Covering Shame: The Gospel in Noah's Story

 

Summary

In our exploration of Genesis, we encounter a peculiar and profound story about Noah after the flood. This narrative, found in Genesis 9, reveals Noah's transition from a builder of the ark to a farmer who plants a vineyard. Unfortunately, Noah becomes drunk and exposes himself in his tent. His son Ham sees his father's nakedness and mocks him to his brothers, Shem and Japheth. Instead of joining in the mockery, Shem and Japheth respectfully cover their father without looking at him, an act that earns them Noah's blessing while Ham's son, Canaan, receives a curse.

This story is more than a historical account; it is a reflection of the gospel. The concept of nakedness in the Bible is deeply intertwined with shame and guilt, first seen in Adam and Eve's reaction to their sin. Their awareness of nakedness symbolizes their spiritual and emotional exposure. God's first act of redemption was to clothe them, covering their shame—a precursor to the ultimate covering provided by Christ's righteousness.

The act of Shem and Japheth covering Noah's nakedness is a vivid illustration of grace and redemption. It mirrors God's merciful act of covering our sins through Christ. Just as Noah's sons preserved their father's dignity, Christ covers our spiritual nakedness, allowing us to stand before God without shame.

The theme of nakedness extends beyond the physical to the spiritual and emotional realms. It represents vulnerability and the human desire to be fully known yet unashamed. In marriage, there is a glimpse of this Edenic state where one can be naked and unashamed, both physically and emotionally. However, the ultimate fulfillment of this desire is found in our relationship with God, where through Christ, we are clothed in righteousness and can stand before Him without fear or shame.

Key Takeaways:

1. The Gospel in Genesis: The story of Noah's nakedness and his sons' response is a profound illustration of the gospel. Just as Shem and Japheth covered their father's shame, Christ covers our sins with His righteousness, allowing us to stand before God without shame. [06:02]

2. Nakedness and Shame: The biblical motif of nakedness is deeply connected to shame and guilt, first seen in Adam and Eve's reaction to their sin. This narrative highlights the human condition of vulnerability and the need for divine covering. [08:21]

3. Redemption Through Covering: God's first act of redemption was clothing Adam and Eve, symbolizing His mercy and grace. This act foreshadows the ultimate covering of our sins through Christ, who clothes us in His righteousness. [09:16]

4. Marriage as a Safe Haven: Marriage is depicted as a place where one can be naked and unashamed, reflecting the intimacy and vulnerability intended in Eden. It is a covenant that provides security and mirrors our relationship with God. [17:33]

5. The Desire to Be Known: Deep within us is a longing to be fully known and accepted without shame. This desire is ultimately fulfilled in our relationship with God, where through Christ, we are covered and can stand before Him unashamed. [21:53]

Youtube Chapters:

- [00:00] - Welcome
- [00:40] - Noah's Post-Flood Life
- [01:26] - The Patriarchal Blessing
- [02:07] - The Curse of Canaan
- [03:03] - Noah's Drunkenness
- [03:52] - Ham's Disrespect
- [05:10] - Shem and Japheth's Respect
- [06:02] - The Gospel in the Story
- [06:46] - Nakedness and Shame
- [08:21] - Spiritual and Emotional Nakedness
- [09:16] - God's First Act of Redemption
- [10:04] - Covering and Dignity
- [11:05] - Nakedness in Scripture
- [12:33] - Cultural Fascination with Nudity
- [15:12] - Vulnerability and Humiliation
- [17:33] - Marriage as a Safe Haven
- [21:53] - Being Known and Accepted

Study Guide

Bible Study Discussion Guide

Bible Reading:
1. Genesis 9:20-27
2. Genesis 3:7-11
3. Isaiah 61:10

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Observation Questions:

1. What actions did Noah take after the flood, and how did they lead to the events described in Genesis 9? [00:40]

2. How did Shem and Japheth respond differently to Ham when they discovered Noah's nakedness, and what was the result of their actions? [05:10]

3. What was the first act of redemption that God performed for Adam and Eve after they sinned, and how does it relate to the theme of nakedness? [09:16]

4. How does the sermon describe the connection between physical nakedness and spiritual exposure in the Bible? [08:21]

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Interpretation Questions:

1. In what ways does the story of Noah's nakedness and his sons' responses illustrate the concept of grace and redemption? [06:02]

2. How does the biblical motif of nakedness relate to the human experience of shame and guilt, as seen in both the story of Adam and Eve and Noah? [07:30]

3. What does the sermon suggest about the significance of marriage as a place where one can be "naked and unashamed"? How does this reflect our relationship with God? [17:33]

4. How does the sermon explain the desire to be fully known and accepted without shame, and how is this desire ultimately fulfilled in our relationship with God? [21:53]

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Application Questions:

1. Reflect on a time when you felt exposed or vulnerable. How did you respond, and what can you learn from Shem and Japheth's respectful actions towards Noah? [05:10]

2. In what areas of your life do you feel spiritually or emotionally "naked"? How can you seek God's covering and redemption in those areas? [09:16]

3. How can you create a safe and supportive environment in your marriage or close relationships where both parties can be "naked and unashamed"? [17:33]

4. Consider the ways you might be hiding from God due to shame or guilt. What steps can you take to stand before Him covered in Christ's righteousness? [26:17]

5. Identify a specific relationship in your life where you desire to be fully known and accepted. How can you work towards building trust and openness in that relationship? [21:53]

6. How can you apply the concept of grace and redemption in your interactions with others, especially when they are vulnerable or have made mistakes? [06:02]

7. What practical steps can you take this week to remind yourself of your identity in Christ and the covering of His righteousness? [27:03]

Devotional

Day 1: The Gospel Illustrated in Genesis
The story of Noah's nakedness and his sons' response is a profound illustration of the gospel. In Genesis 9, after the flood, Noah transitions from being a builder of the ark to a farmer who plants a vineyard. Unfortunately, he becomes drunk and exposes himself in his tent. His son Ham sees his father's nakedness and mocks him to his brothers, Shem and Japheth. Instead of joining in the mockery, Shem and Japheth respectfully cover their father without looking at him. This act earns them Noah's blessing, while Ham's son, Canaan, receives a curse. This narrative is more than a historical account; it reflects the gospel. Just as Shem and Japheth covered their father's shame, Christ covers our sins with His righteousness, allowing us to stand before God without shame. [06:02]

"For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." (Galatians 3:27, ESV)

Reflection: Consider a time when you felt exposed or ashamed. How can you invite Christ to cover that area of your life with His righteousness today?


Day 2: Nakedness and the Human Condition
The biblical motif of nakedness is deeply connected to shame and guilt, first seen in Adam and Eve's reaction to their sin. In Genesis, after they disobeyed God, they became aware of their nakedness and felt shame. This narrative highlights the human condition of vulnerability and the need for divine covering. Nakedness in the Bible often symbolizes spiritual and emotional exposure, representing our deepest vulnerabilities and the human desire to be fully known yet unashamed. This story of Noah and his sons serves as a reminder of our need for God's grace to cover our shame and guilt. [08:21]

"And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed." (Genesis 2:25, ESV)

Reflection: What areas of your life do you feel most vulnerable in? How can you seek God's covering and grace in those areas today?


Day 3: Redemption Through Divine Covering
God's first act of redemption was clothing Adam and Eve, symbolizing His mercy and grace. This act foreshadows the ultimate covering of our sins through Christ, who clothes us in His righteousness. In the story of Noah, Shem and Japheth's act of covering their father's nakedness is a vivid illustration of grace and redemption. It mirrors God's merciful act of covering our sins through Christ. Just as Noah's sons preserved their father's dignity, Christ covers our spiritual nakedness, allowing us to stand before God without shame. [09:16]

"I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness." (Isaiah 61:10, ESV)

Reflection: Reflect on a time when you experienced God's grace covering your shortcomings. How can you extend that same grace to others today?


Day 4: Marriage as a Reflection of Edenic Intimacy
Marriage is depicted as a place where one can be naked and unashamed, reflecting the intimacy and vulnerability intended in Eden. It is a covenant that provides security and mirrors our relationship with God. In marriage, there is a glimpse of this Edenic state where one can be fully known and accepted without shame, both physically and emotionally. However, the ultimate fulfillment of this desire is found in our relationship with God, where through Christ, we are clothed in righteousness and can stand before Him without fear or shame. [17:33]

"Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24, ESV)

Reflection: How can you cultivate a deeper sense of intimacy and vulnerability in your relationships, reflecting the Edenic intimacy God intended?


Day 5: The Desire to Be Fully Known and Accepted
Deep within us is a longing to be fully known and accepted without shame. This desire is ultimately fulfilled in our relationship with God, where through Christ, we are covered and can stand before Him unashamed. The story of Noah and his sons highlights the human condition of vulnerability and the need for divine covering. In our relationship with God, we find the ultimate fulfillment of our desire to be fully known and accepted, as we are clothed in Christ's righteousness and can stand before Him without fear or shame. [21:53]

"O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar." (Psalm 139:1-2, ESV)

Reflection: In what ways can you deepen your relationship with God to experience being fully known and accepted by Him? How can this impact your interactions with others?

Quotes

"In this segment in our study of Genesis, we're going to turn our attention to one of the most bizarre stories I think that we find anywhere in the Bible, and certainly bizarre and strange, unusual in the context of Genesis. It's the story of what happens to Noah after the flood has subsided. When we think about Noah, we think about Noah and what? The flood, right? And it's almost as if all Noah ever did was make a boat and go through a flood. But in Genesis 9, we read this very, very strange story, and let me take a moment to read it to you." [00:00:08]

"Now, what's going on here? First of all, at the end of the text we read what's called the patriarchal blessing, where the promises of God are transferred from father to son. But Noah has three sons, and who gets the blessing? Shem, okay, and then the secondary blessing is given to Japheth. But instead of a minor portion or a third of the inheritance being distributed to Ham or to his son Canaan, instead what does Noah do? He curses that generation and that part of his own family. And the narrative that we read tells us why Noah cursed Canaan, a very strange story." [00:02:07]

"After Noah lands on shore, on Ararat, he becomes a farmer, and he plants vineyards, and he grows grapes, and from the grapes he grows wine…he makes wine. But he overindulges in his own product and he gets drunk, okay? And when he goes into his tent, he is blotto, to use the colloquialism of our day. He is stinking drunk, so drunk that he's in there in a state of undress. You've seen people who are drunk, that just don't know what they're doing, and they let themselves be exposed and whatever. He's in his tent naked and drunk." [00:02:55]

"Now notice that the story is not that Ham looked at his drunkenness. He looks at his father's nakedness and comes back outside and tells his other brothers. And said…it's like, 'You ought to see the old man. You won't believe it, he's in there naked as a jaybird,' and he makes a spectacle of his own father. Now, I'll just make a parenthetical statement here. I realize that there are Old Testament scholars who, when they look at the laws set down in Deuteronomy and in Leviticus and so on about nakedness, 'You're not allowed to uncover your father's nakedness or your mother's nakedness,' and all of that, that those can be sort of euphemisms for prohibitions against incest or that sort of thing." [00:03:52]

"But the other two brothers, then, instead of participating in the humiliation of their father, what do they do? They take a covering, and they spread it between them and they walk backwards into the tent and cover their father's nakedness without looking at it. And in that act of covering their father's nakedness, they receive the patriarchal blessing of Noah. Now, what I'd like to suggest to you about that strange story is that contained in that story is nothing less than the gospel. The gospel is in that story. You say, 'Wait a minute, how in the world can the gospel be in the story?'" [00:05:24]

"And then we read in chapter 3 about the fall of Adam and Eve. The first experience of sin and of guilt is what? An awareness of nakedness. When God comes into the garden and says, 'Adam, where are you?' Adam and Eve are hiding, they have fled from the presence of God. Instead of rushing to Him in delight, now they're hiding. And God says, 'Why are you hiding?' What do they say? 'Because we are naked.' God doesn't say it, but you know, you might have expected God to say, 'Well, so what? I made you naked. Why should that cause you to run into the bushes? You were naked yesterday. You didn't have any problems when I came to see you.'" [00:07:07]

"Let me ask you this, what was the first act of redemption that God ever did for fallen man? He clothed them. He didn't say, 'Look, if you feel embarrassed because you're naked, because you sinned, too bad! The bed you make is the bed you sleep in, you're going to have to go like Cain and wander all over the world, naked and embarrassed.' And then God takes away the fig leaves and exposes them and makes them live in perpetual humiliation. No. The Lord God made clothes to cover the nakedness of His sinful people. He covered their embarrassment. This was indeed a cover up, not a cover up in a wicked sense, but in a merciful sense. He clothed His naked people. That is the gospel." [00:09:11]

"And as God clothes His naked creatures, so Noah's sons hide the nakedness of their father. Their father's dignity was more important to them than their own fun and their own pride. I mean, the father should not have been naked. The father should not have been drunk. Noah, who was the righteous man that God spares in the flood, was a sinner in that tent, and his sons clothed him. Again, that is the gospel. Now it's interesting, I think at least, in fact I wrote a whole chapter on it in this book If There's a God, why are There Atheists? on God and nakedness, where I tried to examine the motif of nakedness from the garden of Eden all the way through the Scriptures, because that motif keeps popping up." [00:10:17]

"Yet there's another side to it still, another facet. There is a sense in which all of us have a desire, deep down in, to find that Eden where once again we can be naked and unashamed. I mean, I've had people say to me, 'Boy, at the end of the day there's nothing better than to go in the room, close the door, pull the windshield, you know, take off all my clothes, jump in the shower.' There I don't have to hide anything, I don't have to put on a good impression. I can be, for once in my life, in the privacy of my shower, naked and what, unashamed. But that's when you're alone, and nobody is looking at you." [00:16:23]

"Is there any other place in life where you're free to become naked and unashamed where somebody else is there? The ultimate place is in marriage. And that's where we read about it in the Bible, that God, even though He expels Adam and Eve from Eden, and the marriage estate is disrupted by sin, nevertheless there's a sense, figuratively and spiritually and physically, where God has provided a place in this world where we can once again be naked and unashamed. And that's in marriage. But again, even that isn't merely a physical consideration. The concept of nakedness biblically is linked to being known." [00:17:14]

"God knows what He's doing, and yet He said, 'Here is an opportunity, a safe place for you to be naked again, and I'm going to protect that with all these different sanctions.' But that's just a human estate of nakedness, see? But what we need more than anything else is not just to be back in Eden, where we can find a woman who can look at us while we're naked and not laugh, but that we can find a place where we can be naked before God, without shame. Adam and Eve weren't embarrassed about their nakedness with each other. They weren't hiding from each other. They hid together from God, didn't they? It's God who made them embarrassed." [00:21:29]

"How much time do we spend making ourselves physically look as attractive as we possibly can? Think about it, because we don't want people to see our blemishes, we don't want people to see our shame. You know what the word the Bible uses to describe the atonement of Jesus Christ? A covering…a covering. I can go into the presence of God in repentance and contrition and all of that, but I am allowed to come in the presence of God now, why? Because I'm covered. Isaiah says that your righteousness, the righteousness that you have achieved, the goodness that you have accrued in your life is, if you add it all up in the presence of God, like filthy rags. That's how much good it does you." [00:25:38]

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Transcript
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