There are some whose achievements in the first decades of life are so numerous and significant that one might wonder how they managed to do it. Yet if more decades were to pass and one peered over their shoulders into the past, many of those accomplishments would seem to have little or no importance. Time has a way of making big victories seem like tiny footnotes that get smaller as they eventually fade into the nothingness of the past. One reaction to that fading of the flowers of the field is to simply look for bigger accomplishments, but that does not abandon the premise still underlying the pursuit, that significance lies in the size of what is accomplished. No amount or greatness of accomplishment, however, is going to win against time.
The Necessity of Moral Perfection and Conquering Death for the Perfect Story of Romance
Rich, meaningful relationships are a much more satisfying and fulfilling path, but even there, problems persist if that is to be the source of one's significance. As there is no perfect man who was not God, the sinfulness of the human heart can make those relationships, once looked to for meaning, into a source of tremendous pain rather than of comfort and camaraderie. The sinful act of a friend may destroy the trust on which the friendship was built. The friend is dead as a friend, even though he still lives. In normal day to day lives, many of us don't encounter such character revealing trials. Even if the unfaithfulness were never shown, the convenience of a safe society and wealth sadly cut us off from seeing what a friend or loved one is really like when the relationship calls for the self-sacrificial, loving character of Christ that we actually seek in relationships. Perhaps the person simply was a good friend because it was convenient, not because he was actually good.
But even if there were found a faithful friend, what is true of a long, good marriage is true for the friend. Death separates us all. It claims friends and loved ones alike, taking away the treasure of relationship built up over time. Most romance movies do not show this, as spoiling the romantic union of the couple with the inevitable separation of death tends to squash the good feelings at the end of the story. A man may risk his life for his bride, the two may overcome tremendous obstacles, and thwart the wicked designs of cunning enemies, finally triumphing in the end to live years together in a happy relationship, but to what end? To meet the same fate as if they had failed in their quest early on and the enemies had seized victory over their lifeless bodies. Death still rips one from the other.
Christianity has enough wisdom to know that there is no significance in our accomplishments that will bring satisfaction or contentment to the soul. Money does not give it, for 'he who loves money never has money enough'. (Eccl. 5:10) Beauty does not give it, for the eyes are never satisfied with seeing, and the ears never satisfied with hearing. (Eccl 1:8; Prov. 27:20) Neither can contentment or fulfillment be found in knowledge or skill. The wise will not long be remembered; like the fool, they too will pass away. (Eccl. 2:16) No matter how skilled one is, it is at least nearly axiomatic that there will always be someone who is better. Even were someone unmatched in what he did or knew, skill or knowledge can lose its value as technology and society progress, and physical prowess is pried from our hands bit by bit as we age. Beyond its wisdom in discouraging placing any of our significance in our accomplishments, Christianity is wiser still in actively condemning and criticizing any boasting in accomplishments, as it insists that all man's moral, spiritual, physical, and intellectual feats are given by God or based on his freely distributed gifts. To boast in one what one is given is the height of folly, it protests. (Acts 17:25; 1 Cor. 4:7; Eph. 2:1-8)
The Christian religion thus takes the path of wisdom in emphasizing relationship as the source of significance. It differs, however, in two respects, the two most important ones. If the betrayal of a friend ruins a friendship forever, then the obvious answer is to have a friend who is perfect, one who will never be unfaithful or unloving. If even the sweetest and oldest of marriages are sadly ripped asunder by death, then the simplest solution is to find someone who has conquered the grave. That is just who Jesus is, and what he has done. He showed himself perfectly loving and faithful in dying for his most ardent enemies on the cross, and in raising him from the dead, ˇod the Father showed that he concurred in the Son's moral perfection, that the Son had no sin with which death could bind him. That moral perfection made him worthy of conquering death and buying with his own blood those sinners whose punishment he bore on the tree. So when he rose from the dead, his death meant more than that he was a friend who never does us wrong. It meant that we could conquer the grave through Him.
That is what makes the Christian story the perfect story of romance. The lover never betrays his bride, and death never separates one from the other. The two major defects of human relationships are removed, sin not spoiling it and death not ending it. So it is safe to set the significance of the soul in its storehouse. Such storage shall never be squandered or sacked, always safe, always secure. Peace so sets itself in the soul of a sinner. She has found a lover who cherishes her not for any accomplishment of her own, but in the abundance of his perfect love and for the sake of his glory, a fact and purpose that shall never change, however fickle her wandering heart. She delights in a romance that will never end, with a man who will never mistreat her. A perfect spouse. An unending marriage. Happily ever after indeed.
The Necessity of Sanctification for the Perfect Story of Romance
That is what is supposed to happen, at least. The sad fact of marriage is that the faithful spouse is sometimes abandoned for no fault of his own. Perhaps the relationship grew stale. Maybe he lost his air of mystery, the most of intimate of life bonds having bled him dry of all the intrigue that once sparked interest. Perhaps he found another lover and left for greener pasture. All of this comes to the same thing: sometimes one leaves a marriage because of one's own sin, not the sin of the other. For some, it is hard enough to stay married to someone for just a handful of years; how could one do so for eternity?
The point here is that it is not sufficient that a man be morally perfect or conquer the grave. The beloved must also have some love of what is good, or the moral perfection will be of no use in attracting her. This is where the normal lover fails. However hard he tries, he cannot force goodness into the heart of his bride, and so she might leave him for no fault of his own. But just as the normal lover has fallen far short of perfection and failed to conquer the grave, so too his inability at this point is met by the ability of Jesus to make the beloved love his perfection. Christ says that he will give his people a new heart, one born again by the Spirit of God, such that what was once a heart of stone is turned to a heart of flesh. That is to say that it moves beyond a safe admiration of perfection from a distance that turns into hatred when the goodness impinges on its life up close. It actually comes to love what is good and hate what is evil, and so the moral perfection of Jesus really becomes splendidly attractive, drawing the heart of the beloved towards him in a way that the sinful hearts of every other potential suitor cannot.
When the heart of the beloved fails to love that perfection, as it will given its sinfulness, the Spirit that changed its loves in the past is still powerful and willing to change the heart back again to loving what is good. It turns the heart away from the loves of the flesh that it once held dear and brings it back again, just as it did so at the first. As if to foreclose the objection that the continued vacillations of the human heart towards Jesus in one moment and back towards sin in the next demonstrated an inability to ensure that the beloved will remain committed to its lover forever, Scripture indicates that the Spirit of God will one day so work in the heart that it will never sin again. (Rev. 21:27; 22:3, 15) It is the consummation of the process of transformation began when the eyes of the heart were first opened to how beautiful and attractive is the perfection of Christ.
The Asymmetry between Mystery and Being Known in the Perfect Story of Romance
As for the loss of mystery and the ensuing ennui, that too is a problem peculiar only to those humans who are not Jesus. He created the universe, and with a whim could create an untold number more of them. He counts every hair on the head of each individual on earth, with no subatomic particle moving or energy bursting forth without his watchful consent. No one can comprehend the unfathomable depths of activity within his mind, nor imagination conceive what he has prepared for those who love him. (1 Cor. 2:9-10) Even were the idea that boredom in a relationship signaled a new chapter to move on from a marriage, it would not apply to Jesus. The mystery in Him is so deep that eternity has not room to explore it all.
However, the intriguing thing about wanting intrigue in a relationship is that it is asymmetrical. We like the idea that there is something more to learn about a husband or wife, but at the same time we want to be fully known. Nowhere is this more true or important than in the case of sin. Like Adam and Eve after their downfall, we hide ourselves in fear that someone might find out our sin, and yet secretly we yearn still deeper that we would be loved despite the sin being exposed. It might feel safe to build castle walls against unknown enemies in the countryside, and stash our sinful secrets therein while we stand guard at the door, but that necessary vigilance at the castle gate is a prison that traps us inside. Far more liberating is to know with certainty that neither in field nor country nor city nor sea is there any harm to come of enemies looting the citadel's stash of secrets. So he has complete freedom to go where he will, set free from having to keep constant vigil at the gate. That is the freedom of the man who is fully known and yet knows that he is fully loved and forgiven, confident that, though the world were to steal off with his hoard of secrets and expose him to shame for his past and his sins, he has a solid stronghold of significance guarded unfailingly by the only person whose praise he seeks, one who loves Him despite knowing the shame of all he's done. So it is with sin. We hide after we sin because of the shame, but it is being fully known and yet still fully loved that we find freedom. We want that, and so we want to be fully known.
This is where Christ again outclasses any other suitor. Only He is all knowing. There is nothing we have ever done, thought, or said, no sin or perversion that we have indulged, that he did not know from the foundation of the world. Again, unlike every other suitor, his love is perfect and his mercy abundant, loving the sinner in her shame so much as to shed his blood and suffer divine wrath to cover her sin. A sordid sinner redeemed in being fully known and fully loved. Among the suitors only Christ can do that. Only he has done that. All others fail.
The Role of Omnipotence and Omniscience in the Perfect Story of Romance
Whereas leaving a marriage because the relationship has besot itself in boredom can lay the blame on the one departing, in other cases the fault belongs to neither one nor the other. It comes from outsides the couple. Those unfortunate enough to have found love that was cut off by the intrusion or dictate of others know this too well. Maybe the prospective groom had not acquired wealth sufficient enough for the family to accept the engagement in a culture in which the family had the power to stop the betrothal. Maybe the two came from vastly different social and economic strata in a society whose caste system would have made the union so costly that the one could not in good conscience lead the other into it. Maybe a criminal gunned down the beloved before or after the nuptials. Here the fault lies neither with the character of the pursuer or the pursued; it lies with those around them.
This intrusion by someone else is a variation on death. The sting of death is its permanent separation. If that is bad, then so also is temporary separation, if only less so. Others can cause both types of separation. They can of course kill one member of the couple, but there are other options. They can also kidnap one of them. A disapproving parent can send the son or daughter involved far away from the other. Some strongly opposed may impose so heavy a physical or other cost to impel the lover not to marry out of concern for the beloved's well-being. Even after the marriage is consummated, such a threat is not totally removed. We can not ensure that someone will not interfere or destroy a relationship that yearns to blossom and bind two people together.
The situation is different with Christ. With him being all powerful, there would be no force or power, on earth or in heaven, that could succeed in separating him from his bride absent his assent. And with him being everywhere present, there is no wall or weapon that could prevent the communion or communication of the two. Where others could succeed in separating two people from each other, there is no hope of doing so in the case of Christ and his bride. (Rom. 8:38-39)
Sometimes, however, the antagonist in the separation of two individuals, and even the temporary dampening of the relationship of Christ with the believer, is not some external intruder, but a robber of our very selves. It is a symptom of the curse of sickness and disease that He has inflicted on this world due to mankind's sin. In the movie The Notebook, the elderly husband Noah spends time everyday with his wife Allie, who has Alzheimer's disease. Day after day, he shares with her about the story of their lives, hoping that somehow he will jog her memory and that his wife would come back to him and recognize him again. The horrible disease has robbed her of her memories and her identitiy, launching her into a deep, black void of forgetting her past, not recognizing her own family members, and even forgetting her own husband. In one of the most touching scenes of the film, Allie has a brief spell of clarity and remembers that the man before her is her husband Noah, and the two share a touching but short reunion before she slips back into the forgetful darkness of the disease. Here it is not society or some other mere mortal separating two persons; it is the taking away of our memories, identity, and personality.
No mere mortal suitor can restore those things to her. But Jesus can. While it is true that it was his curse on this world for man's sin that gives reign to diseases as horrible as Alzheimer's, it is at the same time true that, in being all-powerful, he can also remove such a horrible disease with the snap of a finger. That gives hope, and the hope is transformed to expectation for those who are in Christ, for he has promised them that all diseases, including ones that rip us from loved ones by stealing our memories and identity, will one day be taken away. They will have resurrection bodies with memories, identities, and personalities restored. The Allie's would perfectly remember the Noah's, the mental fog that Christ permitted to settle on the believer's relationship with his savior would lift, and the joy of the relationships would be restored. This Jesus alone can do. No other suitor can.
Whether, then, it is external forces or internal ones that would separate one from another, the point remains that Christ is unique among those who would contend for the loves and affections of the human heart. Merely human suitors can't guarantee that we will not be separated by disease or by nature. Further, unlike them, there is no person or power able to physically separate Jesus from his bride if he does not grant it. Such is the advantage of him who is all-knowing and all-powerful.
The Role of Physical Presence and Physical Affection in the Perfect Story of Romance
To this, it might be said that the reason why Christ cannot be separated from his bride is because he is nowhere to be found. He might be everywhere present, but he is not present physically. A man can hug his wife. We cannot hug Jesus, at least for now. And even if he were to show up here in his resurrected body now, such that we could do so, the one point that separates normal romantic relationships from that of Christ is that they are romantic. A husband kisses his wife. They are intimate physically one with another. There is no such thing between Christ and a sinner he saves. There is no sex. There is no kissing on the lips. There is no romance. So, however many disadvantages normal human relationships have, their one advantage, so one might claim, is that they are romantic. The relationship of the believer with Christ is not. So it is misleading to compare the two, and false to say that the story of Christ and his bride is the perfect story of romance.
This sentiment is readily understandable, and it would seem patently obvious that romance involves those physical displays of affection that are not and never will be a part of the believer's relationship with Christ. I do not deny any of that, but I think that the action of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer, may point us down a path of reevaluating that initial sensibility. He betrayed his master with a kiss. (Luke 22:47-48; Mt. 26:47-50; Mk. 14:43-46) One of the very things that supposedly is a hallmark of romance was the epitome of betrayal. Amnon's rape of his half-sister Tamar involved the very same act that is thought to be the pinnacle of romantic activity, but it was in fact an expression of utmost hatred and perversion. No one calls these cases of real romance, so the physical expressions of affection that characterize romance are not in themselves sufficient for it.
Further, it might be argued that there can be romance without physical expressions of affection. That is, that the kissing and physical intimacy of married couples are not necessary for romance, which would mean that it is indeed possible for Christ to be the perfect romantic partner. When Charles Dickens' Sydney Carton traded places with Charles Darnay, condemning himself to death so that Lucie Manette, the love of his life who belonged to another man, might have her husband saved from the guillotine, was it romance? It had no kisses nor copulation, and yet many regard it as the pinnacle of romance, a height above which no other romantic act can be found. But if that is so, it immediately collides with that great saying of the savior recorded by the son of Zebedee: Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (Gospel of John 15:13) Christ was the sinner's Sydney Carton when we languished under the looming wrath of God for our sin, sneaking the condemned out of the dungeon of the damned and taking his place in its darkness of expected execution. If the sacrifice of Sydney Carton was romantic, so too is the sacrifice of Christ.
Still, one might still reclaim that physical expressions of affection are necessary for romance, even if in themselves they are not sufficient. If they are necessary, then Jesus still fails where other suitors succeed in that those other suitors offer to a partner what Christ does not give. They are physically present, and they offer physical displays of affection and intimacy that he does not.
While it is true that Christ is not physically present with us in the here and there of everyday life, one day he will return physically to earth and walk among his people. So even if he were not present physically now, he will be in the future. However, while it is possible that he is capable of being physically present at the same time to multiple people in different places, it is unlikely that he will do so to any regular degree even when he does return physically to earth. We will not see millions of copies of Jesus walking around with each person in glory so that everyone has him physically present and close in the way that a husband or wife is present with us in the day-to-day activities of life. So even in glory, a normal husband or wife would still offer what He does not - physical presence and physical displays of affection.
The problem with this contention is that it goes beyond what is warranted by including what is not peculiar to romance. It is true that a husband or wife will give you a hug, or look you in the eye, while Jesus does not do so, but so can a friend who meets you for coffee or a neighbor who embraces you after hearing your heartache. The hypothesis in question is not that the perfect romance is found in Christ and therefore we do not need social interaction or physical touch. Those things can be had in friends, family, neighbors, fellow believers, and others regardless of whether a perfect romance is found in Christ or in a certain person here on earth.
That is the benevolence of God in choosing for himself a community of believers called to love each other. If we are made to need social interaction and physical touch, it is too hasty to jump all the way to the conclusion that we must be married or have a romantic partner. That is the error of those who interpret God's statement that it is not good that man should be alone as an insistence that it is bad for man to be single. (Genesis 2:18) While it is true in context that God immediately declares his intention to create a helper for Adam, it was equally true that there was no other living being on the earth capable of sitting down with Adam for a chat or giving him a pat on the back if he felt down. The only way to get that non-marital interaction in Adam's case was through giving him a wife through whom new humans who were not Adam's wife would come into existence. Just as parents who have lots of children bless each one of them with siblings whom they can play with and give hugs to, God provided non-marital community for Adam by giving him a wife through whom the world would be populated with people who were not his wife. None of us are in the position that Adam was in then, and so it is unjustified to interpret those words about him as an indication that singleness in itself is bad. It can be detrimental if we isolate ourselves from others, just as it was not good that Adam had no other human being on earth with whom to interact before Eve was created. But singleness itself need not be bad, which is why the Apostle Paul, a man rich in relationships, could declare that it is better to be single and wish that all were as he was. (1 Cor. 7:6-9)
We are safe to understand the declaration that it is not good for man to be alone as a statement about the importance of living in community. It might also specially include marriage as a special form of community, but we step into thin ice that will quickly break if we insist that it is only about marriage and not about living in community more generally.
The point is that if we submerge ourselves in a healthy community with rich relationships with friends and fellow believers, living out the church's calling to love each other, our relational barns will be filled with the fruits of physical presence and expressions of healthy physical affection, obviating the need to appeal to romance for obtaining them. Those things are not what set a romantic relationship apart from other relationships, and if we insist that they do, that is only an indictment of our social isolation and our failure to live in love as Christ commands. (Gospel of John 15:12)
If we look at scripture, it is evident that not only are believers called to live in community, but that such community includes physical affection as part of our interactions with each other. After Paul addressed the Ephesian elders and said that some present would never see his face again, they embraced him and kissed him. (Acts 20:36-38) In his letter to the Romans, both letters to the Corinthians, and in 1 Thessalonians, Paul admonishes his readers to greet other believers with a holy kiss, which in his day would likely have been on the cheek. (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:26) Peter commends his listeners to greet one another with a kiss of love. (1 Peter 5:14) David and Jonathan embraced each other while they were in tears (1 Sam 20:41).
Surely more passages could be found, but just from these passages, it is clear that the Biblical community that believers are called to have with each other includes healthy embrace and can even include non-romantic kissing. Physical displays of affection are not to be reserved for romantic relationships. If then Christ were a possible candidate for romance as one in contention with earthly suitors, the fact that he would not be physically present and thus not be present to show physical displays of affection does not mean that we would be deprived of that affection. We ought to be finding it in our non-romantic relationships, and our failure to do so is not a justification to insist that we must be in a romantic relationship with physical affection as if that were the only means of obtaining it.
One might rightly counter that if I have just demonstrated that normal relationships include healthy displays of affection, then the relationship par excellence, the romantic one, should at least include that affection, and the physical absence of Christ thus rules him out as a romantic candidate. To this, two points may be made. The first is that this objection has a false premise. It is not true that a relationship with Christ includes no physical displays of affection. It certainly did when he was on earth.
Yes, a relationship with Christ will not offer kissing on the lips or copulation, but it was not devoid of hugging, kissing, or expressions of physical affection at all. The kiss of Judas that he used to betray Jesus was likely on the cheek and represented the normal method of greeting good friends in that time. (Luke 22:47-48; Mt. 26:47-50; Mk. 14:43-46) The woman with a sinful past in Luke 7 kissed the feet of Jesus. If she were a different woman, the same was true of Mary in the Gospel of John. (Gospel of John 12:1-10) Each time the woman was commended for her action. And the words of the savior to the Pharisee in Luke 7 after she washed his feet implied that it would have been acceptable to kiss Jesus elsewhere, which likely would have been the cheeks or head: 'You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet'. (Luke 7:45)
The practice of kissing among non-romantic partners has already been not only mentioned but commended in the scripture cited above. It seems it was no different if one were with Jesus. Though the Psalmist may have been referring to kissing the Hand, and though it may have been a sign of submission (1 Samuel 10:1; 1 Kings 19:18), it is still true that he admonishes the listener to kiss the Son. (Psalm 2:12) From this, it seems that physical displays of affection of believers towards Christ are on the table as acceptable options. Though kissing the feet and of the hand are explicitly mentioned, it would seem a fortiori that a hug would be acceptable as well.
It is true that these physical displays of affection do not happen now, but they will happen in the future after Christ returns to earth and ushers saints into glory. What difference then is there between this and normal romantic relationships? Perhaps there are some who don't, but a great number of romantic couples spend a significant portion of their days and their lives apart from each other. One leaves for work, has a doctor's appointment, or has errands to run. A parent is at his son's soccer practice and comes home to find that Mom is out grocery shopping. The believer's relationship with Christ is like the wife waiting for her husband to get back from his business trip. She cannot embrace her husband or look him in the eyes while he is on the other side of the world. She has to wait. The day will come, but it is not here yet. That is no different from the believer waiting for the day when his faith will be made sight and he runs with open arms to embrace his savior. If the woman waiting expectantly at the gates of the airport for her husband to come forth is in a romantic relationship, on what basis would one disqualify the one who waits for her groom to ride forth to earth from the gates of heaven? They are in the same situation, and the waiting of the one is no different from the waiting of the other. The physical absence of Christ is not therefore to be used as a means to disqualify him as a romantic candidate.
Moreover, it is not entirely true that Christ is absent. He is in fact more present than any man could ever be. He is everywhere all at once, and this is not simply the presence of being aware of what is happening at every point in the universe. It is that every last bit of that universe is there by his command, moves only by his telling it to do so, and is upheld in existence only by his choosing moment by moment to make it so. When our heads press up against the softness of a pillow, he is the one who causes the pillow to give way against our head, orchestrates the biological marvel of our bodies to produce the sensations of gentle warmth, and connects our souls to our bodies such that we know what it is like to rest our heads against it as if the pillow were the rich mane of the tribe of Judah pressed against his kingly frame. It is that lion that gives us such a sensation. He chooses that we experience it just as much as a husband chooses to embrace his wife, and even the husband cannot embrace her were it not for the fact that God puts all the physical and ontological middlemen in place for the wife to feel his embrace. It is God who gives us the relaxing heat of the sun as we lie out on the beach, or the rich combination of flavors of a well-made espresso in autumn, or the irresistible waft of freshly made bread. Every sensation is a love letter from God. Every warm bed is a hug from heaven. Every sloppy lick is a kiss from the maker of dogs and cats. All these are experiences given by Him that an earthly husband is simply incapable of providing. Even in His absence, Jesus is more physically present than a normal romantic partner can ever be. The entire world is the physical manifestation of Christ, kept in existence every moment by his own volition, filled with innumerable blessings opened to us by senses he provides. It is not the case that Christ is physically absent while other romantic candidates are physically present. It is that Christ is abundantly more physically present than all other suitors combined.
Moreover, the fact that the Spirit of God indwells his children has the singular effect of opening our eyes to see the various perfect characteristics of Christ through the lens of other believers. A trio of close friends are blessed in that the second friend brings out something from the first that the third friend does not. So if the second friend were to die, the third friend actually gets less of the first even though he now has him all to himself. Increasing the circle of friends increases how much we have of each one of them.
The same is true in regard to our knowing Christ through those he inhabits. We might be impressed at a brilliant bright white light, but shone through a diamond, we see its various colors clearly because they are split up and singled out. We can see the compassion of Christ in scripture, but his children are like a diamond that break up its colors for us to know more fully what the white light really was. We see his compassion displayed in one way through one person, in a slightly different but not contradictory way in another, and in yet another way through a third. We know that trait of His more fully because we see it worked out in more people. So we do not see Him only in the entire world around us. We see Him also in those whom he indwells, and more fully through such persons insofar as we know more of them.
The Dilemma of Defining Sexual Activity as a Necessary Part of Romance
If Christ is physically present and if a relationship with Him will include physical displays of affection, that only leaves two defining characteristics of human romantic relationships as the means by which one might attempt to argue that Christ is not a viable candidate for romance while human suitors are. There will never be any romantic kissing or copulation in one's relationship with Christ, but human marriages do have such romantic physical acts. That is what the case against Christ comes down to. What other suitors can offer us that He does not thus seems to include sexual intimacy and kisses and touching of the lips and other special areas of the body. On this basis would one claim that the relationship of Christ to a sinner cannot be romantic, and thus that he cannot be the perfect romantic partner. If that is the definition of the term, then the matter is settled. He can't be.
But it must be asked whether that definition is justified, and we come to the question of what romance is for. What is a kiss for? What is sexual intimacy for? We have already seen one answer, and that is that it depends on who is doing it. Amnon's rape of Tamar was not romantic but horrific. The secret trysts of an adulterous couple might be labeled romantic, but are also morally despicable. Delilah's romantic affection towards Samson eventually became a treacherous means of coaxing him into a trap that took his life.
Is such a Femme Fatale romantic? Were we to say that it is, we would admit that it is a type of romance that none of us wants. But if we were honest, we would admit that it is not real romance. It would only be romantic because the one partner's intentions are concealed from the other. In that regard, the romance is only possible by hiding oneself from the other, creating a false impression of who one really is and committing relational fraud. The lover is not then actually in a romantic relationship with the beloved, but with an imaginary product of interpersonal propaganda.
That is not romance; a relationship with a figment of one's imagination is not real. True romance is between two people as they are. For that to happen, the masks must come off, and we thus must admit that knowing the other person, including their moral character, is necessary for a genuine romance. No one wants to be married to a devil, and the destruction of most relationships is at the hand of one defect or another of character.
Making knowledge of the other person's moral character a necessary requirement for romance reduces to rubble the contention that other suitors offer romance where Christ does not. The human heart without exception is desperately wicked absent a work of the Spirit of Christ, and so truly knowing any suitor who is not Christ would entirely preclude any true romance. (Rom. 3:9-18) The one hope for such romance would be that Christ changes the heart of the individual to truly love what is good and be made holy and righteous. Romance with such a renewed individual would indeed be possible, but with whom would we be in love in such a case? The person by himself is wicked. It is only Christ in him that would make romance possible, and it is His character that we find attractive. What we love is Christ in the other person. To attribute our love to the person by himself is to rob God of the glory due him for the transformation of that person's heart. Choosing between Christ and a human suitor for true romance would be to act as if we were Catwoman struggling between her attraction to both Batman and Bruce Wayne, or Lois Lane between Clark Kent and Superman, not realizing at first that behind it all is the same man.
This leaves us with the conclusion that, if the earlier definition of romance were true, then a true romance without Christ has never happened, nor will it ever happen. We cannot romance Christ because the necessary physical and romantic acts peculiar to marriage are absent, and if we romance each other, any real romance is our loving Christ in the other person and not the person by himself.
The Purpose of Sex and the Fear of Losing It In Glory
Perhaps then it is time to return to the earlier question of what the supposedly necessary physical displays of affection are for - not what they are for in the sense of what we choose to do with them, such that it is dependent on our motives and intentions, but what they were created for. There was a time when humans and sex and kissing did not exist, and then God made them all. When he created them, why did he create kissing and sex as part of the human experience?
At the risk of being accused of being too lazy to reason it out on my own, I think that the best answer to that question is just to ask him. Fortunately, he was more than willing to provide an answer. The one-flesh union and physical intimacy of man and woman were meant to be constrained to marriage with one person only, and marriage so conceived was meant to display the relationship of Christ to the church. (Eph. 5) When asked about whose wife a hypothetical (or real?) woman would be who had been widowed six times and married seven in her life, Jesus declared that in the age to come, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. (Mt. 22:30; Lk. 20:34-36) If the traditional interpretation of that statement is correct, it means an end to sexual relations in the age to come rather than an end to sexual monogamy. In such a case, even the physical affection of marital romance would only be temporary anyway.
This highlights the fact that the romance of the exclusive one-flesh union of man and wife on earth is a passing pointer to the eternal non-flesh union of Christ with his bride. That is the most salient part about this. Signs are not as good or glorious as the reality they signify, which is our problem. Many married couples know how rich the pleasures of marital love can be, and they can't imagine how a relationship shorn of the physical consummation of marriage could be the greater reality to which it points. How could a relationship without sex be equal to or even far out surpass one with it? But that is what the non-sexual relationship of Christ with the church will do. It is the far greater and better reality to which human marriage and its sexual activity is a symbol and pointer. So it is possible.
I don't pretend to know with certainty how that will work, and when the apostle Paul declares that no eye has seen nor ear has heard nor mind conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2:9), I am not filled with hope that I will ever attain such knowledge in this life. But it might be that we have become so old that we forgot what it is like to be young. Very young children are not sexual beings, and yet they often radiate a life and joy that has been beat out of adults by the hardships and sorrows of life. They are happier than adults of many years. Without being sexual, they exhibit a carefree pleasure in life and its wonders that sexual adults do not. If they can have such joy and life before sexual maturation, then it must be possible for it to be so in glory if there is no physical intimacy there.
Beyond this, much of the attraction to sexual intimacy and the sadness at the prospect of losing it is tied up with the physical pleasure involved, and so we dread losing it just as a drug addict would be sad at the thought of never being able to experience the ecstasy that some drug provided him. I don't claim that this will happen, but I can imagine that the physical pleasure lost in not having sexual activity in glory could be offset by some other, non-sexual means by which an equal or greater physical pleasure might be attained. In James Cameron's fictional world of Pandora in the movie Avatar, the Na'vi's physiology had a neural queue through which two beings could connect neurologically one to an other. We don't and won't have such things, but one could imagine that God would give resurrection bodies the opportunity to experience an equal or greater physical pleasure in glory as what couples experience in marriage on earth, simply by placing the tips of their fingers against those of the other person. I don't know if he will do so, but the point is that he is capable of giving enormous physical pleasure through such a simple act, and if goodness demanded that he provided for the eternal state a physical ecstasy equal to or greater than drugs or sex in this life, he would do it.
In his benevolent omniscience, he might have other better reasons for not providing such an ability. We don't know, and those who die in Christ will know eventually. But for those of us still left here on earth, the mere possibility is enough to trust that if there is a loss of sexual activity in glory, it need not be nearly as bad as we might fear. For all we know, what physical pleasures or ecstasies we have then might be even better than those of earth, not limited by a Biblical command that they be confined to a single monogamous relationship, nor hindered by the sin, sickness, broken bodies, cursed world, exhausting days, or other factors that often reduce or stop altogether physical intimacy and its attendant pleasures even among married couples in this life.
The very ability to give an alternative, even greater physical pleasure not tied to sex, and the dread of maybe losing in the life to come what pleasure we can have now, reflects a more fundamental reality that even the joys of sex with another person in this life are gifts of God. We can see the beauty of the body, we can touch and caress it, we can hear the sweet words of a lover, we can taste it with the tongue, take in the fragrance of hair or skin, or consummate the marital union, only because at every moment God gives us those abilities. We tend to think as if He has nothing to do with it, as if it is just two people acting on their own without Him involved, whereas a proper attitude towards sexual activity would involve thanksgiving for the pleasures that God gives the couple through sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.
Such thanksgiving is indeed possible between a couple in marriage, but even were it possible outside of that covenantal bond, it would be tainted and shriveled. When enjoyed outside the protection of that lifelong commitment, sex does harm to the other person involved. Those who engage in such sin misuse the gift given by God, distancing themselves from Him and setting themselves up in opposition to his justice and goodness, made God's enemies in their minds because of their evil behavior. (Col. 1:21)
Thanksgiving in such a mindset is wholly unnatural and thus not done. In that mindset, it seems better to shut God out and not acknowledge Him at all, so that the sex can be enjoyed without asking what it is for. The downside of this is that it completely blocks a person from the great joy and lasting pleasure in God that sex is simply incapable of giving. The Psalmist wrote that in God's presence is fullness of joy, in his house pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11) He admonished his readers repeatedly to delight themselves in the Lord. (Psalm 32:11; 37:4; 119:11) In God alone does the soul find rest. (Psalm 62)
The Irony of Divine Mission in Human Romance
Beyond the fact that sex misused closes off the soul to joy and pleasure in God that lasts throughout the day rather than disappearing after a few minutes in bed, it also robs sex of a sense of mission. This is simply a continuation of the point made earlier. Were it true that sex was a necessary part of romance, and that there could be no romance between Jesus and one he bought with his own blood as a result, it would be equally true that there could be no romance between any two humans without Him, since righteous character, which only He gives, is necessary for true romance. If any of us have that romance, it is not because we love the person in himself, but because we love Christ in that person. Romance is only possible if it is romance with Christ, only possible in Him.
It is to the extension of that point that we come here: the best romance between any two humans is only found when they love Christ more than they love each other. This is clearly evident when it comes to the significance of sex and romance. The Christian has a clear understanding of, and agreement with, the idea that sex is not only for something, but that it is part of a mission that goes beyond himself. The point here is not the insistence that sex is for procreation, though the biological purpose of sex does include that. The point is that sex is as everything else for the Christian that He does; it is for the glory of Christ. The apostle Paul wrote that whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (1 Cor. 10:31) 'You are not your own; you were bought at a price', he says, 'therefore, honor God with your body'. (1 Cor. 6:19-20) When the believer had been reconciled to God by the death of God's Son (Rom. 5:10), he came to love God and seek to glorify Him in all that He does. The same external act once done for his own gain is now a totally different act because it is done for the God who loved Him and saved Him from wrath.
We see this clearly with the behavior of slaves. Paul admonishes slaves to "obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free." (Eph. 6:5-8) Paul's point here was not to legitimize slavery, but to orient the motivations behind the ordinary actions that are done every day around the glory of God. The slave had the same tasks to do day after day, but now He does them for the Lord. The same act becomes an entirely different act because it is part of a mission that enlivens the soul. The slave now works to glorify God in his menial chores, as if God were his master, knowing that, whatever his earthly master does or does not do, the slave will receive a heavenly reward for his work. The act is the same, but totally different, and the slave will do it even better because of that difference.
This is just what happens to romance. The world of relationships and romance is filled with stories of people who wound others in their own selfishness. Who is not aware of the womanizer whose sweet words and charm are mere means to get a girl to his apartment? Who does not know of the stereotype confirmed by countless cases of women who use men for their wealth or seed, only to then abandon their husbands when the woman has her progeny or procured his wealth? These are a slave to their own passions and lusts. They approach romance with the mindset of a consumer, asking what they can get from it, and they leave behind them a never-ending string of people whom they've hurt in the process.
But what happened to the menial tasks of the slave does also happen to the attitudes and actions of romance. That very womanizer once reconciled to God could say the very same sweet words and show the same charm, and yet now his end is not a sexual encounter, but that every word and deed would ultimately honor the Lord. That moves him past the consumeristic limits of what is best for himself to his seeking what is best for the woman. He will not cause the same damage he once did, because the new master whom he seeks to emulate is good and kind. The woman who once viewed men through the lens of how she could use or exploit them has been pruned of false motives and deceptive intent, seeking ultimately that she would glorify God in every intention and act.
This applies even to acts of affection within marriage, from the smallest love taps to making love itself. The act is subsumed and made smaller, but in being made subservient to the gigantic cause of glorifying God, it becomes bigger. That's the great irony. Romance becomes bigger when we make it smaller; love for one's spouse increases even as it takes a back seat to love for Christ. It joins the other ironies of Christianity. Whoever is first shall be last, and the last first. (Mt. 20:16; cf. 19:30) He who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. (Mt. 23:12; Lk. 14:11) Whoever keeps his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for the sake of Christ will find it. (Mt. 16:25) And so with sex. He who dethrones it from being the supreme good will find that the good it then provides is greater. It is richer and more fulfilling exactly when we do not seek to be fulfilled by it, but rather we find fulfillment in Christ. And so we see again that the perfect romance is only found in Christ. Sex and love reach their highest peak only when Christ is higher still.
One further irony is that, in making the relationship subservient to something else, the relationship is more likely to last and thrive. That is so only if the goal is glorifying Christ. Boredom has the power to undermine long standing relationships because those relationships are viewed through a consumeristic lens. What can I get from this relationship? When the relationship no longer has lots of thrills and nor elicits butterflies in the stomach, that mindset naturally balks at the idea of sticking around. The relationship is not doing what it should, so it is time to get rid of it and find someone else. Thus one finds the successful businessman who seemed to love his beautiful wife at the start of the marriage now ditching her decades later for the twenty-something secretary that makes him feel alive. Or one encounters the woman kicking out her husband and slandering him to their social circles in advance of a divorce because he has not lived up to the potential he had at the beginning or to the expectations she has now. One will only stick around when one gets enough out of the relationship.
This crushes the person left behind or kicked out, but the mindset that does it also shrivels the soul of the person abandoning the relationship. The other person is a means to an end, like a sandwich box to be discarded after one eats a cheeseburger, and dehumanizing them by treating them as such dehumanizes ourselves. That is not what we are made for, and we know it.
However, when the relationship is oriented towards seeking the glory of Christ, the dynamic changes. Defects that previously soured the relationship are still defects, but they also present an opportunity for glorifying Christ to a greater degree than if the person were perfect. One might be mad at some wrong that the other person did, and in a consumeristic mindset, that would be an incentive to leave. However, if the goal of the relationship is now to glorify Christ, the wrong that the other person did is a special opportunity to fulfill that goal by exemplifying the love of Christ. He overlooked the sins of wrongdoers and loved them enough to die in their place. We only get the opportunity to overlook the sins of others when they sin. The sin may hurt, and that is all that it does in a consumeristic relationship. But if the relationship is subsumed to pursuing the glory of Christ, it also gives the believer the joy of imitating the love of his savior. That makes him more likely to stay with the relationship, and the act of forgiveness and love breathe life into the relationship that makes the other person more likely to stick with it too. That is the irony. The relationship thrives and last longer when it takes a backseat to something else. An antidote to relational boredom is making the relationship part of a mission that transcends it.
Conclusion
On nearly every count it can be argued that Jesus excels above all other contenders when it comes to romance. Perhaps that is why the Bible makes the relationship of Him to the church the reality of which earthly marriage is the reflection. We want to be known completely, but every other suitor is ignorant and limited in his knowledge. No other human being can ever know us completely. But Jesus knows all things about us, including every thought and secret corner of our heart.
At the same time, we want to be loved completely. It is those dark crevices of our hearts where we stash the stains and sins of our past, scared that we would be rejected if someone else really knew. He knows it all, and despite that, he demonstrated his own love for sinners in this, that while they were yet enslaved to sin, he died for them. (Rom. 5:6-7) We want to be loved, and only He is both perfect and perfectly loving. All others are sinners, either totally depraved with a veneer of civility, or genuinely transformed saints whose only goodness is derivative from the indwelling power of God.
While we want to be fully known, we want a lover of intrigue. The boredom of inter-relational monotony has exacted a hefty toll in the separation of couples. That is because we are finite. But there is no end to the mysteries and secret rooms that we can explore for the one who made the unfathomable expanse of the universe. While we wish for a romance that never ends, every other suitor is mortal and weak, unable to guarantee that the romance will not be cut short by some earthly or otherworldly power. It is not so with Christ. He is all-powerful. Nothing can separate his bride from Him without his approval, and his promise is that she will be his forever.
It is on the basis of these facts that the perfect story of romance can only ever be a story with Christ as the groom. Where he is supposedly surpassed by human lovers, where one might contend that there can be no romance with Christ, is that the kissing and sex that are hallmarks of conjugal and romantic relationships are absent from the believer's relationship with Christ. If those physical displays of affection are an essential feature of romance, then there can be no romance with Christ.
If this is true, it does not mean that the perfect romance is without Christ. True romance requires knowing the other person as he is, and when the mask is taken off and the person's true character is revealed, we would rightly turn away in disgust at the wild visage of sin staring us in the face. The heart of every man is desperately wicked absent the Spirit of Christ indwelling and transforming the person's character to something noble, and every romance without that transformation is a fraud propagated by the one, and a mirage knowingly entertained by the other. When the layers are peeled away from every true romance, there at its core is the person of Christ. He either is the perfect romantic partner, or the one with whom we fall in love if we truly fall for someone else. It was He who instilled the noble character without which no true romance can take root and grow. (Gospel of John 3:21; Phil. 2:13) It was he who made the man in whom the seed of the gospel gave birth to new life (Gospel of John 3:3-8; Eph. 2:1, 4-5; 4:22-24; Col. 2:13-14). It was he whose blood set the man free from the law of sin and death (Rom. 8:2). It was he who bestowed the gifts of touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste through which our romances are set ablaze. It is he who conquered the last enemy, defeating death by his death on the cross, thus purchasing eternal life for his beloved. (Acts 20:28) It is He who was exalted above every power and authority, in heaven or on earth, such that no one can take his bride from him. (Rom. 6:23) And it is he who will return as the king of kings coming for his bride, for the ever after that shall be truly happy, unstained by tears or sorrow or mourning or death or pain, the fairy tale made real. (Mt. 25:31-46; Rev. 19:11-16; 21:4) That is the perfect story of romance.
Endnotes:
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