In a Pure and Holy Sense, the Bible is a Romance: God has a Love Relationship with us

If we were to enter into the deep thought of the Bible, we will realise that the Bible is a romance, in a most pure and holy sense, with God as the male and we as His people as the female, for us to enter into marriage together.

In our Crystallisation-study of the book of Numbers, this week we come to ch. 5, and the topic for this week is, The Lord’s Jealousy over the Church as His Wife.

We may wonder where does this crystal or topic come from, since Numbers showed us in chs. 1-4 that God wants to gain an army arrayed around the tabernacle, and there was a clear service of the priests and the Levites set up – and their service was a military service.

But what about this matter of jealousy….what does this have to do with the book of Numbers? In ch. 5 there’s a very interesting portion regarding how a husband should deal with a wife when he has a spirit of jealousy.

We want to look at the matter of the divine jealousy of God as our Husband in the context of the warfare, in the context of the fighting army that God needs on earth to secure and protect His interest.

The thought of God being a jealous God is in the Bible both in the Old and in the New Testament. And in Num. 5 we see that, if a husband has a spirit of jealousy over his wife, he has the right to bring her to the priest for a certain kind of dealing; the husband may think very strongly that his wife has gone astray and had relations with another man, thus becoming defiled, so he needs to find out if this is true or not.

So there’s an entire procedure with some water from the vessel, dust from the floor of the tabernacle put in water – which later the woman would drink it; then there’s an oath of cursing, a meal offering of jealousy…the water of bitterness… – all these seem rather unusual but they have a lot of spiritual significance.

However, we need to take a look at this portion before the Lord and open to Him, realising that, depending on our appreciation of this jealousy and our response to it, this will determine whether we can be formed in the true fighting army of the Lord.

In Rev. 19 we see the army that the Lord gains when He as the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Christ who is the Bridegroom-Husband, will come on a white horse with His army, an army which is newly wed bride, to make war with the Antichrist and all the evil forces of humanity gathered at Armageddon.

There the Lord will defeat these armies and bring an end to human government, eventually bringing His kingdom to the earth. The army that the Lord desires to gain is all feminine; if we are a “man”, we are not qualified; we are the Lord’s wife, His bride.

The matter of jealousy is different from envy, which in the New Testament are works of the flesh. Jealousy and envying are something sinful, something bad, something belonging to the human flesh.

Envying is something that we envy someone of, for example, someone has a nice house and we don’t have it, so we’re envious; we have no right over that, but we are envious.

On the other hand, jealousy is an intolerance of rivalry or of unfaithfulness; in a marriage situation, a marital relationship, one of the spouse may be jealous over the other when he/she seems to love someone else than her spouse.

Jealousy is one of the most intense human emotions there is, causing people to do extreme and crazy things when they are taken by a spirit of jealousy.

But this week we are not talking about the sinful jealousy of fallen mankind but a righteous and holy jealousy of the divine being. God is a jealous God. He is jealous over us, His people. And we need to see what this involves and what is this for.

Realising that the entire Bible is a Romance – in a most Pure and Holy Sense

If we enter into the deep thought of the Bible, we will realise that the Bible is a romance in a most pure and holy sense (see 2 Cor. 11:2; Rev. 19:7-9).

When we speak of romance, this is different from today’s boyfriend-girlfriend romance; God is not a “boyfriend” and we are not His “girlfriend”. The romance we speak of is a marital romance, a spousal romance, for we enter into an engagement and marriage with the Lord.

This romance comes with a contract, with a covenant, with an oath and a vow; this is how God sees it, and this is the romance we see in the Bible between God and man in a most holy and pure sense.

We have been betrothed as New Testament believers to Christ, and collectively we have been betrothed to one husband, Christ, to be presented to Him to be married to Him.

We are not yet married to Him, but at the same time we’re not free; we are engaged to Him, we are betrothed to Him, and we belong to Him and He belongs to us.

In Exodus we see how God brought His people out of Egypt and gave them the law at Mount Sinai; from the beginning, they were His people, but He wanted more – He wanted them to be His wife – He wanted to have a marital relationship with His people.

So God wooed them, sought to win their affection, and gave the law as a covenant of love to engage them to Himself; through the law God betrothed the children of Israel to Himself as His wife.

When we believe into the Lord and received His life into us, we were betrothed to Him; we were engaged to Him to be married to Christ, and one day Christ, after sanctifying the church, will present her to Himself glorious as His bride, His wife.

The male in this couple is God Himself, who desires to be the male of this universal couple (see Isa. 54:5-6; 62:5; Jer. 3:14; 31:32).

This is something that not many believers speak of and realise, but in our experience should not be like this; we need to realise that we are engaged to be married to God, and in this relationship we are the female while He is the male.

Our Christian life is a matter of marriage between God and man, and our whole Christian life and church life revolve around this romance, this relationship of love.

The female in this couple is a corporate person – God’s chosen and redeemed people, including all the saints of the Old Testament and the New Testament (see Rev. 19:7-9; 21:9-10; 22:17).

We may think that the fact that the Bible is a divine romance in the most pure and holy sense is a secular and unreligious thought, but if we get deeper into the thought of the Bible, we will realise that it begins with Adam and Eve being a couple (pointing to Christ and the church), and it ends with the Spirit and the Bride, God and man, being married for eternity as a universal couple.

God is a divine person, but He wants to be married to us; He wants to be the Bridegroom, and He wants us as His Bride.

This holy romance is repeatedly shown and revealed throughout the Old Testament, and in the New Testament we are told to love God and love the Lord and love one another.

Lord Jesus, open our eyes to see the deeper thought in the Bible, the romance between God and man. May we realise that the entire Bible is a book of engagement, for God courts His chosen people and eventually marries them. Amen, Lord Jesus, we love You, and we give ourselves to You to love You, be transformed in Your image, and be eventually presented to You as Your bride. Lord, You are our Bridegroom, and we are Your bride. Draw us with Your love, attract us with Your beauty, and keep us in Your love letter, Your engagement book, the Bible, until we are fully sanctified to be Your bride, Your wife.

The Bible shows us how God Courts us, enters a Love Relationship with us, and Marries us

In the Scriptures we see how, throughout the centuries, God has had a romance with man; thus, the Bible is a record of how God courts His chosen people and eventually marries them (see Gen. 2:21-24; S.S. 1:2-4; Isa. 54:5; 62:5; Jer. 2:2; 3:1, 14; 31:32; Ezek. 16:8; 23:5; Hosea 2:7, 19; Matt. 9:15; John 3:29; 2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:25-32; Rev. 19:7; 21:2, 9-10; 22:17).

In the Old Testament God courted His people Israel to be married to them, and He always considered them as His wife, His spouse. Similarly, in the New Testament the church is the bride of Christ, the wife of Christ.

God came to the earth to become a man because He can marry only His own kind; we are made in God’s kind, and He became the same as we are, lived for thirty-three years on the earth, and He wants to gain His believers to be part of His wife, His bride.

This is the mutual love between God and man; God and His chosen people can have a marital love and oneness, and as we see in Song of Songs, this love is so full of affection.

There are different kinds of love that God has toward man – He loves us as the Creator loving His creatures, He loves us as a Father loving us as His children, He loves us as a Savior coming to redeem and find the lost sinner, but He also loves us romantically to marry us.

In this union God is our life and we are His expression; in this way God and us, His chosen people, become a universal couple. God is longing to be the same as man so that man would become the same as He is, with the result that we and Him would be one and the same in life and nature.

God is the source and life, and the church as His people are His expression, His testimony. When we as God’s people enter into a love relationship with God, we receive His life, just as Eve received the life of Adam (Gen. 2:21-22).

The first marriage in the Bible foreshadows the ultimate marriage of the Spirit and the Bride. The processed and consummated Triune God marries His chose, redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite people, and just as Eve came out of Adam, so the church came out of Christ to marry Him.

It is by the divine life that we receive from God through regeneration that we are enabled to become one with God and makes Him one with us (see John 3:3, 5-6, 15-16, 29-30). When we receive the Lord as life, we love Him, and we are united, mingled, incorporated, and made one with Him.

It takes love to get there; how deep and how far-reaching is His love toward us, that has made us be one with Him and Him to be one with us!

Loving the Lord is not merely for us to feel loved or feel good; the Lord constrains us with His love, and He has lovingkindness that is sweet to draw us with cords of love for us to be one with Him in marriage.

Love is the glue, the factor that brings in and maintains the union of God and man. By loving the Lord as our Husband and thereby partaking of His life and nature, we become one with Him as His counterpart, His enlargement, and His expression (see 2 Cor. 11:2; 2 Pet. 1:4; John 3:15-16, 29-30).

Lord Jesus, we love You! Thank You for regenerating us with Your life for us to enter into a love relationship with You and be one with You as Your bride. It is by this life that we can be one with You and You can be one with us. Lord, we love You as our Husband; we partake of Your life and nature, and we are one with You as Your counterpart, enlargement, and expression! Amen, Lord Jesus, You are our Bridegroom and we are Your bride. Keep us in a romantic relationship with You, loving You and opening to You to let You transform us into Your image so that we may match You as Your counterpart in every possible way!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, pp. 645-646 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallisation-Study of Numbers (1), week 4, The Lord’s Jealousy over the Church as His Wife.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # The Bible is a romance / In the most holy sense: / God and His chosen people / In love it so presents. / This Universal Couple / Throughout it is displayed; / God in Christ is the Bridegroom, / His saints, the Bride, portrayed. (Song on, The Bible is a romance)
  # God fell in love with man; / For only God’s love can / Make man just the same as He / In life and in nature. / We are His expression, / His bride, His enlargement; / Forever, together, / As living, insep’rable as one couple / Eternally. (Song on, A divine, romantic story)
  # Lord, in this close sweet fellowship, / Lord, be with me so intimate, / So personal and affectionate; / A sweet relationship. / Lord, daily change my inward being / Lord, all my heart possessing / In all my being—transforming / To be Your bride and queen. (Song on, Divine romance)