What Real Transparency With God Looks Like
Let us start with Genesis 2:25: And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
The Hebrew offers more than a simple description of their physical condition. ’arummim (עֲרוּמִּם, naked) emphasizes that both the man and the woman shared the same state of open innocence. The phrase v’lo yitrappu (וְלֹא יִתְבֹּשָׁשׁוּ, not ashamed) tells us that their exposure carried no fear, no disgrace, no sense of being at risk. This is the final line before the serpent enters the narrative, almost as if Scripture pauses and lets us breathe the air of a world untainted by fear. It is a picture of wholeness, the last moment of spiritual alignment before deception begins its work.
’Arummim is especially interesting because it sounds like arum (עָרוּם, shrewd, wise, discerning), the word used for the serpent in the next verse. The similarity in sound is intentional. The text contrasts innocent transparency with twisted cunning. Humanity was meant to live ’arummim, fully revealed and fully trusting. The serpent approaches as arum, using shrewdness to corrupt the very vulnerability that God declared good. Their nakedness was never weakness. It was the posture of pure relationship, nothing blocking communion between the human heart and the God who breathed life into their nostrils. In Eden, exposure meant intimacy, not danger.
After they ate from the ’ets ha-da’at tov v’ra (עֵץ הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע, tree of the knowledge of good and evil), everything shifted. Then the eyes of both were opened. This opening was not simply biological vision. It was spiritual perception distorted by rebellion. They moved from seeing God’s goodness clearly to seeing their own condition through the fractured lens of shame. The verse says they “knew” they were naked. Here the verb is yada (יָדַע, to know intimately), revealing that their new awareness was deep, emotional, and penetrating. Shame immediately whispered its lie, the same lie it tells every generation: “You must hide from the One who loves you.”
Turn now to Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 3:18: And we all, with unveiled faces, contemplate the Lord’s glory and are being transformed into His image with ever increasing glory.
Paul uses the expression akatakalyptoi prosōpō (ἀκατακαλύπτοι προσώπῳ, unveiled faces). He deliberately invokes the moment when Moses wore a veil so that Israel would not see the fading glory of the old covenant. That veil symbolized distance. Something holy remained covered. In Messiah, Paul says the veil is taken away. Glory no longer fades. The Spirit writes upon our hearts continuously. To stand before God with an unveiled face is to return to Eden’s design. Transparency is not merely a spiritual discipline. It is a restoration of humanity’s original posture before God.
Science quietly affirms this biblical truth. When a person hides aspects of themselves, the brain’s stress pathways activate, sending signals through the amygdala as if danger is near. Yet when someone shares truth with a safe presence, the prefrontal cortex engages and calms the body. God wired us for open connection. Shame disrupts creation’s design. Vulnerability restores it. Scripture and neuroscience speak the same language: transparency brings life.
In Hebrew thought, the opposite of shame is not pride, it is wholeness. To be transparent with God is not about informing Him of something He does not already know. It is about allowing His presence to touch the places we avoid. He does not shame us. His voice has never been the voice of condemnation toward His children. He already accounted for every fracture when He formed us.
So when we stand before Him without the katakalyptos veil, when we return to the innocence of ’arum, when we embrace the intimacy of yada, we step once more into the environment we were designed to breathe. Transparency with God is strength, not weakness. It is the doorway to transformation. It is the life of a soul no longer hiding among the trees but walking openly with the One who comes to meet us.
We often reach for garments of self righteousness or the illusion of perfection, yet God’s invitation remains gentle and unwavering. He calls us to come to Him uncovered, and He is not ashamed of us. That is the freedom of Eden, restored through His grace.
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image by chatgpt at my direction
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