What's the dress-code?

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Genesis 3:21

Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 13:14

A member of parliament created a bit of a stir recently – she made a speech in the House of Commons while wearing a dress that exposed a hefty helping of one of her shoulders. There were mutterings about “inappropriate dress” and “lowering the dignity of the House”. Mmm.

“Dress codes”, written or not, exist in all sorts of places.

But there is nothing in the Bible, literally nothing, about how God’s people should dress, for worship or otherwise. The Old Testament priests, of course, had special vestments when functioning in the temple, and kings had their robes for royal occasions. But otherwise the Bible is sublimely indifferent. Jesus and the apostles wore nothing special, so why should we? – it’s not easy to answer that.

No. God’s concern is for what we can only call our “spiritual” clothing. And the dress-code there is simplicity itself…

We read that when God made the first human pair and placed them in the Garden of Eden, “Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame” (Genesis 2:25); in their innocence, naked was simply the way they were, a dress-code they didn’t even think about.

But after their act of disobedience “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised that they were naked…” That is, what had first seemed “just the way things were” now took on a new and troubling aspect; innocence had given way to shame. So, cowering pathetically in the undergrowth, trying to hide from God, “they sowed fig-leaves together and made coverings for themselves” (Genesis 3:7).

From being the beautiful lords of God’s creation they became a trembling double-bundle of guilt, desperately trying to cover their shame with… fig-leaves. But God takes pity on them and covers their shame by fitting them out with more durable “garments of skin” (Genesis 3:21).

Never mind how literally or otherwise you take the Eden story; what matters is the rich variety of thoughts it sparks about sin, rebellion, human folly – and shame.

We in the liberated, “permissive” and largely godless western world still have our legal restrictions on nudity. And I think I’m right in saying (please correct me if you know me to be wrong) that even cultures that we, perhaps arrogantly, refer to as “primitive”, are uncomfortable with complete nakedness: the genital areas, at least, are covered. For shame is a universal sense; and shame is a universal sense because sin is a universal reality.

I imagine that God felt an infinite sadness as he made those coverings for Adam and Eve. But that wonderfully humble act can be taken as a tiny foreshadowing of what he would do for their whole race (that’s you and me) in the person of Christ. Our shame is not simply “covered” as a temporary, makeshift measure, but is fully dealt with through Jesus’ death on the cross. As Peter puts it with wonderful conciseness, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).

And so it is that we – fallen Adams and Eves though we are – are offered an infinitely greater covering. Paul tells us (in words which, when you stop and really think about them, are truly amazing) to “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans13:14). (How can you possibly clothe yourself in a person!? – yet he means exactly what he says.)

Those who feel the weight of their guilt may take those words as an invitation: come and have your sins forgiven through the death of Jesus! Put your trust in him, for there is “no condemnation” any more for those who are “in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). What Adam and Eve could never do for themselves in the Garden, and what we too can never do for ourselves today, he has done for us, finally and perfectly, on the cross.

But the words “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” are, even more, a command for those of us who have already come to faith in him. He, if I dare put it like this, is our “dress code”.

If we are not praying and seeking daily to become more like him, can we really call ourselves Christians? John tells us that one day “we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). But we are not to leave it to that day; this is also for the here and now! And not just on special occasions, in special places, or at special times. No! – in the workplace, in the shops, in the leisure-centre, at home, driving the car, picking up the children…

Is Jesus your 24/7 dress-code?

Is it our true desire that when people look at us they actually see him? Make no mistake, this, and nothing less, is what it means to be a Christian.

No condemnation now I dread;/ Jesus and all in Him is mine!/ Alive in Him, my living Head,/ And clothed in righteousness divine,/ Bold I approach the eternal throne,/ And claim the crown, through Christ, my own. Charles Wesley, 1707-1788