Fig Leaves

One of the greatest truths to be gleaned from the Garden of Eden is the truth that Adam was first created in the very condition in which every son and daughter of Adam comes into the world – in a state of nakedness, coupled with innocence. The Lord God so ordered it, that in and by the fall man should get what previously had not, and that was, a conscience, the knowledge of good and evil. By means of the conscience "the eyes of them both were opened," but, alas! to what a sight! – it was only to discover their own nakedness. They opened their eyes upon their own condition, which was "wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked" (Rev. 3:17). Suddenly “they knew that they were naked” – they knew that their flesh lay bare and exposed, their carnal nature hanging out – sad fruit of the tree of knowledge. No sooner does a man discover his nakedness than this knowledge gives birth to the impulse to make an effort to COVER the nakedness. Thus, in the case of Adam and Eve, the discovery of their nakedness was immediately followed by an effort of their own to cover it, – "they sewed fig-leaves together and made themselves aprons" (Gen. 3:7).