Naked: Intimacy
I had a conversation with my boys at dinner last night about God. That’s not odd, but it struck me last night how difficult it is to describe and explain God, who is eternal, to someone, myself included, who is only able to grasp what we can experience with our five senses. Scripture often gives us a description of God by using word pictures that we would understand. For instance, David regularly refers to God as a place where he can hide in the shelter of His wings. God is obviously not a hen, but it gives us a picture of God’s protective and caring nature. Heaven is also described as having pearly gates and streets of gold. I honestly doubt that God has utilized the excess from Fort Knox to pave His streets, but it gives us a visual picture of something that we probably could not grasp.
What is fascinating is that throughout Scripture, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, as God describes His relationship with His people, He consistently uses the language of intimacy and marriage. He speaks of Himself as a groom coming for His bride. He speaks of wooing the woman that He loves. Jesus tells stories describing the Kingdom of Heaven in terms of marriage. Why would God use this picture of intimacy and marriage to describe His relationship with us and what does that tell us about how God sees marriage?