TITLE: Thy beatiful garments By Yvonne Ostman 03/07/09 |
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1. Introduction
Awake, awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city! For the uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer come to you. (Isaiah 52:1)
From the very first day we existed outside our mother’s womb as human beings, we have been clothed one way or another. Our mothers put clothes on us only minutes after we had been born, and it has gone on ever since. Clothes are there to keep us warm, to make us look good and to protect us from being naked and vulnerable, but that wasn´t always the case.
Why do we clothe ourselves, what is the origin of clothes? In Genesis chapter 2, we read about the creation of man, that ”the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” (Gen. 2:25, NIV) Why is it that they felt no shame, was it because they were the only people in the Garden of Eden, and no one else could see them, as if you and your spouse would get access to a secret island where you could walk around naked without risking that someone was watching you? No, I do not believe that was the reason at all, even though that kind of shamelessness may seem attractive. They walked before God every second of their day; they were shining with his Glory, just as Moses was after he had encountered God on Mount Sinai. (Exodus 34:29) His face became so radiant that it was painful for the people to look at, and he had to put a veil over it to protect them. Adam and Eve walked before God in a much greater way than Moses ever did, and their whole bodies must have been radiant with the Glory of God, this was their clothing, and they wouldn´t have appeared naked before anyone looking at them, they would have been clothed in the Glory and Honor of God himself, united with him and made in the image of him. Moses couldn´t behold God in his glory and live, but Adam and Eve could, until they ate from the forbidden tree and got naked. Immediately they felt the need to cover themselves, since the cover of Gods protection and glory had been taken away from them. They did the best they could, with fig leaves, because they didn´t really know anything about clothes and their origin, they just felt the loss of protection and the need to replace it in any manner they could think of.
So where does that leave us? Why do we clothe ourselves? Why are we so interested in our appearance, what face we show to the world around us? Why is it that women usually are more interested in clothes and accessories than men? What did we lose in the Garden that made us want to constantly try to improve our looks?
I believe that clothes are essentially an attempt to restore the garments of his Glory and Honor that we were created to wear. We know, deep inside, whether we are Christians or not, that we were destined to shine, to be radiant with his love and glory, and to be queens of this earth, not slaves, bound by fear. We know that we need to be more than what we are, and we try to accomplish that through intricate clothing and makeup.
It is easy to see that there are many places in the Bible where we are urged to ”put on” something. It may be Christ, it may be strength, it may be humility, love or the armor of light, and many other things. Things that one way or another are characteristics of our Heavenly Father, things that He knows we need to have in order to live the life He intended for us to live. In the Garden, though, Adam and Eve never had to put on any of those things; they were already clothed in them all, walking in them from their very first hour. They didn´t necessarily know how to use what they had, as we can see from the fall, but they had it on, it was their clothing, the only clothing that is good and acceptable to the Lord.
So what is it that we are to wear? Let’s have a closer look at some of the verses that talk about what to clothe ourselves in, so that we may gain some understanding of what God intended us to be, and even more so, that we may understand some more of His love for us.
To get dressed in our spiritual clothing should not ever be conducted as a magic ritual; it is to be lived out in our daily life. If I put on love, it means that I choose to be ruled by love in every situation. If I take the sword of the Spirit it means that I speak Gods word over every situation during my day. If I clothe myself with strength, it means that I don´t give in to feelings of weakness and infirmity that may occur.
2. The wardrobe
So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.(Joel 2:13)
First and foremost, let´s establish the fact that our primary concern always is our spiritual clothing. Whatever we may wear in the natural is of no good if it doesn´t match our inner self, the constitution of our hearts. If we wish to dress like women of dignity and honor, then we need to be honorable, loving, kind, humble, and we need to be armed with light and the Word of God. If we make any attempt at talking about what is and is not appropriate clothing without paying attention first to our hearts, we will be certain to go wrong. We should always be more concerned with what´s in our spiritual wardrobe than what´s in our natural. Although it is important to dress with dignity, it won’t help us if we still act like naked people.
In our spiritual wardrobe, as in our natural, there will be some basics, everyday clothing that you can´t do without, and some clothes for special occasions or tasks. We need to learn to dress up properly for the occasion, depending on where we are in our walk with the Lord. No one of us is supposed to be walking without the glorious protection provided for us by Jesus Christ, and we need to know what´s there for us, what amazing clothes we have been given and how to use them. The greater our intimacy with him, the larger the wardrobe and so we are less likely to have to go without proper protection.
So, let´s begin our examination of our wonderful spiritual wardrobe.
3. The shame of nakedness
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? (Gen. 3:7, 10-11)
Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. (Gen. 3:21)
“Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is he who watches, and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame.” (Rev. 16:15)
For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. (2 Cor. 5:2-4)
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. (Rev. 3:18)
Nakedness is not a shame because God made our bodies filthy; nakedness is a shame because it is proof of our divorce from God! When Adam and Eve where clothed in God´s Glory, they weren´t naked, not even when they were alone in intimacy. Of course, the nakedness that Adam and Eve experienced was not only a nakedness of the body, it was one of the soul and the spirit as well, and that is something we may find hard to understand. They didn´t just lose their bodily clothing, they lost their spiritual connection and protection. We were born that way, without God, but they weren´t, so even though they did not fully understand what was happening, their feeling of nakedness went deeper than just a sense of loosing ones clothes. Spiritual death is nakedness, loss of contact with the Life giver and loss of ability to understand spiritual things is a kind of nakedness worse than being without clothes.
Throughout the Bible, nakedness is referred to as a shame, as a loss of protection and dignity. Whenever someone in the Bible looked upon or revealed another person’s nakedness, it was considered a shameful act, a disgrace to both the person naked and the one who disgraced him. We are not supposed to live our lives without the protection of our Heavenly Father. He never intended us to be dressed in anything other than His Glory, and He never changes. He didn´t create us to be in any way separated from him, he seeks to give us full access to everything he has provided for us, and our spiritual wardrobe is designed to help us achieve our place with him.
To be naked is to be, in some ways, helpless, shieldless. That means you´re going to get hurt. (Most of us have had dreams where we have found ourselves to be naked in a situation where it´s not appropriate, and where we have felt shieldless and lost.) Consider this when you look at the pictures in fashion magazines and ads, and ponder the fact that according to God’s Word, the women (and men) on these pictures have lost their protection and their dignity. Without proper protection, you are destined to get hurt and to hurt others as well. It´s not a question of ”if” it´s a question of ”when” and in what way.
If your spirit is unguarded, anything might sneak in and cause wounds and misconceptions, the same is true for your mind, your will and your emotions. This is easy to understand concerning our bodies, if you walk barefoot on sharp stones, you will be hurt, if you put your uncovered hand onto a hot stove, you will be burned, but it is not as self-evident as it ought to be concerning our inner man. Nevertheless it is just as true. If I am without God, I am without protection, and even when I have decided to live close to him, I need to learn to use my spiritual clothing properly in order to receive maximum protection and to be able to walk in the ”fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.” (Rom. 15:29) meaning: to walk properly dressed!
Nakedness is not always unwanted, though. Before God, we are to be naked, transparent and shieldless, for him to clothe us with his glory. We are to lay off everything that is unfitting before him, and put on whatever he says is good for us, so let´s begin to change clothes!
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