What Does Genesis 3:7 Mean?

The moment they eat, both their eyes are opened and they know they are naked. But the knowledge is not the enlightenment The serpent promised; it is exposure. The first emotion recorded after the fall is shame, and the first act of human self-protection is to sew fig leaves together to cover themselves. Made to be transparent before God and each other, they become the first tailors of concealment.

The irony is precise. Adam and the woman gained knowledge, but it was not the wisdom they sought. They came to know good and evil by losing the good and becoming subject to the evil. Their new knowledge included the discovery that they were vulnerable, seen, and wrong. Before the Fall, nakedness carried no shame because there was nothing to hide. After it, the first project of human civilization is finding ways to cover what has been broken.

Shame is not the same as guilt. Guilt says "I did wrong." Shame says "I am wrong." The Fall introduced both, but shame has proven the more paralyzing of the two. The gospel's answer to shame is not the human fig leaf, which never covers enough, but the garments God Himself provides. Before the chapter ends, God will clothe them. He addresses the shame He did not cause with a covering they could not make.