Christian naturists also contend that Christians clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ don't need to wear clothes. Galatians 3:27 says that when someone is baptized into Christ, they have clothed themselves with Christ. The NIV puts it this way:
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.The King James Version says:
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
The New American Standard Bible says:
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with
Christ.
According to a web post entitled: Clothed with Fig Leaves or Righteousness? by Wil Pounds, Christians should be clothed with the righteousness of Christ, not with the fig leaves of our own self-righteousness. Quoting Pounds: "Today, God fully clothes every individual who believes in Christ with the perfect righteousness of Christ (2 Cor. 5:21; Isa. 61:10)."
Pounds makes some excellent points:
There is only one remedy for sin. “The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21). God told them before they sinned, “in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17).
The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23a). “The person who sins will die” (Ezek. 18:20). Adam and Eve died spiritually the moment they sinned. In time, they died physically.Can you imagine the shock in the mind and heart of Adam and Eve when they saw two dead animals, probably lambs, lying dead before their eyes? God killed the animals and made from their skins garments and clothed Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21). “The wages of sin is death.”
But the immediate death that occurred was not their death, though they were guilty and deserved the death penalty; it was the death of two innocent animals.In His mercy God killed those animals for Adam and Eve. They were guilty and deserved death, but God chose two innocent animals to die as their substitutes. They pointed to another Substitute who in time would give Himself as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The only death that can possibly deal with sin is His death. Only His blood can cleanse us from all sin (Heb. 9:22; 1
John 1:7, 9). There is no other detergent that will wipe away our guilt (1 Peter 1:18-19; Rev. 5:9). God’s perfect covering for sin is the blood of the Lamb of God. Fig leaves will never do what God alone can do. God’s perfect provision and covering is through the death of His Son, Jesus Christ.
When God slaughtered those animals in order to cover the sins of Adam and Eve, it was merely a type of the perfect sacrificial lamb that would be slain once and for all for the sins of mankind. Clothing pointed forward to the death of Jesus on the cross. Jesus was the only person who can ever fully cover our sins.
This begs the question: Does a Christian living on the other side of the cross, clothed in the perfect righteousness of Jesus, need to wear clothing? Since the purpose for clothing has been fulfilled in Christ, isn't the wearing of clothes adding to the perfect righteousness of Christ? Isn't wearing clothes the equivalent of reinstituting the Jewish sacrificial system? Many Christian naturists argue this point. And it is a persuasive argument.
