God created his church for a love relationship with him marked by mutually intense delight and desire.
With different people, we love in different ways. The love one feels for a parent is different than one feels for a child, not more or less, but different. Likewise, love feels different for a friend than for a brother or sister; or for a teacher, coach or mentor. All these loves have different qualities, but all are love.
Romantic love differs from all other loves. Although songs, novels, and movies are written about the love of friends, teammates, family, and others, the number of songs and stories about romantic love exceeds them all by a millionfold. Any objective observer would have to conclude romantic love is the greatest and insatiable obsession of humans.
It would be surprising indeed if this singularly important love between humans had no counterpart in God, that is, if he loved like a parent, friend, or master, but not like one romantically enthralled with a spouse or lover. We might hesitate to ascribe romantic love to God, especially if we have any prudish tendencies to regard the marriage bed as unclean, which it is not (Hebrews 13:4). Romantic love is marked by desire and passion, by pleasure and delight, and it’s hard for us to think of God that way.
The God who woos and weds
Yet Scripture demands it, for God describes himself using this analogy.
Isaiah 54:5 says, “Your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name.”
God says, “I will betroth you to me forever” (Hosea 2:19).
The apostle Paul writes, quoting from Genesis 2:24, “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31–32, ESV).
When God forbids having idols and when he rebukes Israel for having them, he uses the language and expectations of romantic, marital love. He speaks of his own jealousy and of Israel’s adultery and whoring. He describes himself as a jilted lover:
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:4–5).
“You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’?” (James 4:3–5).
“When the LORD first spoke through [the prophet] Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD’” (Hosea 1:2).
Marks of romantic love in God
God has romantic love for his people collectively. The Bible describes the church, not the individual Christian, as the bride of Christ. Yet as a member of the church, every individual Christian is in a sense the object of that romantic/courtship/marital love.
Romantic love has several features that compare to God’s love for his people:
Delight, ardor, desire, attraction: “The LORD your God is among you, a warrior who saves. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will be quiet in his love. He will delight in you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17, CSB). Clearly, God finds pleasure in the loving relationship he has with his people.
Wooing: “Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David” (Isaiah 55:3). “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance” (Romans 2:4).
Emotional attachment: At the Last Supper of Jesus with his disciples, “When the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, ‘I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer’” (Luke 22:14–15). In the Old Testament era, when God spoke to his people with warning of judgment to come, Hosea spoke these surprising words from the Lord: “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender” (Hosea 11:8).
Admiration of beauty: “I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God” (Ezekiel 16:10–14).
As this verse shows, it is important to know that God is the one who makes his people beautiful and desirable. In ourselves and apart from God’s gracious work in us, we were repulsive in our sin.
The same idea occurs here: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25–27)
“Your royal husband delights in your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord” (Psalm 45:11, NLT).
Union: Jesus said, “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (John 14:20).
Covenant: “I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord GOD, and you became mine” (Ezekiel 16:8). Jesus said,“This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20).
Headship: “The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior” (Ephesians 5:23).
Sacrificial giving: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).
Our way and God’s way
Our way: Fallen people want to love God the way a sister loves a brother. Fallen people want to have many lovers.
God’s way: The Lord loves his people passionately and requires that we love him exclusively and passionately. God finds romantic pleasure in loving his people.
Life principle: God created his church for a love relationship with him marked by mutually intense delight and desire.
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)
I invite you to read my weekly posts about
knowing God and his ways better.
—Craig Brian Larson