Does God consider nudity a sin?

Upvote:2

Nakedness, is to be uncloaked, God created man cloaked in His righteousness:

Isaiah 61:10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness…

Nakedness is vulnerability, when man elected to eat of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil”, he moved out from under the covering of God’s righteous judgment in pursuit of his own. Man became aware of his nakedness and spiritually became vulnerable.

Physical nakedness is only a shadow of eternal nakedness, which is being uncloaked before the Lord. Here legitimate “fear” governs, we recognize our nakedness before God, our true vulnerability to God and we rightly fear God. This fear is met with God’s love and He covers us with His righteousness, Jesus Christ.

Is nudity a sin? One could make the case that spiritual nakedness is the original sin!

Upvote:4

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. (Genesis 2:25, NIV)

The first couple were, at first, roaming about without any clothes on. It was as natural as wearing clothes. Wearing or not wearing wouldn't have any difference at all. Sex was already introduced, as God already told them to multiply (Gen 1:28) but nudity and its shame was never felt. Something awful happened after they ate the forbidden fruit; they were now afraid to meet God for the first time.

But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” (Genesis 3:9-11, NIV)

Adam had been naked always, but never felt uncomfortable with it. Something made Adam feel uncomfortable with nudity. From Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible,

This also was not the true reason; he was naked from his creation as to his body, and it caused no shame in him, nor any dread to appear before God; he conceals the true cause, which was sin, that made the nakedness of his body shameful, and had stripped his soul of its native clothing, purity and holiness; and therefore it was, he could not appear before a pure and holy Being:

After paying heed to the Devil's voice, they are now under sin, of whose origin is the Devil. Their souls are now stripped off of holiness, and as a result, imparted with unholiness. Their mind is now sinful, their heart is now sinful. Before the fall, there was no lust in their heart, but now they are overtaken by lustful thoughts, which made them uncomfortable when naked.

Nudity itself is not a sin, we were created naked. Does it mean we should go to church without clothes? If you can stay with a pure mind and worship God without any hindrances, it's totally fine, but that is not easy. We need to cover ourselves modestly, so that our minds should not be distracted by lustful desires.

It is not the nudity which is sin, but it is our lustful eyes which we cannot control, is sin. Sin starts inwardly from the heart, and if not suppressed, manifested through the body and commits sin outwardly.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Matthew 5:27-28, NIV)

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