Before the fall of our first parents, ‘they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed’ (Genesis 2:25). The holy pair wore no fabricated garments. But even though they were innocent, it nevertheless seems out of place for them to have been naked in the sense that we would be if we lacked clothing. Man was made ‘a little lower than the angels’, which are said to wear white robes (Matthew 28:3), and Adam’s Maker ‘coverest [Him]self with light as with a garment’ (Psalm 104:2). Being made in the image and likeness of God, Adam would likewise have been enshrouded with a holy radiance, as is attested to in Jewish tradition.

This covering of light evidently disappeared once they sinned, for ‘they knew that they were naked’. It was now necessary that fabricated garments be procured for the fallen couple. After their own vain attempt to cover themselves with fig leaves, the Lord provided coats of skins from a slaughtered animal to hide their sinful shame. The animals would not have been eaten, for flesh food was not permitted to be eaten by man until after the flood. Therefore, the beasts must have been sacrificed, typifying ‘the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’. By faith in their Redeemer, Adam and Eve were thus ‘clothed…with the garments of salvation’ (Isaiah 61:10). The former light they were clothed with was a visual token of holiness. But in the place of such, they now bore on their body a token of death, which spoke of eternal life.

So likewise should we reflect by our humble dress and deportment, as well as the way we bear trials, that Jesus died for us.

Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. 2 Corinthians 4:10

Christopher Sparks