Author: Life ReNude

MIND RENUDE:

Hiding our bodies prompts temptation. Revealing them shines the light.

Even though God had made a covenant in the flesh with Abraham through circumcision, He had a better idea in mind.  The outward cutting was designed to be a representation of inward healing, a circumcision of the heart.

God was looking for a people whose hearts were turned to Him! Moses told us:

The LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 30:6

And the Apostle Paul writes in the Letter to the Romans that when Abraham

…received the sign of circumcision, it was a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe – without being circumcised – so that righteousness would be counted to them as well.

Romans 4:11

Cultural Expectations

As humans, we often get addicted to cultural expectations, and early believers were not immune. First century Christians hotly debated as to whether new converts must be outwardly circumcised in order to be truly saved.

Sometimes the debates got personal: Paul, in an apparent sarcastic remark, told those Judaizing legalists that if they were that concerned about circumcision, they should simply go all the way and castrate themselves! 

Some Things Change,
Some Things Stay the Same

We might understand his frustration. 

Legalists, then and now, preoccupy themselves with trying to bring perfection through performance. They fail to go into the deeper imperative of having a circumcised, broken heart before God: depending upon Him alone for our holiness. 

An expert author on fashion, past and present, James Laver, determined that:

The primary reason for wearing clothes is not modesty, but its opposite, self-aggrandizement.”

Surprisingly, he went on to say that:

“If complete nudity were common, we should probably become seasonal in our impulses [to wear it].

Laver concluded that our worldwide “permanent eroticism is kept alive by clothes.” ¹

Jesus Takes Us Back to the Garden

Christian naturists defy that permanent eroticism by living out a life of whole spirit / whole body unity.

We are grateful to God for how He created us, and do not hide ourselves before Him.

We know that the unregenerate heart is evil, and that no legalistic prohibition, such as a taboo on nudism, is going to keep people from fully wallowing in sin. 

Ultimately, in the early church it was decided that Jesus Himself fulfilled the requirement of circumcision.  Paul concluded to the Church at Colossae:

In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh. By the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, you were also raised with him through faith…. Having forgiven us all our trespasses, Christ has canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.

Colossians 2:11

Lest we forget, God is not ashamed of our nakedness. Hebrews 4:13 reminds us that:

“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.”

MIND RENUDE:

Nakedness is a neutral state of being.

The word naked is usually used as a descriptive adjective. 

One might think of a naked mole rat, which describes a pink, nearly hairless rodent, or the “naked” truth, which is a way of saying that the information shared is unvarnished or without ornamentation. Simply put, we usually think of naked as meaning “without a covering.”

What does the term “nakedness” mean in the Bible?

Most of the passages that speak to nakedness are found in the Old Testament. As such, it is from within the Old Testament pages that most Bible teachers today draw their conclusions about what God thinks about nakedness.

If we really want to know what God’s perspective is towards nudity, it stands to reason that we must correctly understand the words from the Bible and their meanings.

There are three individual words for nakedness in the Old Testament: arowm, eyrom and ervah.

In Genesis 2:25, we are first introduced to arowm, which means “simple and innocent nakedness.” 

The man and his wife were arowm, but they were not ashamed.

Gen. 2:25

Later, in Genesis 3:7, after the Fall, the word eyrom for “vulnerable nakedness, with a sense of being exposed to harm” is used. 

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were eyrom; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Gen. 3:7

And finally, after the global flood, in Genesis 9:22 we are exposed to a new word for “active sexual nakedness,” ervah. 

And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the ervah of his father…

Gen. 9:22

All three of these variants have their basis in the same root Hebrew word, but their biblical usage indicates different shades of meaning.

Sadly, in our common language translations, we generally just get one word, “naked,” which, understandably, has led many to develop wrong thoughts on what nakedness is all about!

God never calls arowm
or eyrom shameful.

There is no Scripture in the Bible that says, “Thou shalt not be naked” or “Nakedness is sinful.”

In fact, He used naked circumcision as a visible sign of His Covenant with Abraham and his descendants.

Ervah, on the other hand, is where we see sin joined with nakedness and shame. If what a person was doing in a situation was sinful, or could be the cause of sin, it was ervah. 

Gym is Naked

In the New Testament, words are written in Greek, rather than Hebrew. The word for naked is gymnos. It means “bare, without clothing,” and is the root of the word, “gymnasium.”

The gym was a place to exercise in a state of nudity. 

Hebrews 4:13 reminds us that in God’s eyes, “No creature is hidden, but all are gymnos…”

Many “grown-up” translations try to “cover up” simple nudity in the Bible, such as when the Apostle Peter was naked and fishing. But interestingly, the International Children’s Bible gets it right!

…he wrapped his coat around himself. (Peter had taken his clothes off.) Then he jumped into the water.

See John 21:3-7 ICB

What word was used in the Greek for his lack of clothing? Gymnos, of course!

Context is Key

Like ervah above, there are two instances in the New Testament where shame added to nudity produces a negative situation.

The Greek word aschēmosýnē is used for specific situations when nudity is inappropriately sexual or used to shame. 

In Romans 1:27, this word is used to describe unnatural sexual activity, and in Revelation 16:15, it is used to implicate the consequences of laziness. 

Ultimately, we look to the teaching of our Rabbi, Y’Shua. He teaches us that sin starts in the heart and grows into action. 

Most people throughout history have known that simple nudity is not sinful. Nakedness, like other subjects in the Bible, is actually a neutral state.

Yet, if we hold faulty definitions, our thoughts, our actions, and our discipleship journey with other believers in the Body of Christ will be affected. 

Isn’t it wonderful that, as New Covenant believers, we have the ability to focus our hearts on Jesus and experience the innocent, pure nakedness of the Garden?

Imagine the wrongs that might be righted if the church
rediscovered this truth!

New! Want to go deeper into what the Bible says about nakedness? Check this out!