Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; so I hid myself.””
Genesis 3:10

We know from Genesis 3:7 that they were no longer physically naked. This was not about modesty. Rather, they KNEW that they had lost the righteousness that once covered them. They were without His presence connected to themselves. They were without His blessing poured over themselves. They were exposed and separate from God. Where once they had total union and freedom with all the GOOD that He had created, now they were separate, parted, and chained to the knowledge that they had done evil – perhaps even how MUCH they had lost by knowing how FAR they had fallen. It’s something that is hard for us to truly understand because we have always been fallen. This is how we started our lives. It is only in Jesus that we get back a part of what they had – with the completion of it in our future (1 John 3:2). But the male and the female were above the angels. One step below God Himself (Psalm 8:5; Hebrews 2:7-9). Missing only the divine component that made Him God. But after they betrayed Him and chose to sin, they fell. They were now lower. Barely above the animals. Their whole relationship to creation was different because they gave up their authority by submitting to the will of another. What had happened was staggering. Monumental. They had truly DIED died to everything that they once were. They were stripped bare of all they had and were naked of His presence. THAT was what the man was acknowledging. And how could he not? It was the truth.

Before the fall, they enjoyed the presence of God. They ran to it. They embraced it. Perhaps they even physically enjoyed it – either in the garden or before the Throne in heaven. The garden was where Earth and Heaven met in a sense. There was no barrier to travel and no reason for one. Joy and love. A TRUST reaction. That’s all there was. But after the fall, they were no longer perfect. There was a barrier. They could not enjoy His presence without the crushing reality of who they were vs who He was. Because of that, there was a FEAR reaction. That’s all they had. When perfect righteousness came calling, they FLED. This was the lesson that the tree taught: the difference between righteousness and non-righteousness. God didn’t separate them. God didn’t erect the barrier. Humanity CHOSE this.

The choice the man made (eating the fruit he knew he was NOT to eat – 1 Timothy 2:14) is hard for us to grasp. After all, spouses will often say that they will do anything for each other EXCEPT to deny Jesus. That clinging to Jesus is the only reason to abandon one’s spouse. Even Jesus warned us not to let anyone or anything come between ourselves and our relationship with Him (Luke 14:26). Realistically, if we had to walk away from a spouse because of that we could always get another one because there are BILLIONS of people on this planet. But they had ONLY each other. In fact, the man had had every other land-dwelling living creature brought before him and knew that the woman was the ONLY compatible partner in existence. Because of THAT, he chose the woman over obedience to God. That is what the fall really was. It wasn’t about the fruit. It was about the choice to reject God’s Word in full knowledge that it was the WRONG thing to do. Putting someone else before Him. This knowledge of that wrongdoing imbued those two humans with a fear of punishment. Of judgement from God because they were no longer good. That nature is the sinful nature and because they both had it, when they procreated it was passed down. It is part of the human DNA because they chose to reject God. We all have this same fear of God’s judgment in us. It is the seed of what we call conscience. And it is why people react so strongly when we talk about God’s values. It doesn’t matter if they claim not to believe. Their human DNA is screaming at them that what they are doing is wrong. That is the source of their guilt, their shame, and their attacks on godly people. Shame and fear were the immediate harvest of choosing rebellion over obedience. Shame and fear is the dual condition all sinful people live with and the condition that Jesus removes us from when we get saved (Colossians 1:9-14).

The sage Sforno writes: ‘ואירא, this feeling of fear is similar to that experienced by the Jewish people in Exodus 34,30 when, because of the sin of the golden calf, the people were afraid to face him after his face radiated light when he returned from Mount Sinai.’ The sage Steinsaltz writes: ‘He, the man, apologized and said: I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid. I am not standing in the open, because I am confused and ashamed. I hid because I did not want to be seen in my nakedness.’ Again, spiritual nakedness because the scripture already told us they used fig leaves to cover their physical nakedness – which shows humanity’s ingenuity and intelligence. Their fear could imply a moral awareness stemming from transgression or an awareness of vulnerability, which being rooted in Sin was something they never had to experience or deal with before. Perhaps even a little of both.