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The Divine Romance- a Diagram

divine romance diagram

Christians often talk about God’s love. For themselves, for humanity, for the whole world. However, God’s love can be misapprehended and misapplied. Rob Bell’s latest book, Love Wins demonstrates this. We know that God is love, but in just what way does He love?

God expresses His love as Creator, Father, Master, and even Husband.

God’s fundamental concept of Himself in the creation of man was that of Husband. Since God is love in His nature and since spousal love is the basis of creation, when the Bible was inspired by the Spirit, this facet came through in the text. It’s possible then to trace a line of revelation throughout the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, concerning the divine romance between God and man.

God is amorously interested in man.

For your Maker is your Husband… –Isaiah 54:5

This is not something merely read into the text by someone with an agenda. It is a progressive, consistent, and definite revelation throbbing within the heart of the Bible.

At times it is explicit, at times it is veiled in types, but it’s there. Even during the darkest hours of sin and rebellion among the children of Israel, God unwaveringly views Himself as their Husband. Hosea probably touches the depths of this poignancy by revealing God as a betrayed yet unrelenting lover.

One of my favorites is:

For as a young man marries a virgin, Your sons will marry you; and with the joy of the bridegroom over the bride Your God will rejoice over you. –Isaiah 62:5

In all four Gospels, Jesus referred to Himself as a bridegroom. In the epistles, Paul viewed his ministry as a betrothing ministry. In Revelation, the announcement is made that Christ’s wife has made herself ready, and then the whole thing ends in a marriage.

To help track this divine romance throughout the Bible, I made the diagram above. It is obviously not an exhaustive list, but it does bring out some of the best and most explicit verses on this line. Download it, look up the verses, and share it with others!

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26 thoughts on “The Divine Romance- a Diagram”

  2. I love the fact that you are not trying to romanticize the Bible, the divine romance is a recurring theme throughout!

    Wondering though if you can have a larger version of the diagram, it’s a bit hard to read. Thanks!

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    • Thanks, I’ll try to post some every now and then. Diagrams are so helpful to me. Maybe I’m a visual learner. I have a number of ideas for different ones. Only two problems are time to make them and making them look good. If only I were a graphic designer!

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  8. It’s clear that the divine romance is the theme in the Bible from the couple in Gen. 2 to the Lamb and His wife in Rev. 21-22. We need to see it and enter into the divine romance. To miss this is to miss the purpose of God’s salvation. The chart is great. I can second Katherine’s request for a larger, printable version to use for study. Thanks for the post.

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      • This a very helpful diagram. The chart helps to give a bird’s-eye view of the divine romance in the Bible. The real benefit is to see that the heart of God is all the time to have this divine romance. All the drama, complexities just deepen the plot. But the romance is the clear theme. (It printed fine except the non-bold book titles are a little faint.)

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  15. Wow Kyle, your understanding of these topics mirror my own after many years of research, i began hashing out similar diagrams 20 years ago when I was your age. (Architecture was also my first love) Here is a diagram of (secular human cognition) which I simply added “godtype” notes too. I have been arguing for some time that the Father(past) is represented by the cognitive function of what we call Thinking (correlative logic) and the Son (future) is represented by Feeling (ethical logic). because the bible teaches that the Father and the Son are ONE, I in turn believe what we call feeling and thinking is one in the same…..LOVE. Science agrees with me and says that they are simply different forms of THINKING. It is simply Logic (thinking) separated by time. Father=Correlative, Son=Ethical. A love that on earth is understood by humanity in different ways. some personalities understanding the Father’s type of love, others prefer the Son’s. yet the paradox is that they are one in the same………… illustration link. http://www.godtype.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/mbti-love-is-thinking.jpg

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