This past Sunday, I shared in my sermon what I called a theology of clothes. For our post this week, I wanted to talk a bit more about what that means and the way the Bible uses and develops the imagery of clothing. The Bible is rich with visual metaphors drawn from everyday life. These images have a universal quality in that they often resonate across diverse cultures. Because they draw on innate or instinctual aspects of human existence, they are especially useful in helping us understand the redemptive actions of God. This is their purpose: they provide a context for making sense of what God does as it applies to our lives and our faith.
The universal aspects of clothing to which the Bible appeals include the taboo against total nudity—especially the uncovering of the sexual organs—and a shared sense that certain clothes are appropriate for certain settings. A distinction between formal and informal clothing, or special clothing for special events, is a universal feature of complex human societies. Clothing has a transformative function: by wearing certain garments, a person becomes something new. Think, for example, of a police officer. When they step into their official role, they don special clothing that sets them apart for that role.
The Bible places the nudity taboo at the very beginning and explains it theologically. It has to do with shame and the need to conceal that shame from the eyes of God. In their innocence, Adam and Eve did not need to cover themselves: “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25). It is only when they become sinful that they feel the need to conceal their nudity. In fact, it is their first response upon eating the fruit: “…and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths” (Genesis 3:6–7).
Nudity—especially in relation to the sexual organs—remains taboo for the people of God. When Noah becomes drunk and lies naked in his tent, Ham’s act of seeing his father’s nakedness leads to a curse. The flaunting of this taboo, often in the form of public sexual acts or depraved rituals, becomes a mark of shamelessness in certain cultures—especially the Canaanites. In the book of Numbers, the breaking point for Phinehas as a plague rages in the camp is when an Israelite man openly brings a Canaanite woman into his tent for sex. In Isaiah 20, the final humiliation of the Egyptians comes when they are forced to walk “naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered” before their Assyrian conquerors. I could offer many more examples, but you likely get the point.
In both Exodus and Leviticus, a (perhaps) surprising amount of attention is given to the clothing created for the high priest. In effect, the garments are inseparable from the office itself—the man becomes the high priest only when he dons them. When Aaron is anointed into that office, it is through a ceremony in which Moses dresses him in these specially created clothes. The actual garments are culturally bound, and although often rich in symbolism, they are not as important as what they represent. What matters is that they were, in their cultural context, beautiful garments associated with nobility—far beyond what an ordinary person would wear in daily life.
It is significant that this clothing is given to the high priest to wear, and it is made according to a pattern Moses receives from God. God determines the clothing of the one who will enter His presence. This pattern begins all the way back in Genesis. When Adam and Eve appear before God for judgment, the fig-leaf garments they made cannot cover their shame before Him. When they leave the garden, it is not in their own makeshift coverings but in clothing that God provides. God clothes Adam and Eve, He clothes the priest who comes before Him on behalf of the people, and—as we saw this past Sunday in Isaiah 61—He promises to clothe His people as He invites them into the new kingdom of the Messiah following their return from exile.
There is much more to say about clothing, but the central idea is that God uses the metaphor of clothing to help us understand what He does for us—and to us—in salvation. First, we see that our salvation has a strongly passive element. Just as Aaron stands still while Moses dresses him, so we are dressed by another. Our salvation is something received, not achieved. The element of “appropriate clothing” also teaches that in order to enter the kingdom of God, we must be made fit for it. Jesus illustrates this in the parable in Matthew 22, where a man is cast out of the wedding feast for not wearing the proper attire. We all understand this—certain settings require appropriate dress. In the same way, entering God’s kingdom requires being “dressed” for it. Since we are incapable of making such clothing ourselves (as Adam and Eve showed), it must be gifted to us.
All of this ties directly to the heart of the gospel, in which we become, in Christ, “the righteousness of God.” Paul explains this in Philippians: “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Philippians 3:9). The Bible consistently teaches that only the holy and righteous can dwell on God’s holy hill. Since we are not righteous, that righteousness must be given to us. It is not our own, but a righteousness that comes from God and is applied to us by faith.