Christian
Romance
How does the Bible describe romance
- what does it say about romantic love?
The Bible describes God as the most passionate, pursuant, and
perfect lover. The Bible not only speaks of passionate love between
men and women, but it shows God as the ultimate lover - in the
courting
of his human creations. Between God and us lies the greatest of
all Romances!!
We don't normally think of God as a romantic
lover in the way that romance and passion is shared between a
man and a woman. But it is the roamance between him and us, that
he wishes to symbolise in our passionate quest and desire for
oneness with the opposite sex. There are many different kinds
of passion but none quite as intense as the passion of lovers
- except God's passion for us. The desire - the passion - the
chase and ultimately the marriage of the husband to the wife -
and Christ to the church.
Which is it, then, kiss or kill?
Romantic love is distinct throughout Scripture. God is depicted
as the unrequited lover. "Will a girl forget her finery or
a bride her ribbons? Yet my people have forgotten me over and
over again. God is a passionate lover, and passion can fuel anger.
God storms at his lover for her prostitution. God also desires
Israel for his bride: "For, as a young man weds a maiden,
so you shall wed him who rebuilds you". All very intense
stuff!
God in relation to his people is depicted
as having rescued them as a newborn baby lying in their own blood,
raised them to full maturity, gave them fine clothes and jewelry,
provided for them the best of foods, and presented them with sons
and daughters (Ezek. 16:114). In return, they (you might say us)
imperviously fornicates. "How you anger me!" shouts
God (Ezek. 16:30). He threatens to turn them over to her many
lovers, to strip them naked before. The lovers will then rob their
jewelry, stone them, and hack them to pieces (Ezek. 16:39-40).
One couldn't be more passionate than that. So then the stormy
rows of lovers can be seen in God's passionate love and jealousy
for his people.
But God is the perfect lover. He vents his frustration and anger,
then whispers: "I will still woo her, I will go with her
into the wilderness and comfort her" (Hos. 2:14). He follows
her through hell and high water wherever she goes, and pleads
"How shall I deal with you? Your loyalty to me is like the
morning mist, like dew that vanishes early." Don't you see,
he adds, "loyalty is my desire, not sacrifice" (Hos.
6:4-5). Love will heal: it will reveal the eternal identity and
make all things new. Come, God says, and Israel may be "fair
as the olive" and "flourish like a vine" (Hos.
14;6-7).
Then God, the greatest and most
persistent lover ever changes tack. He is not only wanting to
gain this one peoples love, but all of creation! His passion will
stop at nothing. In this sense he is almost like a madman.
He comes to us and takes on the nature of the most lowly slave.
He walks with us and, experiences our greatest sorrows and our
most heart felt joys, heals the sick and casts out demons and
not forgetting him showing his righteous anger as well. Then the
lowly servant shows how the fist shall be last and the last shall
be first bydemonstrating his almighty power over evil and death
itself by being raised from it. He yearns, "How often have
I longed to gather you children, as a hen gathers her brood under
her wings: but you would not let me" (Luke 13:34).
We still turn our backs but in the end
there is no fighting it. We have been caught by our "true
and only husband" (2 Cor. 11:2). We have seen that love really
does reign over death, love is stronger than life itself, angels,
principalities, powers or anything we can imagine. In the end
it's hard to comprehend why we ran so hard from this perfect lover!
So finally the bride is made new. God's
people are sown in humiliation but raised in glory. Very soon
the wedding of all weddings will begin. Heaven will open and the
bridegroom will appear on a white horse. And so God romances us
the same way that we roamance our beloved husband or wife.
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- love and romance
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