Eyes Of The Shameful
Our eyes are vital to our senses and help us relate to the world. Through the eyes, we are given a multitude of visual inputs every second. With our eyes, we take in God’s creation and its beauty.
What is it that God wants us to see?
Looking back at the garden narrative, we can see what Adam and Eve saw with their eyes. But first, let us look at what God saw.
“God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. ”
The pattern of seeing creation as good is throughout the creation narrative on days one through five, but on day six, it is said to be exceedingly good because God’s most incredible creation comes to life.
Adam was created from the dust on the ground and the breath of life from God. (Gen 2.7) From the man, the woman was formed with his rib and was the perfect companion for man, for life could not be fully realized without the woman.
Together in God’s ideal creation were man and woman who, according to God, were perfect.
“And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”
Often in the garden narrative, the author would use the visual of nakedness to represent shame, and since everything in Eden was perfect without sin, Adam and Eve were presented as free of guilt or naked with nothing to hide.
God had planted these two in an ideal situation, but their eyes would be the turning point for their fall.
“The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. ”
God continued his beautiful aesthetics in the creation, and everything they saw was flawless, but the snake lied to them and deceived their eyes, and left them with an image they could not forget.
“For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. 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 desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. ”
The deception Eve believed was that her eyes would be opened. The snake had just pointed out a reality that Eve didn’t think she knew before; she fell for the lie that God was somehow deceptive towards her and her husband.
The truth was their eyes were already open, they had no shame, they did not see their nakedness, and their vision was already twenty-twenty.
It is often the enemy working through other people that we begin to see flaws, shortcomings, or less-than-desirable traits about ourselves that cause us to spiral down to a place where we tell ourselves we are not good enough.
Once sin enters, shame is sure to follow.
The shame-free, bold nakedness that once encapsulated the garden was lost once their eyes were open not to the goodness of God but to the lies of the enemy.
Often with shame, we try to hide so others do not see; it is no different with Adam and Eve; they immediately realized their shame and tried to cover and hide from God.
“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 loin coverings. 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. ”
We are not that far into the first scroll of the Hebrew scriptures, and already we see the work of God’s grace. God asked a fundamental question to Adam, asking “who told you that you were naked?” (Genesis 3.11) God was trying to ask who opened their eyes to shame.
Who told them lies that they could now not unsee?
It is interesting at this point, they try to cover their shame on their own without the aid of God. As someone who has felt shame in the past, I know that when we try to hide our guilt, it is never the same as when we trust God to cover our shame.
God is the only one who can take away the guilt and shame that we have; as we will see later God sends the perfect covering for all of our sins.
Often when we try to do God’s work on our own, we hide, just like Adam and Eve in the garden. They were running and hiding from God, thinking the omnipresent creator of the universe did not know where they were and what they had done. God knew exactly what had been done.
Most times, with our shame, God is the only one who knows. We as humans are fantastic, for the most part, at hiding our shortcomings and failure, our secret sins as they can be called, but God has eyes to see all as he is omniscient in this world. What did God do with his perfect creation that had become aware of their shame, and sin had entered the world?
God promised that death would follow the eating of this fruit, but as it was alluded to earlier, we see God's grace at work.
“The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. ”
We can agree that animal skins would better cover their nakedness than fig leaves; you can imagine how easily leaves would rip.
God is physically covering them more effectively, but if we look closer at the text, we should see that God is clothing them in his grace; they should have received death, but God spared them certain death. The author of this narrative is trying to highlight that when God covers us, it is more effective and better suited compared to when we try to take the place of God and cover ourselves.
So, where we find ourselves in the garden narrative are the first two humans who have opened their eyes to the shame in their lives; they have disobeyed the word of God and deserved death, but God was gracious in his love. To them, he gave the gift of grace and clothed them with it and sent them into the sinful, broken world.
Because of this broken world, we often find ourselves being told lies about ourselves. People are often quick to point out flaws or shortcomings; sometimes, these are ideas we had never thought of before they opened our eyes to them. Once we hear these lies, we cannot move away from seeing and thinking about them.
“O Lord, lead me in Your righteousness because my foes; Make Your way straight before me. There is nothing reliable in what they say; Their inward part is destruction itself; Their throat is an open grave; They flatter with their tongue. ”
As in the garden, it is the same here in our broken world that the enemy will use lies to distort the picture of ourselves and our image of God. We must keep our eyes open to what God is doing.
What do we see when we look at Jesus, the visible image of God? (Colossians 1.15)
“Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
“The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” ”
The Apostle Peter saw Jesus as the anointed God-man here on earth. John saw Jesus as the Passover lamb, the one who was perfect and would take away the sins of the world. Jesus also saw himself as the Son of Man, the one who was the firstborn of creation to bring God’s revelation to this world.
“And He said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. ”
When our eyes are fixed on God, the enemy’s lies become increasingly subdued. It is difficult to believe the lies when you know the truth that God considers true about his creation.
That is, we are worthy of his love; we are holy and perfect because we are made in the image of God.
Even though we live in a world of brokenness, and our eyes have been opened to the shame surrounding us, we have God who wants to clothe us in righteousness and grace. A God who was willing to send the Son of Man to the cross so that the blood of Christ could cover us.
The blood covers and frees us from our shame so we can again begin to walk in the nakedness God called us to in the garden.
