Response To Answers In Genesis

Web site location: http://www.answersingenesis.org

Article location: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/overheads/pages/oh20010427_21.asp

Visitors are invited to read the entire Answers in Genesis article before examining the response below. This response was based on the article text as it appeared in August, 2005.

The article from Answers In Genesis (AIG) entitled "Clothing and Genesis" cautions "that as more and more people abandon the Bible as the absolute authority and reject Genesis 1-11 as literal history, one consequence has been a rejection of standards in regard to dress." I suppose my first question would be this: Having said what they said, how literally is AIG actually taking Genesis 3 and what it says about clothes?

AIG makes reference to Hebrews 9.22 as the key to understanding their so-called doctrine of clothes. I often hear people talk about the significance of blood sacrifice in conjunction with God's act of clothing mankind in the Genesis narrative. I know that this is a widely held view. I once accepted it myself, but over time it became apparent to me that nothing in the context of this passage or the rest of the Bible tended to solidly confirm such a notion. As I see it, what we actually read in Genesis 1-11 would seem to lend greater support to the idea that God clothed Adam and Eve to protect them against physical harm and an unfriendly climate outside Eden: painful toil, thorns and thistles (Genesis 3.17-18); sweat of your brow, tilling the ground (Genesis 3.19 and Genesis 3.23); cold and heat, summer and winter (Genesis 8.22).

AIG: "To understand this doctrine, look at Hebrews 9.22, where we're told that 'without the shedding of blood there is no remission.' Also, in Leviticus, we read that the life of the flesh is in the blood (Leviticus 17.11)."

Note that there is no mention of clothing or skins in Hebrews 9.22 or Leviticus 17.11. While there are certainly a great many accounts of animal sacrifice in the Bible, none that I know of includes the act of clothing individuals with the skins of animals after they were sacrificed. The emphasis in Hebrews 9.22 and Leviticus 17.11 is clearly upon the importance of shedding blood for the remission of sins. There is no talk in these two passages of clothing or nakedness, which is rather strange considering that AIG says it is to these particular passages that we must turn in order to understand their "doctrine of clothing."

AIG: "God was illustrating to Adam and Eve that there had to be payment for their sin."

I do not deny that Genesis 3 shows God illustrating to Adam and Eve that sin has dire consequences, though I remain unconvinced that blood sacrifice is necessarily a part of that illustration. Genesis 3 reveals that Adam and Eve experienced broken fellowship with their Creator, received a grievous curse upon them and their offspring, and underwent a shameful expulsion from their idyllic home in Eden — all of which dramatically and unequivocally illustrated the seriousness of disobedience and sin against God.

AIG: "In covering them, He was showing them that there had to be death and bloodshed to take away their sin."

This begs the question, Why in this instance only does God do this if the act of "covering them" was so integral to showing that "death and bloodshed" is necessary to take away sin? If the act of clothing the sinner (whether symbolically or literally) was so critical to the process of sacrifice, surely God would have incorporated it into the sacrificial ceremonies that are later described so meticulously in Scripture. The fact is, we never hear of it again!

AIG: "One could reasonably postulate that the animal that God killed for the coats of skins could have been a lamb..."

Postulation? We are left wondering how postulation (or inference, assumption, extrapolation, supposition, speculation and conjecture, for that matter) fit in with AIG's expressed desire for a "literal" interpretation of Genesis.

AIG: "This event of the giving of clothes was the first blood sacrifice as a covering for sin..."

Possibly. It's just as possible that God was simply and mercifully showing Adam and Eve how to replace their fragile fig leaves with clothing durable enough to protect them in their new life outside the Garden. Why, I wonder, should AIG's highly spiritualized interpretation carry more weight than the more obvious literal interpretation derived from, and supported by, the immediate context of this passage?

AIG: "The fact that God gave clothes because of sin means that there is a moral basis for clothing..."

If this is so, why isn't clothing ever mentioned again in connection with sacrifice? By AIG's own admission, "The Israelites sacrificed animals over and over again..." The truth is that Scripture often talks about the shedding of blood for sin, but never about the giving of clothes or the covering of nakedness for sin.

AIG: "...but the blood of bulls and goats can't take away our sin (as we're taught in Hebrews)."

That being true, it surely must follow that neither can the wearing of clothes take away our sin. I doubt that AIG vigorously promotes the practice of animal sacrifice by Christians these days, so why would they continue to vigorously defend a "doctrine" of clothes that they have so intimately interwoven with the shedding of sacrificial blood in Genesis?

AIG: "There is even a church where the people call themselves 'Christian nudists' and they talk about getting back to what the Bible teaches concerning Adam and Eve originally being naked in the Garden of Eden. But in doing this they are ignoring the entrance of sin and its consequences on this world."

Pity the church that ignores sin! No legitimate, Bible-believing Christian church would ever ignore sin and its consequences. Neither would a legitimate Bible-believing Christian nudist church. Does AIG's criticism of this particular Christian nudist church (wherever it may be) stem from credible and verifiable evidence that its leadership and congregation are indeed ignoring sin and its consequences, or is their criticism based merely upon their supposition that this church would necessarily be acting in contravention of AIG's own unique "doctrine" of clothes?

AIG: "Even though Adam and Eve were naked to start with, sin changed everything — therefore the wearing of clothes is based in the historical events in Genesis 1-11."

I would again refer readers to the ACTUAL historical events of Genesis 1-11. Was God covering sin, or covering skin? While the wearing of clothes did in fact derive from sin, does the context teach that moral considerations were the motivation for God doing what He did, or does it teach that practical, physical considerations were what motivated Him to cover Adam and Eve with durable clothing? Is there anything at all in the context of this passage that would indicate a command by God that clothes be worn at all times? You be the judge.

It has been said that there are at least two sides to every story. The Answers in Genesis Web site has presented one view of clothing and nakedness as they perceive it. Fig Leaf Forum has presented another. It will ultimately be the responsibility of each reader to determine which "truth" concerning these matters will be their truth, for in the end we will all stand before God as individuals to answer for what we each have chosen to believe and do in this life.

This response was written by the editor of Fig Leaf Forum. An earlier version appeared in Issue 71.