Fig Leaf Forum Responds To "Answers In Genesis"
According to their Web site,
"Answers in Genesis is a Christian ministry that seeks to share the truths
of God's Word from the very first verse." Social nudism was criticized
in their article entitled, "Clothing and 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 3.19,23);
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.
This Web site is printer-friendly.
