Shame is spoken of much in popular culture today, and I have become increasingly convinced that most of the rhetoric is the gospel of Satan. So to separate the wheat from the popular chaff, we should have a grounding of what the scriptures actually say about shame. They do say quite a lot, but the spirit tells me that we can perhaps learn the most by going straight to the beginning and relating from there outwards.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth, yada yada yada, and then created Adam and Eve. "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." (Gen 2:25) Note here, that feeling no shame is the result of not knowing good from evil. (As we see later, feeling shame about our natural man state is natural.) The state of not feeling shame is returning in the latter days, but this time not from innocence, but instead from the confusion of people calling good things evil, and calling evil things good. As Zephaniah says (3:5) "the unjust knoweth no shame", in spite of the Lord, for "every morning doth he bring his judgment to light".
The symbol of nakedness being shameful is repeated many times throughout scripture, in both literal and symbolic senses. And sometimes both simultaneously, as when the Israelites build the golden calf and proceed to revel in their new found god. "And when Moses saw that the people were naked (for Aaron had made them naked, to their shame among their enemies)" (Exo 32:25) The word naked here is sometimes translated as "unrestrained" or "out of control" or "had sinned", implying that they should have been ashamed of what they were doing, but were not, and their enemies could justly criticize them because of their behavior.
Here are other scriptures about the shame of being symbolically naked. Think about what it represents, i.e. perhaps ignorance of knowing what you are doing wrong.
Rev 3:17-18 "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white rainment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see."
Rev 16:15 "Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame."
Isa 20:2-4 "naked and barefoot three years for a sign ... upon Egypt ... so shall ... Assyria lead away the Egyptian prisoners ... naked and barefoot ... to the shame of Egypt"
When Adam and Eve partook of the fruit and began to know good from evil, they "knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons." It it notable that being naked was not actually a sin here; the sin was partaking of the fruit against God's commandment. But being naked is symbolic (and literal in this case) of being inadequate before God, as expressed in Rev 3:17. We are all inadequate before God, and so a sense of shame at that is natural and appropriate. Think of the lesson God teaches Moroni, when Moroni feels his own inadequacy.
"Wherefore, when we write we behold our weakness, and stumble because of the placing of our words; and I fear [i.e. feel shame] lest the Gentiles shall mock [i.e. cast shame] at our words.
And when I had said this, the Lord spake unto me, saying: Fools mock, but they shall mourn; and my grace is sufficient for the meek, that they shall take no advantage of your weakness;
And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." (Ether 12:25-27)
This is essentially the story of all our lives, and of Adam and Eve as well. Being embarrassed because of their nakedness, they make aprons and hide themselves from God. The temple ceremony expands on this, showing that it is Satan who shames them for being naked and suggests that they make aprons and hide. It is a natural (as in, natural man) reaction in all of us, when we realize our inadequacies and sins, to feel ashamed and want to hide from God. But this impulse to hide from God or feel that we cannot be saved is the message from Satan. The message from God is not to hide, but to come unto him. The satanic gospel of shame teaches that because shame makes us want to hide from God, therefore shame is bad and we should never feel it at all. But this would mean we also never notice our weakness or our nakedness, and never feel the need to come unto God for help. When we reject the satanic gospel of shame, we reject the false dichotomy of either hiding our shame or not feeling shame, and we see the true path, which is to feel the shame, and turn to God because of it.
And what happens when we come unto God? Well, the bad news is that he first shows unto us our real weaknesses, not merely the things we felt shame about. Just as with Adam and Eve, he wasn't really that concerned about them being naked, but more about what had brought about that knowledge. (Gen 3:11) "Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded they that thou shouldest not eat?" Likewise when we first come unto Christ, it is not uncommon that we are made aware of what our actual sins are, and we find that we have much more to repent of than we thought. We may indeed feel shame at this, but this shame is to humble us, and if we humble ourselves before Christ, we will repent. Contrary to popular opinion of shame, we should be worried if we don't feel shame, because if we don't feel shame, we don't know what we should be repenting of.
But popular opinion of shame is not completely wrong, because there is also the shame of the world. Mocking fools, who like Satan, will cast shame at us for the wrong things. And yet, there is also a role for socially enforced morality. We do need to be told when we are actually being foolish and acting shamefully. But it can be difficult to tell the difference, especially in times of latter day confusion and precepts of men. Therefore, we must continually come unto Christ, and he will comfort us about the things fools might mock us about, and discomfort us about the things we still need to repent of.
Here are scriptures to ponder about correct and incorrect uses of shame.
1 Corinthians 1:27 "But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound [also translated as "shame"] the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound [shame] the things which are mighty;"
1 Cor 15:34 "Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame."
1 Peter 4:4 (about giving up your past sinful ways) "Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you."
Psalms 1:1 "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly."
1 Nephi 8:33 "And great was the multitude that did enter into that strange building. And after they did enter into that building they did point the finger of scorn at me and those that were partaking of the fruit also; but we heeded them not."
In the story of Adam and Eve we observe another natural reaction to shame.
"And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. ... And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." (Gen 3:12-13)
The urge to look for someone else to blame for our sins is a natural man reaction to feelings of shame and inadequacy before God. Even when such accusations are true, they put us in the role of Satan as accuser, and are an attempt to deny our own choice and responsibility in committing the sin. The amount of blame and shame being cast about in modern time is astounding, and is all part of this generation attempting to justify itself instead of recognizing their own nakedness and even filthiness.
Rev 12:10 "the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night."
Prov 30:10 "Accuse not a servant unto his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty."
Prov 30:11-12 "There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother. There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness."
As the Lord himself teaches us through the Spirit what we should truly feel shame about, we will become more aware of when we are naked before him and when we are not. Many times I have personally felt shame and regret from a memory of something I have done in the past. I have learned that this shame is a signal to me that I need to repent of those things. Even if I have stopped doing that thing, the shame is telling me that my repentance is not complete. Often what I still lack for repentance is the coming into God. If I simply come into God, confess my sin, and ask for his forgiveness, I experience the miracle of forgiveness as my shame and regret is removed, and I no longer feel harrowed up in shame by that memory.
As we learn to trust our shame which comes from the promptings of the spirit, we will learn to ignore the shame which the world would try to cast at us. And we will also need to learn to endure the shame which we justly earn from our disobedience to God's commandments. Even though Adam and Eve confessed their sin of eating the fruit, God pronounces just punishments upon them.
"Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children....
"Unto Adam he said ... cursed in the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it ... In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread."
(and to emphasize their humbled state)
"For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." (Gen 3:16-19)
God allows the natural consequences of our actions to take effect, and even enforces them. For example, in Gen 3:23-24, God drives out the man and woman from the garden of Eden and places Cherubim to prevent them from returning. But on the other hand, he also prepares the way that men should repent of their sins, and return to him. The natural state of man is shameful, which is represented physically by nakedness, but this is also symbolic of our spiritual nakedness, or behaviors which are shameful. So God creates garments to clothe Adam and Eve.
Consider the symbolic significance of God making garments for them. Adam and Eve had already clothed themselves with aprons. But their attempt to hide their shame was inadequate, so by making garments for them, he shows them the proper way to be clothed, and does the work for them. They merely have to wear the garments which have been prepared for them.
The clothing of Adam and Eve is followed by spiritual teaching, when God speaks to them and gives them commandments. (see Moses 5:4-5) The ten commandments we follow today are essentially a garment we wear (i.e. behave according to) in order that our shameful natural man behaviors and tendencies will not be exposed or expressed.
The ten commandments summarize a myriad of lesser commandments, and are summarized by the two great commandments, to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind; and to love your neighbor as yourself. We learn to make our own garments to cover our physical nakedness after the manner shown to us when he made garments for us. And we also learn to make our own moral compasses, in order to better understand proper behavior. But these are always conforming to the patterns that God has given us by his commandments, even though we think we are explaining why those commandments are good.
To fully understand the symbolism of the garments which clothe our nakedness, we need to go to the end of the world instead of the beginning. We already saw white garments mentioned in Rev 3 above. The symbolism of white garments is explained in other places in Revelations:
Rev 7:13-14 What are these which are arrayed in white robes? ... These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Rev 19:8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.
And a fuller description of the symbolism is in Alma 5.
Alma 5:21 ... for there can no man be saved except his garments are washed white; yea, his garments must be purified until they are cleansed from all stain, through the blood of him of whom it has been spoken by our fathers, who should come to redeem his people from their sins.
22 And now I ask of you, my brethren, how will any of you feel, if ye shall stand before the bar of God, having your garments stained with blood and all manner of filthiness? Behold, what will these things testify against you?
23 Behold will they not testify that ye are murderers, yea, and also that ye are guilty of all manner of wickedness?
Notice that your garments may either become stained with the filthiness of your sins, or they can be cleansed and made white through the blood of Christ. Even though the nakedness (inadequacy, shamefulness) of our natural man state is hidden by clothing, the things we all do in life will make us feel shame to stand before God, unless we have repented and had the stains washed away in the blood of the Lamb of God. Again, we have all sinned (see Romans 3:23) and have reason to feel ashamed because of what we have done. Satan tells us to hide from God, but God tells us to come unto him, confess your sins, and be forgiven. And when we fully commit to following God, we can be sanctified by the Holy Ghost and have our garments made white, pure, and spotless before God. God himself removes the shame of this world from us when we turn to him, just as he covered the shame of Adam and Eve's nakedness, when they confessed before him.
Prov 28:13 He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.
Alma 13:12 Now they, after being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, having their garments made white, being pure and spotless before God, could not look upon sin save it were with abhorrence;
1 Nephi 12:10 ... they are righteous forever; for because of their faith in the Lamb of God their garments are made white in his blood.
:12 ... three generations pass away in righteousness; and their garments were white even like unto the Lamb of God. And the angel said unto me: These are made white in the blood of the Lamb, because of their faith in him.
Ether 13:10 And then cometh the New Jerusalem; and blessed are they who dwell therein, for it is they whose garments are white through the blood of the Lamb;
Rev 6:9,11 I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held.... And white robes were given unto every one of them;
Rev 19:14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.
And, as I talked earlier about ignoring the shame of the world, here are some scriptural examples of how the righteous react to the shame of the world.
Acts 5:41 ... rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name
Heb 12:2 Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
1 Pet 4:6 Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter.
1 Peter 3:16-17 Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.
D&C 136:31 he that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom.
2 Nephi 9:18 the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel, ... they who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it, they shall inherit the kingdom of God, ... and their joy shall be full forever.
The righteous are willing to endure the shame cast upon them by the world and the worldly, and despise that shame. Or, as it is also translated, disregard that shame. The righteous do not hide from shame. They either ignore it, if it is from the world, or they feel it as a broken heart and contrite spirit and turn to God in repentance. Whenever we repeat the idea that shame makes us want to hide from God, we are reinforcing the lie that is taught by Satan from the beginning even until now. Instead of those lies, let us preach the words of Christ:
"And ye shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit. And whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost." (3 Nephi 9:20)
