Clothing

I've been listening to Piper's current series on marriage lately. Ipods and podcasts are really cool, by the way. A week or two ago, he talked about being naked and not ashamed. He was referring back to Genesis 2:25 and the end of God's definition of marriage. As he was talking about the clothing Adam and Eve used to cover themselves after the fall I was really struck with the gospel in this passage. Adam and Eve started out as perfect and therefore there was no need to cover themselves. There was no sin. But as soon as they sinned, they knew they needed to cover themselves. And I was struck with the truth that as fallen human beings, we recognize our sinfulness and attempt to cover ourselves with our own handmade clothing. We do good deeds, give money to the poor, try to live a good life, attend some church, etc. We even recognize those individuals who don't attempt to cover their sins as evil (e.g. serial killers). But this doesn't even come close to acheiving God's standard. We are standing before God with garments of fig leaves saying "See God, I clothed myself, aren't you happy?" When what we need to do is fall before Him, and acknowledge our sinfulness and need to be clothed by Him. When we do that, God shows mercy on us and clothes us with new clothes - the blood of Christ, our righteousness. In the Garden of Eden, God removed the man-made clothes of Adam and Eve and killed an animal to give them clothes of skin. Blood was required to cover up their sin. God demanded a greater blood sacrifice to not just cover sin, but eradicate it. As Christians, we no longer walk around in our man-made fig leaf abominations. Rather we walk around in clothes wrought with blood. Praise God for that! Praise God that we can't earn it! Praise God that we don't have to try and make adequate clothing for ourselves, but that He has graciously provided all we will ever need to be holy before Him!