What Does Genesis 1:30 Mean?

The man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. The end of the creation account and the beginning of the fall account are joined by this statement, which looks forward as well as backward. The nakedness without shame is the Mark of the pre-fall state: complete innocence, complete transparency, complete integration. There is no need for concealment because there is nothing to conceal. The human pair lives before one another and before God in an openness that is entirely untroubled.

Shame enters the story in Genesis 3:7-10, immediately after the fall. The sewing of fig leaves and the hiding from God are the signs of the new condition: nakedness is now dangerous, exposure is now threatening, concealment is now necessary. The "not ashamed" of 2:25 is the baseline from which the "ashamed" of chapter 3 departs. The fall is measured by the distance between these two conditions.

The nakedness-without-shame is a comprehensive statement about the pre-fall relationship: between the man and the woman (complete relational transparency), between humanity and God (complete openness before the Creator), and within the individual self (no fragmentation, no divided self, no parts to hide). The redemptive project of the biblical story is the restoration of this triadic openness, the tearing away of every covering, the healing of every fragmentation, the arrival of a new creation in which concealment is no longer necessary because shame has been fully dealt with.