’t so crazy after all.

Of course, there’s one key evil that they’re suddenly aware of—their own. They now have a good reason to hide from God.

Adam’s explanation as to why they were hiding isn’t the whole truth.

And his “explanations” are about to get worse.

Being able to see our own evil is essential. Our fallen nature is a tragedy, but without our ability to see and comprehend it, we’d be a lot worse off.

As an example, consider the Constitution of the United States. The founders understood our fallen human nature and realized that power corrupts (or, more likely, makes corruption manifest). They realized that too much power concentrated in a single person (or even a single branch of government) would lead to no end of problems.

So they wrote protections against that into the structure of the nation they were inventing. They set up a balance of powers between three separate branches of the government (legislative, executive, and judicial).

They wrote in checks and balances between those branches. Each branch, if need be, can be held to account by the other two.

The result is the longest lasting constitution in the history of man.

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These weekday DEEPs are written by Mike Slay. Saturdays' by Matt Richardson. Subscribe here: https://www.ailbe.org/resources/community

The weekly study guides, which include questions for discussion or meditation, are here: https://www.ailbe.org/resources/itemlist/category/91-deep-studies

Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV stands for the English Standard Version. © Copyright 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NIV stands for The Holy Bible, New International Version®. © Copyright 1973 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NASB stands for the New American Standard Bible. Used by permission. All rights reserved. KJV stands for the King James Version.