I have written before about the intimacy of God, how close He is to us and how well He knows us. But my reading this week in John chapters 14-17 impressed me again with just how much He wants us to snuggle in to Him and accept His love. That sent me searching the Bible for examples.
God wants us to be as close as…
Here are some of the metaphors I found expressing the closeness that God desires.
- Parent and child: Jesus referred to God as “your Father” at least 15 times in the Sermon on the Mount alone (Matthew 5-7), including: “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:11)
- God also says that He loves us as a mother loves her child: “Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.” (Isaiah 49:15)
- Husband and wife: The first reference I find to God as a husband is in Isaiah: “For your husband is your Maker, whose name is the LORD of hosts…” (Isaiah 54:5)
- Another beautiful one is Isaiah 61:10: “He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.“
- Shepherd and Sheep: We all know Psalm 23 “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.” And we know that Jesus called Himself the “Good Shepherd“. The Bible uses that imagery for God many times.
- Vine and branches: Back to the chapters in John’s Gospel that impressed me this week, Jesus says “I am the vine, you are the branches.” (John 15:5) He wants to be our root, our support and our provider.
- As He says further, we need Him to be that root; without Him we wither and die.
- Complete unity: Finally, see this circle of unity that is Jesus’ greatest desire for His followers:
The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.
John 17:22-23
That is how close God wants the relationship to be.
Why does He want to be so close to us? Because He loves us!
God gives us veto power over that closeness.
But do you realize that as all-powerful as God is, He allows us to deny Him this closeness that He wants so badly? I find that to be pretty amazing, but I think it is true. For instance, have you ever experienced the frustration of trying to show love to someone, only to have it rejected? I had a couple of instances in just the past week.
On one occasion, I was trying to hold a child so that her father could have his hands free for a task. She was not having any part of it. She wriggled, cried, and strained to get out of my arms and back to her daddy.
In the second example, we had a homeless man come to our church during the Sunday morning service, looking for assistance. Our best answer in that case is for him to come back to the office during business hours when more resources are available. There, the staff can give vouchers for food or lodging, can coordinate with additional agencies, and can deal with other needs like counseling. For me as a lay person on a weekend, the best I could do was offer a bit of food and maybe a ride to a better-equipped shelter 1. Our visitor turned down every suggestion I made. He didn’t want me to call anyone for him; he didn’t want to go to a shelter; he didn’t want a ride anywhere else. He seemed totally depressed, but was unwilling to accept my help. It broke my heart. 😔
I can think of similar examples that are familiar to many of us:
- Dealing with a sullen teenager whose response to all overtures is just “Whatever!”
- Trying to make up from a fight with a spouse who is giving the silent treatment.
- Begging a loved one to admit they need help fighting an addiction, or leaving an abusive relationship.
God experiences this kind of frustration constantly. Over and over, the Bible tells us how much He wants us to be with Him, accepting and returning His love. But the Bible, the daily news, and our own lives are full of proof that we reject it. As Jesus lamented:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!
Luke 13:34
The same metaphors as above are used in the Bible to show how God’s love is rejected:
- Parent and child:
- Just as the baby I was holding was anxious to get back to her daddy, God wants us to be that eager to be close to Him. Instead, He gets: “For My people are foolish, they know Me not; They are stupid children and have no understanding.” (Jeremiah 4:22) and “For this is a rebellious people, false sons, sons who refuse to listen to the instruction of the LORD.” (Isaiah 30:9)
- Husband and wife:
- God’s “wife”, His people, are often unfaithful to Him. Ezekiel 16:32 — actually, the entire chapter — is one mention of this; Jeremiah 2:32 is another.
- The entire book of Hosea has this theme. God instructed the prophet to deliberately marry a prostitute as an object lesson showing God’s relationship to Israel (Hosea 1:2, Hosea 3:1).
- Some of the verses from God’s point of view are so sad: Check out chapter 11, for instance. No matter how loving and faithful He is, the people continue to turn away from Him.
- Shepherd and sheep:
- As Isaiah 53:6 tells us: “All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.“
Why does He let us say No to Him, when He could easily force our submission? Because He loves us!
God never stops reaching out to us.
No matter how often He is rejected, God stays faithful. He continues to cause “His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45). He even uses discipline to shake us out of our indifference and rebellion, promising that He will forgive if we turn back to Him. Look at this long list of times when God begged His people to return to Him so that He could restore them: Deuteronomy 30:1-3, 2 Chronicles 30:9, Isaiah 55:7, Joel 2:12-13, Jeremiah 31:20, Zechariah 1:3, Malachi 3:7.
Think of your own relationships, or attempts at them. How long would you stand for it if the one you loved only came to you so you would stop punishing them? Or if you knew that they were only with you for what you could give them, and didn’t love you for yourself? How long, how many rejections would it take before you decided they weren’t worth the effort?
Why does He keep on trying, instead of simply giving up on us? Because He loves us!
God gave everything He had to make it possible for us to come to Him.
Even when we come to our senses for a moment, and realize how foolish we’ve been to reject God, we still aren’t able to stop doing so. Our nature, originally made in His own image, has been corrupted so that we are now determined to run our own lives. The lie that started in the garden of Eden is twisted within us, making us unwilling to truly trust in God’s love.
But, also starting in the garden, God made a way to bridge that gap. He came down to us, became one of us, and on the cross He paid the entire cost necessary to allow us to be reconciled. From Genesis 3:15 until John 19:30, He gave everything that we needed. Back to the passage from Isaiah 53:6 above “the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” Or, as Paul told the church at Corinth:
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
2 Corinthians 5:21
I recently encountered a quote that sums this up perfectly: “Sin is man substituting himself for God. Salvation is God substituting Himself for man.” 2
Why did He allow Jesus to be our substitute, not making us pay the price — a price beyond our ability — for our own sin? Because He loves us!
God is STILL loving, longing…and waiting.
And yet, He still gives us the choice. We aren’t required to accept Jesus’ gift. We can choose eternity without Him instead of the eternal life with Him that cost Him such a high price.
We can still continue to deny Him what He wants most. Why?
Because He loves us!
Footnotes and Scripture References
- Much as I might have wished to, I couldn’t just wave a magic prayer and make his life instantly be all better. God doesn’t work that way.
- The full quote is worth repeating here:
“The concept of substitution may be said, then, to lie at the heart of both sin and salvation. For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be. God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone. God accepts penalties which belong to man alone.” (John Stott, in The Cross of Christ)
