The Great Eternal Romance

The Great Romance, an Eternal Story

By Kent Secor, with respects to Devern Fromke and Frank Viola and many others.

There has been a story that caught my attention for the first time about 30 some years ago. Though other ideas and stories have carried my attention away from time to time I keep getting drawn back to this one.

At times I could only catch a small window sized glimpse of it, other times it was as though someone opened the whole horizon to me. It is more breathtaking then the most beautful of sun rises or sun sets. More stunning then the most gorgeous of brides. More precious then the most precious of babies.

It begins in eternity past. If eternity can have a past, being a state of being without any measure of time. But for our story it was in eternity past.
There is only one being there, God, who would reveal himself to a man of a nation as I who AM!

God was alone with himself. But not alone, for he had a beloved with him. Yet God was alone and desired a mate. God at the core of his being is a lover, so much so that it is truth to say that God is love itself. As the great eternal lover he had a desire, one to love. God is the beloved, and as the beloved desired with the greatest depth of passion the lover.

Now we spring forward. Time now is. Time a part of the creation that God created for the express purpose of placing his loved one in.

We see a garden, we see God creating the first man, Adam. Adam made in the image of God the beloved. Adam made to love God and another. God places man, Adam into the perfect garden he created in the perfect world he created.
Adam sees all the animals that God created. God calls them all to pass before the king of the world, and asks Adam to name them. Each pair of animals passes before God and Adam. Adam names each one, and sees that each one has a mate. He comes to know that he alone of all the creatures of creation is alone. He has no "other" to know, to love.

God sees that Adam knows, and tells Adam, "It is not good for you, man, to be alone." God places Adam into a great sleep, opens up his side, removes a rib, and from that rib fashions Adam a mate. This first woman is also Adam. Together they form the first man, "male and female created He (God) them, and He called them Adam."

The first created lover, has his beloved. She is bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. He is completely enraptured with her. His full desire is for her alone. He has no eyes for any other, for there is no other to look at. And if there were and when there will be, he still will want her and her alone.

She is the crowning acheivement of all of God's creation. Last made and most beautiful of all. Next to Adam, the perfect created man, she shines like a jewel. She is Adam's glory, shining forth with grace and beauty. Truth, intelligence, love, beauty, all are hers. And she is completely enraptured and in love with her mate, Adam. She has only eyes for him

They drink in each other. They smell each other. They taste each other and experience each other in the deepest depths of passion.

And God looked upon them and said "IT IS GOOD"!

I tell you a mystery brethren, I speak here not about man and wife, but about Christ and the church.

Christ is the second Adam. He came into the world to redeem his bride. To set her free, to empower her to be his bride. And his bride is radiant to him. To him his bride is worth his everything, even his own life. That is the bride price that Christ paid, even his own blood.

Brethren, we are that bride. You are a member of her, if you belong to Christ and not just some religious organization. And he is totally, deeply, passionately in love with us all.

The Great Eternal Romance was all about God giving his beloved Son a bride. He is still forming that bride. Each new believer helps to form her.

More later...