Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 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” (Genesis 3:8-10).
This passage should be familiar to almost everyone. Many gallons of ink have been spilled, and an even more massive number of words have been spoken, analyzing the fact that, prior to their sin, Adam and Eve were naked with each other (Genesis 2:25). Much less has been said about the fact that they were comfortable being naked before God. Yet, that very point is the one emphasized in this passage. Adam and Eve didn’t hide from each other; they hid when God came near. And when they were questioned, they both tried to shift the blame for their sin – another kind of hiding.
I still remember the intense fear I felt when I first stood in God’s presence back in 1983. I could not hide, but I can certainly understand Adam’s desire to do so. Sin still causes us to try to hide from God.
Prior to eating the fruit, the man and his wife are not portrayed as perfect; perfect people don’t sin. Although they were physically mature, in some ways they were still children. But they were innocent. When they ate, “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked” (Genesis 3:7). For the first time in their lives they had something to hide. They were no longer innocent, but their first action, trying to hide from God, shows that they were still immature. Sin corrupts innocence, but it does not bring maturity. Children who fall into sin do not thereby become adults, they simply become sinful children. They gain nothing in return for what they’ve lost.
And we, or at least most of us (including myself), are still far from mature. We fail to test the messages we hear, and are deceived. We disobey. After we disobey, we hide and try to blame anyone but ourselves. And far too often we try to hide using “fig leaves” of alcohol, or drugs, or sex, or work, or entertainment, or anything at all that distracts us, and keeps us from having to face the fact of our nakedness before God. We know God’s promise that:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
And yet we still hide. We are still children. We are, in a very real sense, Adam and Eve. But we forget that we are also the sons and daughters of the creator of the universe.
One of the most devastating lies the devil tells us is that, after we’ve sinned, we have to get our lives cleaned up again before we can go back to God. That we have to do what is impossible for us to do. Sin breaks something that you and I can’t fix. But “what is impossible with man is possible with God” (Luke 18:27). Time spend hiding is time wasted. When I hide from God I hide from both accountability and maturity. It’s specifically in the confession of my own inability that I discover that Christ is both able and willing.
“We all stumble in many ways” (James 3:2). That’s part of who we are right now. Refusing to hide from God is how we become the men and women we were created to be.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin (1 John 1:7).