Divine-Human Love Relationship

Continuing the theme of God's pattern of role and relationship between male and female it follows naturally that it is God's desire that the love of a man for his wife follows the same pattern of God's love for His people. This is true all through the Bible. In fact the Bible is a divine love letter for all of us.

Relationship between the vertical and horizontal relationships

The vertical relationship represents divine-man relationship and the horizontal relationship represents male-female relationship. There is a direct anology or likeness between the divine-human relationship and the male-female relationship. If you understand one you will understand the other. If you understand how God and man relate you will understand how male and female relate. In the male-female relationship, the man is called to model the divine side of the divine-human life, but the woman is called to model the human side of the divine-human life. For example in a marriage the husband must model the divine side and the wife should model the human side.

How does a man love his wife? He should love his wife as Christ loves the Church.

Paul said, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her" (Ephesians 5:25, NKJV).

In other words, the man is to model God and the woman is to model man in the divine-human relationship, so that from the understanding of the human relationship we can understand what is like to relate to God. That is the reason why the love song - "Song of Solomon" is placed right in the middle of your Bible. In this, Solomon depicted the love between a man and a woman as the love between God and men (Israel). If you understand the love between man and women you are well on your way to understand the love between God and men. That is why right through the Bible the relationship between God and men is presented in sexual terms in which God is always called He in the entire Bible and that is why Israel and the Church always called she.

The he-she relationship is the same in many regards - in the relationship between God and man and the relationship between man and woman. The woman is to trust and depend on her man. The man is to protect and provide for the woman. In this the man is modeling God protecting and providing for us.

Pictures of God's love for Israel and Christ's love for His Bride

There are amazing messages depicting God's love for His people right through the Bible. Let us deal with three examples:

1. Hosea

Let me not only paraphrase Hosea 1:2 - 11 but also to dramatize it to show how much God loves Israel despite her unfaithfulness toward Him:

Once there was a preacher called Hosea and he said, "God is there anything you want me to do?"

God said, "Yes, Hosea I want you to go out and find a prostitude."

"But God, I'm a preacher."

"Yes I know but I want you to find her."

"What do You want me to do with her?"

"I want you to marry her."

"Me, marry a prostitute?"

"Yes, that's what I said."

"Alright Lord, but what you want me to do then?"

"I want you to start a family with her. Hosea, you'll have 3 children. The first she will love and so you'll call it 'love'; the second she'll not want and so you'll call it 'not love'. And the third child will not even be yours for another man will be the father. So you'll call it 'not mine'."


"And then what Lord?"

"She'll go back on the streets as a prostitute again and you'll lose her."

"Lord, what do I do with the three children?"

"You go and look for her and when you find her on the streets you'll buy her back with money from the pimp who is running her. And then you'll start all over again and love her again and you'll rebuild the family."


"And then what Lord?"

"Then Hosea, you must go and tell Israel that is exactly how I feel about them. They have gone after other gods and producing children who are not mine. That is how I feel but I just can't give her up and I'm going to love her back again."

What a touching message!

2. Ezekiel

Ezekiel 16:1 - 22 is also another message depicting God's love for Israel.

Israel was seen like a child born in a polluted land, abandoned from its birth, left by its parents to the chance regard of any passer-by. On such a child the Lord looked with compassion, tended and adopted it. Under the Lord's tender loving care the child grew up to be comely and beautiful and later the Lord joined her in marriage union.

The Lord said, "And when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your own blood, I said to you in your blood, 'Live!' Yes, I said to you in your blood, 'Live!' I made you thrive like a plant in the field; and you grew, matured, and became very beautiful .... When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine, ..." (Ezekiel 16:6 - 8).

That is how God feels about Israel and that is why Israel is a chosen wife of God.

3. Christ's love for His Bride

The whole appeal of the Bible is on the basis of a covenant which is of a Marriage between God and His people - the people are the wife and God is the Husband. The same is true in the New Testament - Jesus is the Bridegroom and we are the bride.

Paul wrote to the believers in the Church in Ephesus concerning the preparation of the Bride:

"Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25, 26, NKJV, emphasis added).

The love of Christ toward the Church models the love of a husband toward his bride. The love of God toward Israel, as depicted by Hosea and Ezekiel above also models the love of a man toward his wife.

God Himself found and prepared His own betrothed wife, Israel. Later He sent His Word (Jesus) to prepare, sanctify and cleanse the Church to make her fit to be His Bride.

What beautiful and perfect analogies!

Practical Applications

I wonder if you have noticed that it is far easier to lead a woman to Christ than to lead a man.

If you read my previous message again you will realize that according to Genesis 2, woman was made for man, from man and after man. Because of this fact it is always easier to get a wife to trust Christ, the same way she trusts her husband. In other words, a wife, by nature, is fitted to take the human side of the divine-human relationship. By nature she is submissive and dependent. Therefore she does not have to change her nature to accept Christ. The same attitude she has toward her husband she can now transfer to Christ.

Whereas the man has to make a huge adjustment because he is by nature aggressive, independent so that he can fight for the woman he loves and at the same time to protect her and to provide for her. It is the man's nature not to depend on someone else but to have other depend on him. Therefore for a man to receive Christ and become a Christian he has to change from being musculine to become feminine - change from an aggressive independent person to a submissive, dependent, obedient and trusting person. This is certainly a huge adjustment for the man to make. It takes the grace of God to do it. He will suffer ridicule, persecution; sometimes his business will be affected, he may go bankrupt and his marriage may even be in danger of breaking up. In the midst of disasters, only the grace of God is able to tell him he is not self-sufficient and he needs help.

The problem

Because of the fact that it is easier to lead a woman to Christ than to lead a man, in the average Local Church there ar usually more women that men. This problem arises because we have our priority wrong; we have evangelized wives apart from their husbands. The is the root problem that is creating so many Christian women without Christian husbands.

In my opinion it is wrong to evangelize the wife away from her husband. When the wife becomes a Christian and goes to Church you are beginning to break up that marriage.

Paul said, "And a woman who has a husband who does not believe, if he is willing to live with her, let her not divorce him" (1 Cor. 7:13).

In other words, if you make the wife a believer and the husband does not like it he can leave!

I believe the easiest to convert are the children, and then women and the hardest are men. Therefore go for the hardest, men. When you get the men converted their whole households will be converted.

Paul and Silas were imprisoned at Philippi. At midnight they were praying and singing. Suddenly the whole place was shaken and all the doors were opened by an angel. The keeper of the prison (the jailer) was in fear and wanted to commit suicide. Paul and Silas ensured him they would not escape and put the jailer in danger of being executed. Later the jailer said to them, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved" (Acts 16:30)?

"So they said, 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household'" (Acts 16:31, emphasis added).

We need to have men's evangelistic meetings in all of our Local Churches. When you go for the men you will get the whole family saved. If you really believe man and woman are one flesh you cannot evangelize them separately. Furthermore it is such a joy to see a husband ahead of his wife spiritually so that she can look to him and trust him, look after him and respect him.

This is the outworking of God's pattern of Divine-human love relationship. This is also the outworking of Genesis 2.