The Naked Truth

I love God’s phenomenal plan of redemption!  When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, God wasn’t caught off guard.  He had a plan in place before the foundations of the world to redeem his prized creation…man.  The enemy slithered into the Garden and immediately started lying about God.  Let’s see how the scripture sets this scene up in 

Genesis chapter 3:
The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”  2 “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. 3 “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”  4 “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman.  5 “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”  6 The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. 7 At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.

It’s interesting the lie that the serpent spewed here was that this fruit would make them like God and they would know both good and evil.  The truth is that they were already like God, made in His image and likeness, and all they knew up to this point was GOOD.  God made everything good for them and THEN placed them in the Garden.  

What made them want to know both good AND evil?  If all they knew was good, then all that was left to know was evil…Unfortunately, the subtle craftiness of the enemy duped them into disobeying God and handing over their authority and dominion to God’s enemy that day.  While naked the entire time, they just now realized they were naked when they became self-aware instead of God-aware like before.  Before they were clothed with the righteousness of God and held all of the power and authority on planet Earth.  

Since righteousness and sin couldn’t co-exist, their clothing was removed and they now saw they were naked…and ashamed.  Man was now subject to the will of the enemy since he had assumed the role as the “god of this world,” as stated in 2 Corinthians 4:4.  Oh…BUT GOD, had a plan in mind before the earth’s foundations were laid and already decided to bring Jesus on the scene.  

Jesus, God incarnate, stepped off his throne at the right hand of God and subjected Himself to the human condition in order to save us.  He walked this earth for 33 years being tempted every single day just as we are…yet without sin.  He was plotted against, mocked, lied about, and betrayed, never saying anything in His defense that would derail the plan of His Father.  He willingly went to the cross and took on the sin of the entire world (past, present, and future), only to have to die a sinner, in our place, and be sent to hell for it.  But let’s see what happened at that point in Colossians 2:14-15 in The Message translation:


When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets.

The enemy thought he had won and defeated the Son of God, as he had no idea this was God’s plan from the beginning to redeem mankind.  All of the sudden, Jesus came alive in the depths of hell and put the fear of God into Satan and all his cohorts.  He now stripped the enemy naked just as Adam and Eve were essentially stripped of their dominion and authority in Garden, and he marched him naked through the streets of his hometown for everyone to see.  He took back the authority that was mankind’s in the beginning and now we share in that authority which is held in the seat of the right hand of God.  It’s all spelled out for us in Ephesians 1 & 2. 


I would encourage you to go read these chapters today and recognize how Jesus has made us righteous again (by believing in Him) and how we are sharers and partakers of the authority He’s been given by the Father.