Dressed for Supper: What's covering your shame - Fig Leaves, Filthy Rags or Faith's Robe of Righteousness?

photo credit - Creative Commons cropped

As we come toward Easter in our calendar, we are once again given the opportunity to ponder on the awesome gift God has given us in Christ - in His death and resurrection. Our sins have been forgiven and we have been reconciled with God.  But this is only because we have been positioned and clothed 'in Christ'. 

As a woman I am so conscious of the pressure in our world today to 'look good'. Fashion is a major driver in our society.  I just have to take a look at how many shops in a large shopping mall are taken up with clothing.  

As human beings we need clothes and they can be great helps for a covering to keep warm and protected as well as opportunities to reflect the creativity of our Creator and exhibit items of beauty. But the first clothes which human beings ever attempted to make had nothing to do with keeping warm, protected or being creative or appreciating beauty.

The first clothes were to achieve a covering for another reason. And interestingly the final clothes we will wear for eternity are also not about warmth, protection, creativity or beauty.

The first clothes

The first clothes were loin-cloths made by Adam and Eve of sewn together fig-leaves in an attempt to cover their shame.  They were trying to hide themselves.

Something had gone horribly wrong.  The relationship they enjoyed with God had taken a nasty turn.

They had done something which caused them to suddenly find themselves afraid to be in God's presence because of this feeling of shame that had come upon them. They instinctively felt exposed.  The honour they had enjoyed was lost. 

They had an intense desire to cover their exposure so they tried sewing a few fig leaves together, but even with their attempts to cover-up they still felt exposed so they then tried to hide.

It was not until God killed the first animal to make skins for them as a covering that there seems to have been any sense of release from their fear and shame.

This is interesting on a couple of counts:

1. Their own attempts at a covering was not enough

- though they became aware of their need, their own creativity, innovation, ideas, efforts, skill, resourcefullness neither made them feel any better nor gained any acceptability with God.

2. The death of the first animal for the benefit of some sense of restored relationship with God was for a covering 

- this was not for substitutionary death for guilt. Though they stood guilty as accused before God (and refused to admit it), they still felt shame and separation.  What God did for them was to solve their sense of naked exposure and 'cover' their sinful state so that they could walk once again with God if they were willing.  We often read of this being a first image of the later pattern of the Mosaic laws which demanded an animal sacrifice for sin and that it was a glimpse of the future 'substitutionary' death of the lambs and then The Lamb to cancel our guilt.  

But this does not seem to be primarily about an animal death for the shedding of blood for the cancelling of sin's guilt - this was an animal death for the provision of skins for the covering of sin's shame.

From the beginning Sin is about shame, and from the beginning sin's remedy is about shame removal.

Our further attempts at clothes manufacturing

Interestingly we have continued to try to do what Adam and Eve couldn't - to try by our own efforts to 'dress ourselves' in what we hope will be acceptable.  People hope to get to heaven because they believe they have been a 'good person' and done lots of 'good things'.  But Scripture tells us that even our 'righteousness' is like being dressed in filthy rags.  There isn't anything even slightly acceptable in our own efforts.  Just as being dressed in filthy rags would prohibit a person from entering a Buckingham Palace garden party with the Queen of England, they would also prohibit entrance to heaven for the eternal celebration.

What is interesting is that once again the terminology used is that of 'covering'.  Our efforts are not described as 'debt reducers' though we might think of them as that, but as a form of covering - another attempt at self-covering, just like Adam and Eve.  Again covering is about shame, not guilt. 

Eternal Clothes

A hundred years ago in the great houses of England, the family got especially dressed up to go downstairs to dinner (what Americans and we here in Botswana call supper).

As part of God's family, we have been invited to dinner, to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb....and we need to also be 'dressed' appropriately.

Neither Fig Leaves nor Filthy rags will suffice.

 Matthew 22:11-13 says

 But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there ca man who had no wedding garment. 12 And he said to him, d'Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?' And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot and ecast him into the outer darkness. In that place ethere will be weeping and gnashing of teeth"

Our own efforts cannot provide what is needed for acceptance before God.  God is the one who sets the standard for acceptance and nothing less than the honour of total purity and holiness will suffice - something that is impossible without a new birth and and thus a new identity.  It is Christ's righteousness imputed to us in the New Birth that provides us with a covering not just for what we have done but for our very selves.  In Christ, God sees us differently - no longer shamed but honoured in His Son.

Easter is not only about sin's guilt forgiven important as that is, but is also about sin's shame covered.  At the cross Jesus bore both the guilt and the shame of sin - the physical death was the picture of what was happening spiritually for eternity - he was falsely accused and wrongfully shamed so that we could escape rightful accusation and legitimate shame. He endured spiritual death - total separation from the life and relationship of the Father, so that we don't need to. 

photocredit - Creative Commons

Our Lord Jesus won for us the clothing - the robe of righteousness - that will allow us to be properly and acceptably 'dressed for supper'! Hallelujah! What a Saviour!

Man of Sorrows what a name

for the Son of God, who came

ruined sinners to reclaim:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

Bearing shame and scoffing rude, 

in my place condemned he stood,

sealed my pardon with his blood:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

Guilty, helpless, lost were we;

blameless Lamb of God was he,

sacrificed to set us free:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

He was lifted up to die;

"It is finished" was his cry;

now in heaven exalted high:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

When he comes, our glorious King,

all his ransomed home to bring,

then anew this song we'll sing:

Hallelujah, what a Saviour!

(Phillip Bliss)