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Commentary on "A Garment of Innocence"

COLLEEN TINKER

 

Day 3: Monday, April 11, 2011 - Naked But Not Ashamed

 

Overview

Today's lesson focusses on Adam and Eve's pre-fall condition: "naked but not ashamed". The lesson makes the opening point that it's hard for us to imagine Adam and Eve's pre-fall moral condition because our concepts of all reality are "tainted and distorted by sin".

The lesson then makes the point that they were pure, innocent, and close to one another and to God. It quotes Ellen White stating they wore "a covering of light and glory, such as the angels wear," and continues on to say that their nakedness must have been visible and that their nakedness emphasizes "the kind of physical closeness the sinless couple enjoyed." They were innocent, open, and free. The lesson ends by asking the reader whether openness exists in his own life, whether he is covering and hiding things, and inquires as to what aspects of their lives they must begin to change.

 

Observations

First, this lesson does not address the difference between a person who is dead in sin, a natural person, or one who is born again and spiritually alive with the actual life of God indwelling him. While it's true that all of us live in a sinful world and our perceptions of the physical realm are informed by nature's bondage to decay, still those who are born again really do have insight into Adam and Eve's moral state before the fall.

While we who are born again are still living in mortal flesh, our spirits are seated in Christ at the right hand of God, and He makes His will and His reality more and more discernible to us through His word as He teaches it to us by His Spirit. When a person is born again, he or she really is a completely new person with a new identity and a new power and potential. He is justified and counted righteous, and he is adopted as God's own child (Romans 8).

Second, the Bible never hints that Adam and Eve wore "garments of light". In fact, the idea really is nonsensical. The Teachers Comments actually make the point that if they were clothed in light, the lightthe ultimate revealeremphasized that "everything about them was worthy of being seen".

Moreover, the idea that angels are clothed in light is another unbiblical idea. Angels do not have bodies; they may manifest themselves among humans looking like bodies, but the Bible says:

Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation? (Hebrews 1:14 ESV)

Angels are spirits, not bodies...just as God is a spirit:

But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. (John 4:23-24 ESV)

The idea of angels being clothed in light is entirely a concept derived from Ellen White. We dare not form our view of reality from extra-biblical sources.

The lesson's focus on the couple's pre-sin openness and innocence with questions about how we can change in order to become more open really misses the point of the story in Genesis. The Genesis story explains humanity. It tells what is. It is not a lesson demonstrating how we can improve our lives.

Adam and Eve's unashamed nakedness is God's intent for humanity—but now it is not possible apart from being born again. It is not possible to change our lives to become more open and moral; we have to die to ourselves and receive the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus as payment for our sin and be born of the Spirit.

 

Summary

  1. The Bible does not say that Adam and Eve wore garments of light.
  2. Angels are spirits; they are not bodies clothed in light.
  3. God is Spirit—and true worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
  4. We cannot form our views of reality from extra-biblical sources.
  5. This story of Adam and Eve is not a "lesson" for us. It tells what IS.
  6. We cannot study this couple and learn how to become more moral and transparent. We must receive the Lord Jesus and His sacrifice and be born of the spirit. Apart from being born again, we cannot be moral or righteous. When we are born again, we are counted righteous, and Christ's personal righteousness is credited to us.

 

GO TO DAY 4

 

Copyright 2011 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised April 5, 2011. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.

The Sabbath School Bible Study Guide and the corresponding E.G. White Notes are published by Pacific Press Publishing Association, which is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist church. The current quarter's editions are pictured above.

 

Official Adventist Resources

Standard Edition Study Guide Week 3

Teacher's Edition Study Guide Week 3

Easy Reading Edition Study Guide Wk 3

SSNET Study Guide Week 3

Search the Complete Published Ellen G. White Writings

 

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