n image of a silhouette of Adam and Eve, looking into a sunset next to a lake, with beautiful flowers and plants around them, digital art

What’s inherently evil about nakedness?

“What’s inherently evil about nakedness?”

My friend asked this question a few days ago on a Discord group. While he was reading the MacArthur Study Bible, he came across a strange note that said, “Adam’s sin was evidenced by his new knowledge of the evil of nakedness.” This statement assumes that nakedness, in and of itself, is evil.

Inherently evil?

A photo of Asa's question on Discord

The study Bible even clarifies itself in a note for Genesis 1:27 that Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed because the evil of nakedness hadn’t been revealed to them yet. Essentially, it was saying that nakedness was evil, even before the fall.

My friend thought this was an odd thing to say. Someone flaunting their nakedness on a street today is disturbing to us, but Adam and Eve were perfect. They lived in a world that had no touch of evil or sin. Nakedness couldn’t have been evil before the fall. Depravity entered the world after Adam and Eve sinned, not before. They didn’t suddenly “discover” that they had been in a super embarrassing state since they were created. If nakedness were a sub-optimal state of being, God would have created them with clothes. After all, if he wasn’t satisfied with his creation he wouldn’t have said it was “very good.”

My response

I responded to my friend with:

Text that says, "I just researched this the other day. I might have to find my sources again though.<br><br>I looked into it because in the Scandinavian culture, boys and girls of all ages are naked around each other without shame (at least they say they have no shame).<br><br>Although, nakedness is definitely not inherently evil, the ESV commentary is inaccurate on that point. Adam and Eve were naked without sinning. Shame came after the fall.<br><br>It wasn’t like Adam suddenly discovered that nakedness was bad, and he’d been ignorant beforehand."

(Note: It was the MacArthur Study Bible, not the ESV Study Bible. I misidentified it from my friend’s photo.)

Then, I did some research. I reminded myself of what I had learned the last time I had looked into the issue, and found some new things along the way.

After that, I went back to Discord and wrote nonstop for three hours. 

This is what I wrote:


[Note: The clarity and some details of the following text have been edited from the original.]

Ok, so here’s what I found: Nakedness is not inherently evil, and there may be times when public nudity is ok. (I define “public nudity” as wearing no clothes in view of other people.1)  It’s not what I expected, and that’s probably why I forgot my discoveries from my previous research.

Adam and Eve: clothed in God’s glory

One theory for where Adam and Eve’s shame came from is that before the fall they were clothed in glory.  However, once they sinned, they noticed the loss of that glory and it caused shame. It reminds me of the reason why Moses covered his face when it was shining with God’s glory: he didn’t want the Israelites to see the glory fade (2 Cor 3:13).

Support for this theory also comes from where the Bible talks about God “clothing” us with righteousness (Is. 61:10; Ps. 132:9; Rev. 19:8, etc.). So, even though we lost our glory and are now naked, God will restore our glory again in the future.

C.S. Lewis and the “Radiant Ones”

In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis seems to reinforce this view.2 Residents of Lewis’s version of heaven are described as, “Some were naked, some robed. But the naked ones did not seem less adorned.” One of the naked ones is described as being “blindingly white.”

Other than that, the main character of the story recounts this about one of the Great Ones of Heaven:

“I cannot now remember whether she was naked or clothed. If she were naked, then it must have been the almost visible penumbra of her courtesy and joy which produces in my memory the illusion of a great and shining train that followed her across the happy grass. If she were clothed, then the illusion of nakedness is doubtless due to the clarity with which her inmost spirit shone through the clothes. For clothes in that country are not a disguise: the spiritual body lives along each thread and turns them into living organs.”

The message that C.S. Lewis is trying to get across here is that the glory of God’s goodness can be its own kind of clothing.

Another theory: distrust and lost innocence 

John Piper has another theory. He says, 

“The shame of nakedness arises from two sources, and both of them are owing to the collapse of the foundation of covenant love in our relationship with God. One is that Eve is no longer reliable to cherish me; she has become selfish and I feel vulnerable that she will put me down for her own selfish ends. The other is that I already know that I am guilty myself, and the nakedness of innocence contradicts my unworthiness—I am ashamed of it.” 

So Piper says shame comes from our distrust of other people and our brokenness. Being naked brings to mind our lost innocence and sinfulness.

Is nudity wrong today?

But the bigger question is: Is nudity wrong today? And that is the question almost no one has any good answers for. But evidence appears to point towards a surprising conclusion.

Where are the direct commands against nakedness?

First, there is no “Thou shalt not be naked” verse. This should be shocking to you if you think public nudity is morally reprehensible. Many people use Genesis 3 to say public nudity is bad. But many facts about Genesis 3 contradict this. 

People say that you should feel sinfully shameful (based on Genesis 3) when naked in front of others. Expect… between married couples. They say that’s fine. Yet that’s what Adam and Eve were—married. Even so, they still felt shame. 

Their own nakedness 

Additionally, it doesn’t seem like they were ashamed at seeing each other’s nakedness, but rather that they were ashamed about their own nakedness (“they knew they were naked,” Gen 3:7). Do you feel ashamed when you are naked by yourself? I don’t know about you, but I don’t 😅. It would be really weird if you did.

That’s why the theory that says they lost God’s glory makes so much sense. Adam and Eve didn’t notice that nakedness was evil. Instead, they noticed that they had become evil. Their shame was caused by their sin. The reason why nakedness was connected with that is because they had been previously clothed in glory.

Going back to the previous argument, if you try to use Genesis 3 to condemn public nudity, you should instead come to a strange conclusion: married couples shouldn’t see each other naked, or, you shouldn’t see yourself naked.

Modesty

But what about commands relating to clothing in the rest of the Bible? Well, they’re few and far between, but there are still some.

In the New Testament, women are commanded to wear modest and decent clothing (1 Pet. 3:3-4; 1 Tim. 2:9-10). However, those are talking about how you shouldn’t wear extravagant clothing. They don’t directly address the absence of clothing.

Naked Prophets

Where it gets really strange are all of the naked prophets in the Old Testament. These guys can’t really be explained at all by no-nudity adherents. Do you remember that bizarre passage where Saul gets naked with a bunch of prophets (1 Sam. 19:24)? Or how Isaiah went naked for a few years (Is. 20:2-4)? Yeah, that really happened.

How do we explain those examples? If public nudity was morally wrong, then God would not have told his prophets to be naked.

A surprising conclusion

There is only one conclusion that makes sense: public nudity isn’t necessarily morally wrong. It could be a bad idea or wrong in some circumstances (like alcohol or meat sacrificed to idols), but it’s not a cut-and-dry thing.

Plus, if public nudity was morally wrong, then it would be wrong to let doctors see you naked or for the elderly to be taken care of. Even for those with strict modesty standards, those two examples would probably be accepted as fine and normal. For example, while this article on biblicalmodesty.com rails against opposite-gender doctors doing nude medical examinations, they still think it’s fine to do same-gender nude medical examinations.

Oddly enough, even though biblicalmodesty.com’s arguments should also prohibit same-gender nude examinations, they don’t believe that. Instead, even people with strict standards on this issue will acknowledge (or blindly assume) exceptions to their framework. Why? Because after reading dozens of articles on the subject, I’ve noticed that people are basing their standards on culture rather than God’s Word.

Tragic moral choices

Some people might justify doctors seeing people naked because it’s an example, they’ll say, of a tragic moral choice. “Yes, you should never be naked,” they argue, “but not allowing doctors to see a sick person naked could be a greater evil than the evil of nakedness. That’s why it’s fine for doctors to see people naked.” This same argument could be extended to a number of other similar circumstances as well.

However, I don’t believe in “tragic moral choices” where you have to “choose the lesser evil.”3 If you believe that those kinds of choices exist, you could make the argument that “nudity is evil, but not caring for the elderly is more evil. Therefore, we can make an exception.” But that’s messed up morality and no one should take that seriously. You can justify literally anything with fuzzy logic.4

Negative portrayals of nakedness

Another counterargument someone could make is pointing out all of the negative portrayals of nakedness in the Bible. Yes, the Bible frequently mentions how God will “reveal their nakedness” and such (Na. 3:5; Jer. 13:26; Ez. 16:37). But what all of these examples have in common is that the people being judged had committed horrible sins. These verses aren’t saying nakedness is wrong, they’re saying that the naked truth is super embarrassing.

The Purpose of Clothing

So, what’s the conclusion to all of this? Should everyone across the world stop wearing clothes? No, I don’t think that’s the right response. You see, I’ve left something out.

Let’s go back to Genesis 3. Near the end of the chapter, God makes clothes out of skin for Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21). This clothing is extremely significant, because not only did the clothing require the first sacrifice of all time—a shadow of Christ’s sacrifice—but it also showed how a sacrifice would cover the sin and shame of mankind (1 Jn. 2:2). Remember, clothing often represents how we will be covered in Christ’s righteousness throughout the Bible (Is. 61:10; Zech. 3:3-5).

Clothing is “normal”

God normalized clothing by doing this. In other words, he gave his stamp of approval on wearing clothing as a normal thing.

John Piper says it’s like God is telling them, “…you shall wear clothing, not to conceal that you are not what you should be, but to confess that you are not what you should be.” So clothing is a sign God has given us to remind us that we have fallen short of God’s glory and that we need to be clothed in his goodness once again.

The Final Point

Putting everything together, my final point is this: Clothing should usually be worn, and public nudity is fine when you have a good reason that doesn’t contradict the law of love. But it’s not fine if the nudity is being used for evil.

What are some potentially good reasons for people to be seen naked? 

Here are a few:

  • to care for an elderly individual
  • certain medical reasons and surgeries
  • caring for children (diapers, potty training, etc.)
  • around the house (I mean, it can be practical)
  • swimming (I know… but it’s an ancient tradition)5
  • in marriage (duh)

This list is not exhaustive. I haven’t even gone into the forgotten history of public nudity. (It was far more common than I ever realized.)

How would nudity contradict the law of love?

Just like drinking alcohol in front of an alcoholic can tempt them into sin, being nude before someone who struggles with sexual sin is also wrong. However, this should not be made into an argument that says everyone should always be fully clothed. 

Ultimately, people cause themselves to sin. Viewing certain things does not cause someone to irresistibly sin. Muslim men are just as able to lust after the heavily clothed women in their culture as any other man in any other culture.

How can nudity be used for evil?

I don’t really think I need to explain…


Notes

  1. My use of the term “public nudity” should not be confused with the legal definition which says, “Public nudity means the indecent exposure of nakedness in a public place.” ↩︎
  2. Another book by C.S. Lewis that addresses nakedness is Perelandra. In Perelandra, someone from Earth visits Venus where the Creator is starting a new world with a new “Adam and Eve.” The main character interacts with the “Eve” of this world, even though they are both naked. The book says, “What overwhelmed him was not in the least the fact that she, like himself, was totally naked. Embarrasment and desire were both a thousand miles away from his experience: and if he was a little ashamed of his own body, that was a shame which had nothing to do with difference of sex and turned only on the fact that he knew his body to be a little ugly and a little ridiculous.” ↩︎
  3. See Christian Ethics by Wayne Grudem for more info. Specifically, Chapter 7 (pp. 187-208). ↩︎
  4. “Telling Christians they have to figure out some complicated “hierarchy” of moral obligations will usually result in a mushy moral backbone and weak convictions. Example: College students especially will quickly become skilled at rationalization of all their immoral activities.” – Wayne Grudem, Why Christians Never Have to Choose “The Lesser Sin” ↩︎
  5. Skinny dipping is actually a very ancient practice that only became culturally unacceptable in the US just recently (i.e., the past four decades). Although it seems to have been forgotten, guys were required to swim naked at YMCA’s until the 1970s and a few YMCA’s carried on the practice into the 1980s. Even historical figures like Benjamin Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt regularly went skinny dipping! ↩︎

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