Isaiah is one of the great figures in the Bible, a powerful prophet and a mighty man of God, to whom unique insights were given. The fact that God did not, and does not, regard nakedness in public as a sin is proved beyond all doubt by what we read in Isaiah chapter 20: "Sargon King of Assyria sent his commander-in-chief to Ashdod, and he took it by storm. At that time the LORD said to Isaiah son of Amoz, Come, strip the sackcloth from your waist and take your sandals off. He did so, and went about naked and barefoot. The LORD said, "My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a warning to Egypt and Cush; just so shall the king of Assyria lead the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush naked and barefoot, their buttocks shamefully exposed, young and old alike. All men shall be dismayed, their hopes in Cush and their pride in Egypt humbled. On that day those who dwell along this coast will say, So much for all our hopes on which we relied for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria; what escape have we now?"
The first thing brought to our notice is that this event is a real part of history. It happened at a specific time, fixed by other historical events, namely the wars of Sargon I, who was king of Assyria from 722-705BC. This chapter is not a parable, not a vision, not something that can be explained away from the real world by "interpretation". It actually happened. Isaiah son of Amoz, a real person, lived naked for at least three years of real time. He was naked at home, naked in the street, naked at the market, naked at synagogue, naked everywhere at God's specific command.
Second, we are told quite unequivocally that he was naked; we cannot interpret the word away as some kind of metaphor. Sackcloth was worn next to the skin, and Isaiah was told to strip it off; then he was commanded to remove his sandals; and, finally, we are told in plain English that he went naked and barefoot. But, just in case we still do not understand what we are witnessing in Scripture, we are told again, this time by God himself: "My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot..."
Three times in the six verses of this chapter that phrase "naked and barefoot" is repeated. Isaiah was very definitely naked.
When we are told why he was naked, we see an equally definite contrast between what God thinks of public nakedness and what men think of it. God points with evident pride to Isaiah and his nakedness "My servant has gone naked and barefoot." In contrast, men, we see in this passage, regard nakedness as an instrument of humiliation, in which others can be stripped of their man-made, self-appointed glory and paraded as captives in a victory procession.
Slaves and servants and children, as Egyptian tomb-paintings show, were often naked; to be stripped was to be forcibly reduced to that level.
Using nakedness in that way as an instrument of humiliation was not uncommon throughout the ancient world. Across the Atlantic, for example, the ancient Peruvian people of Moche humiliated their captives likewise; they even rubbed salt in the wounds of shame by hanging their clothes from their war-clubs.
Even today, under the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war are stripped, undoubtedly not just for security reasons.
But Isaiah felt no shame. He had no reason to. He was naked at God's command. He could share God's pride in his action; he could rejoice. It was only the ungodly, the captives whose nakedness was brought about by their own pride who had cause to be ashamed.
Finally, this chapter tells us the lesson of these events, the central message: trust in God, and him alone. Do not put your trust in men. If you do, all you will get is humiliation and slavery. The same message is given many times throughout the Bible. In Psalm 108:12-13, for example, we read:
Grant us help against the enemy,
for deliverance by man is a vain hope.
With God's help we shall do valiantly,
and God himself will tread our
enemies underfoot.
Again, in Psalm 121:1-2, the Psalmist tells us:
If I lift up my eyes to the hills,
where shall I find help?
Help comes only from the LORD,
maker of heaven and earth.
And in Psalm 118:6 & 8-9:
The LORD is on my side, I have no fear;
what can man do to me?
It is better to find refuge in the LORD
than to trust in men.
It is better to find refuge in the LORD
than to trust in princes.
In Proverbs 3:5, King Solomon passes on the same divine truth: "Put all your trust in the LORD, and do not rely on your own understanding." Psalm 62:11 summarises the lesson in four simple words: "Power belongs to God."
The other message that Isaiah 20 carries to us that nakedness in public is good, and useful for good is a vital one for our age. Our own understanding says "No, it is wicked and dangerous." In consequence we have sowed repression and fashion, only to reap lies and follies, perverted thinking and pain and crime, even madness.
If any doubts still remain in anyone's mind about the essential righteousness of nakedness they must surely vanish when Isaiah 20 is read in conjunction with other passages.
In James 1:13-15, for example, we are told, "No one under trial or temptation should say, "I am being tempted by God"; for God is untouched by evil and does not himself tempt anyone. Temptation arises when a man is enticed and lured way by his own lust; then lust conceives, and gives birth to sin; and sin full-grown breeds death." Again, in Deuteronomy 32:4, we are told that God is "a faithful God, who does no wrong"; and in Psalm 94:15 that "righteousness still informs his judgement."
God, then, never tells anyone to do anything evil. He cannot. If he asks someone to do something, and even more so if he commands it, it is not a sin. It is good in his sight. And since, as we are told in Malachi 3:6, "I am the LORD, unchanging", it does not matter when in human history that command was given, the thing commanded is equally good in his sight at any other time (unless it was specifically given as a temporary measure, later superseded, which is not the case here).
God Almighty, changeless and holy, commanded Isaiah to go naked in public.
In Micah 1:8 we see that the prophet Micah also went naked, as a sign of God's despair at sin of Israel and Judah: "Therefore I must howl and wail, go naked and distraught."
In Mark 7:6-8, Jesus refers to Isaiah when he condemns a practice still common in our age: `Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites in these words: "This people pays me lip-service, but their heart is far from me: their worship of me is in vain, for they teach as doctrines the commandments of men." You neglect the commandment of God, in order to maintain the tradition of men.
Too often, still, the Christian church preaches nothing more than the traditions of men, the ways of the world. Cleaned up, yes; polished, yes; but not of God. So they preach that public nakedness is dirty, evil, wrong, and must be suppressed. That plays right into Satan's hands. He loves to have the truth suppressed, because then he can replace it with all kinds of lies.
With the body, we have the daily proof of his activities on the top shelves of every magazine rack, in every seedy video shop, in every red-light district, in every strip-tease joint, in the mind of every flasher, in the evil acts of every sex-criminal and rapist.
We are enjoined in 2 Corinthians 7:1 to cleanse ourselves from all that can defile flesh and spirit, and in the fear of God complete our consecration. False ideas about the flesh defile it, for they lead to actions against our bodies or others' bodies. They also defile the spirit, for believing lies darkens it. In Exodus 23:2, God commands us: `You shall not be led into wrongdoing by the majority'--which is precisely where the pressure comes from to believe these lies.
Another favourite weapon much used by the condemners of nakedness is in the New Testament: the passages in Romans 14:15-18 and I Corinthians 8 that prohibit doing anything that will cause the downfall of a fellow Christian. Those are often used to try and prevent Christians from doing anything out of the ordinary--such as going naked.
In Romans 14:15 we are told, "If your brother is outraged by what you eat, then your conduct is no longer guided by love. Do not by your eating bring disaster to a man for whom Christ died!" (The verses quoted here only talk about eating certain foods, but earlier ones show that the discussion is on general matters of disagreement -- "doubtful points".)
First it must be pointed out that a "brother's outrage" is not an indubitable guide to right action. In Mark 8:27-33, Jesus told His disciples plainly that He was going to go through great sufferings, to be rejected by the rulers, to be crucified, then rise from the dead. Peter was so outraged that he took Him by the arm and rebuked Him. But Jesus turned and rebuked him in no uncertain terms, saying, `Away with you, Satan. You think as men think, not as God thinks.
Those who reacted with anger and fury at the sacrifice of the woman in Mark 14:3-9 who anointed Jesus with pure oil of nard, were also sternly rebuked in words that ring down through the ages.
And we are given the example in Acts 4:19 where a now emboldened Peter, with John, asks the furious, but wicked, rulers, "Is it right in God's eyes for us to obey you rather than God?"
The key points of Romans 14 are, first, that it is only talking about fellow Christians being outraged, not people in general; second, that it is only talking about outrage, which is a very strong emotion--rage beyond rage; and, third, what it is talking about must be something that can lead to the spiritual downfall of a fellow Christian --an "obstacle or stumbling-block."
That does not mean a stumbling-block of the kind found in I Corinthians 1:23, in which Christ nailed to the cross is described as a "stumbling-block to Jews"--i.e., a stumbling-block of truth, past which men of lies cannot go. This is a stumbling-block of falseness; one that does not bring spiritual life but spiritual downfall.
The naked truth, in any meaning of the term, can never cause such a downfall. The truth may upset people, because they have to do something about it and may not want to, but if it outrages them they are not Christians, not lovers of truth.
As was said earlier, these passages in Romans and I Corinthians are too often used as a kind of blackmail by shallow Christians who just want to get their own way. They say, "I am upset by what you are doing, which means you are not acting in love, so you are not allowed to do it." But that is not what the passage means. To use it in that way is to use it in pride, to use it falsely, which means to use it as Satan uses Scripture--as a means of trying to get his own way in despite of God.
Freedom, as always, is balance within the truth. In this case, the counterweight to prevent these passages being misused is in I Timothy 4:4-5: "For everything that God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected when it is taken with thanksgiving, since it is hallowed by God's own word and by prayer."
There is yet more New Testament confirmation of the difference between how we see nakedness and how God sees it in Matthew 6:25, where Jesus tells us that "...the body is more than clothes", and in the Gospel of John 13:3-4 during the Last Supper, where we are told, "Jesus ... rose from table, laid aside His garments, and taking a towel tied it round Him."
The condemners of nakedness say `garments' here means outerwear; but the same word is used when the soldiers divided all Christ's clothing between them, and nakedness would be more consistent with the function of a servant or slave, which is what Jesus at that moment was specifically showing his disciples to be.
Peter was certainly naked in John 21:7 when he was out fishing with the other disciples, but he was not rebuked by Jesus, just helped to make a large catch. Indeed, in those times it was not uncommon, even in the highly civilised Roman Empire, for outdoor workmen such as farmers and fishermen to be naked at their toil (which explains Matthew 24:18-- "Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes").
Most tellingly, most gloriously, and most unequivocally, we are told by John in chapter 20:6-8 of his account that Jesus' burial garments were left behind in the tomb when he rose from the dead. So at that triumphant, stupendous moment in human history, when the Son of God conquered Death, and rose as the first-fruit of God's recreation, he, the second Adam, wasas naked as the first. The Age of Grace dawned in the same way as the Age of Innocence.
John and Peter's eyewitness account, is the proof of that, for it clearly says that all the burial linen was still in the tomb when they arrived at the tomb early on Easter morning. All the wrappings, everything except the napkin that had been round Jesus' head (which was folded aside), were lying undisturbed where his body had been. In the power of his resurrection he had simply passed straight through them.
Perhaps it was as much his nakedness as her tear-dimmed vision that caused Mary Magdala to mistake him for the gardener in John 20:15.
The early Christian church freely included nakedness in its baptismal services. For centuries it was the custom to baptise men, women, and children together naked. St. Hippolytus of Rome, circa 200AD, says they were required to be totally naked. Women were required to take off their jewellery and remove the combs from their hair.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, circa 350AD, would address those who were about to be baptised: "You are now stripped and naked, in this also imitating Christ despoiled of his garments on his cross, he who by his nakedness despoiled the principalities and powers, and fearlessly triumphed over them."
Still later, in 400AD, Theodore of Mopsuetia, writing of baptism, says that clothing "must be taken off" as proof of the Adam-like innocence that the converts have.
In I Corinthians 12:22-25, in the passage where Paul is likening the church to the body, he gives as powerful an insight into God's view of the body as he does into the ideal structure and workings of the church of Christ: "Those organs of the body which seem to be more frail than others are indispensable, and those parts of the body which we regard as less honourable are treated with with special honour. To our unseemly parts is given a more than ordinary seemliness, whereas our seemly parts need no adorning. But God has combined the various parts of the body, giving special honour to the humbler parts, so that there might be no sense of division in the body..."
"Those parts which we regard as less honourable are treated with special honour" and "to our unseemly parts is given a more than ordinary seemliness."
Quote those to the next unthinking Christian who tries to tell you that your genitals or pudenda are indecent and should never be visible.