The Forgotten Portrait

In just a few weeks, I’ll stand beside my fiancée and vow before God and witnesses to love her deeply and faithfully for the rest of our lives. It will be the culmination of a relationship that, despite what Hollywood may convince you it should look like, didn’t begin with fireworks or infatuation. Rather, my sin continues to pollute any picturesque image she may have of me. There’s nothing I offered her that ever swept her off her feet in some grand Jack-and-Rose moment.

Instead, we’ve gotten to know each other slowly, through something simpler and yet more profound: friendship. And now, by God’s grace, that friendship has grown into a soon-to-be covenant. Lord-willing, that covenant will be the grounds by which we grow into deeper love for years to come.

This kind of steady, deepening intimacy reflects something uniquely human that God has designed us for. We are not designed to remain in stagnant, surface-level relationships with others. God has designed us for such relationship (Gen. 2:18). And that’s not only true of relationships with the opposite sex, either. Biblically, we not only want—we need growing friendships of all kinds. For every believer, regardless of marital status, this is our necessary experience. 

Apart from the countless biblical examples, we see this all around us. Think about it—spend long enough with an acquaintance, and it ends up sparking a deep friendship. As we mature, our relationships with our parents often deepen, shifting from authority figures to trusted confidants. Even professional relationships can evolve into genuine friendships. There is something wonderful, something absolutely God-designed about not just being in relationship but growing in relationship with others.

However, this reality is not limited to our relationships with other human beings. This is something that is deeply ingrained in our hearts—we long for increasing intimacy ultimately with God. Lucky for us, He’s the One who’s designed us that way. And He always welcomes it. 

The Paintings of Intimacy

Throughout the Bible, we get different glimpses into how we experience intimacy with God. For the sake of illustration, picture a museum. God has formed this museum and invited us in to see paintings on the wall representing the experience of the Christian life. Hanging inside are glimpses of desires in the very heart of God.

As you walk through, you’ll see the first frame, possibly with a cross painted somewhere on it, representing what I’ll call the “Master-Servant” relationship. Anytime anyone has ever come to Christ they not only acknowledge Him as Savior, but also Lord. Jesus is Lord of our lives, and we are called to obey Him. We are called to take up our cross and follow Him, come what may (Matt. 16:24). Throughout Paul’s writings, he refers to himself as a servant—or “slave” (doulos)—where God is his Master (Rm. 1:1, 6). Miss this painting, and you will deceive yourself and others around you (1 Jn. 1). All true disciples of Jesus will ultimately see Him as our Master and us as His servants. God is our Master.

But there’s something that lacks in the Master-Servant relationship. In this, we tend to do things purely out of duty and not out of love. But there is a painting hanging that is a little bit brighter. The colors portray something a little more inviting, yet still powerful. On the painting you may see a young man sitting with his father, representing the “Father-Son” relationship. One of the most glorious realities of being a Christian is knowing that we can now approach the God of the universe as our Father. Despite your relationship with your earthly father, your Heavenly Father loves you abundantly more. As the Apostle Paul states, “... you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Rm. 8:15). While God remains authoritative in this relationship (Heb. 12:6), there is something more intimate than we see in the Master-Servant relationship. He is willing to hear our requests (Matt. 7:11) and loves to answer them. God is our Father.

Then comes the third painting. It’s the most inviting of the three you’ve seen so far, and you can’t help but stand close, examining the details. In this painting, you see two people hugging tightly. This is the “Friends” relationship painted before you. In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells his disciples, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends…” (John 15:15). This relationship is not one that denotes authority, it’s an invitation to closeness and honesty. Jesus wants us to bring our deepest pains and our deepest longings to Him, because He wants to hear them and heal them. As we grow in our Christian walk, we will learn to spend time with Him, and see Jesus as our greatest confidant. God is our Friend.

The Most Valuable Painting

There is one other painting though that hangs at the end of the grand hall of the museum. This one seems roped off from the rest, and yet it is the most beautiful. Anyone is welcome to walk right up to it and to gaze at its beauty, but few do. Yet there it is, in all its glory. On it, you see a wedding between a bride and a groom. This painting represents the deepest form of intimacy displayed in the Bible, and yet the one that we have the most trouble grasping—it is the Lover relationship.

We know God calls us to love. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,” (Matt. 22:37). Yet we often equate love purely with obedience. Of course, obedience plays its part. But there’s something much deeper involved: affection. Look at these words from Psalm 42:

As a deer pants for flowing streams,

so pants my soul for you, O God.

2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When shall I come and appear before God?

Think about saying those words to someone else. Would you say those words to your boss? I hope not. Would you say those words to your father? Of course not. Would you even say those to a friend? Not one of the bros. Who on earth would you say “My soul pants for you…” to?

Of course, you would say that only to your love. To the one whom you enjoy spending time with. To the one you go to, willing to pour your heart out. You feel safe with them. And the Bible is clear, this type of language is not only given for spouses to communicate love. It continually refers to Christ and His church. It’s all over! Ephesians, Romans, Colossians, and of course the Gospel of John give us the picture that we’re united to Christ. This language of “union” we typically hear at a wedding ceremony. This is why many past theologians point to Song of Solomon as an allegory for Christ and His church. 

And yet, Ephesians 5 famously remarks that earthly marriage is the shadow of the substance—Christ and His Church. Have you really considered the reality that Christ sees His Church as His bride? Many of us crave intimacy with a spouse, and miss that we have the greatest love intimacy relationship right in front of us as Christians. There is something deeply intimate, deeply tender about Christ’s relationship with you. And yet it remains incredibly sad that most Christians spend their entire lives never beholding this out of fear of irreverence. However, this reality is the deepest longing of God’s heart. He wants your affections to be for Him solely. God is our Lover.

Feel a little squeamish by me saying that? I think we’re naturally inclined to feel this way because our affections are set on so many things other than God. But study the Scriptures or take a short stroll through church history, and you will find that intimacy with Jesus has always been the greatest call of the Christian. Modern theologians like John Piper and Dane Ortlund have built their ministries off this reality. Jonathan Edwards called the Church to have an abiding “Religious Affection.” John Calvin, when writing on prayer in his classic Institutes of the Christian Religion, states that prayer “is a kind of intercourse between God and men, by which, having entered the upper sanctuary, they appear before Him and appeal to his promises…” (20.2). The martyrs of centuries old understood that they were dying for their deepest love. All in all, church history seems to have understood this reality without any squirming, and yet even still it may be for our modern, over-sexualized culture that we stand in fear of these deep affections.

Don’t Miss the Painting

How does this become practical, then? If being a lover is more than just obedience, what does it mean? When a man close to me originally described this reality to me, I was struck with a weird “ick,” because I simply just didn’t know what to do with it. And I think many of us tend to avoid it out of fear of the “Jesus-is-my-boyfriend” culture that removes all reverence entirely.

But I think what this reality entails is a deep longing to want God alone. Your time, your efforts, your money all center around wanting to grow in relationship with Him. You don’t take yourself too seriously because God is the sole one who approves of you in Christ. You don’t need the approval of others to drive you. Things like pornography, greed, or spiritual apathy no longer define you. You read Romans 8 and you understand that “nothing can separate you from the love of Christ”—not even your own sin. You see that Christ, like any good groom, still pursues you in spite of your sin and is the very medicine to heal your scars. And your brokenness becomes the very invitation for greater intimacy with Him because of His heart. 

Take the woman at the well, for example. This lover relationship leans into the understanding that Jesus alone satisfies your thirsty soul (Jn. 4, 7). The woman at the well didn’t need another husband—she had plenty of those. She didn’t need sex. She didn’t need approval. She had been abused enough by Satan’s schemes. She needed God—deep, satisfying, soul-quenching living waters from Jesus. She needed the day-to-day abiding love relationship with Jesus to transform her desires, and we do too.

So many believers stay distant from this painting for most of their life. I think if there’s anything the sweet saints of old—those grandmothers who deeply love Jesus—can teach us, it's that this reality is true and the painting is beautiful.

I just moved here recently, and I can’t help but notice how much quicker my life has gotten and how easy it can be to walk right past this painting. The danger in a city like Boston is that we can become so busy—so distracted—that we’re content going to Jesus at certain points throughout our day or even week, keeping Him at arm’s length throughout our work day and in our most exhausted moments. We’re fine with remaining friends with Him, never to grow in love with Him. But Jesus wants our life. So, the question remains—are you in love with Him? Have you invited Him into every detail, willing to commune with Him all day long?

He wants us thinking about Him when we’re in that staff meeting, filling out that spreadsheet, or writing that email. He wants to heal our hearts as we deal with the pains of our past. Just as you would daydream about your love, He wants you daydreaming about Him and His majesty. The call to all of us is to not miss this, to spend time intentionally in the Scriptures, searching to know God’s heart in deeper and truer ways. And to never miss this painting, crying out with Solomon,

“My beloved is mine, and I am his…” - Song of Solomon 2:16