The Greatest Love Story

Verses:

Genesis 2:15-16: The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Genesis 3:6,15: So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate…

I will put enmity between you and the woman,

    and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head,

    and you shall bruise his heel.”

Genesis 15:17-18a: When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land…

Deuteronomy 4:1: And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. 

Hosea 1:2: When the LORD began to speak by Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea:

"Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry

And children of harlotry,

For the land has committed great harlotry

By departing from the LORD..."

Ezekiel 16:8: “When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine,” says the Lord GOD.

John 1:14: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Matthew 27:46: And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Luke 24:6a: He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee…

Hebrews 1:3: He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…

Titus 3:5: He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit…

Revelation 19:6-9: When I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

“Hallelujah!For the Lord our God    the Almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice and exult    and give him the glory,for the marriage of the Lamb has come,    and his Bride has made herself ready;

it was granted her to clothe herself    with fine linen, bright and pure”—

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

Thoughts:

Today’s blog is a different format as I’m sure you’ve noticed. I collected a numerous amount of verses for this blog, and have only written a “thoughts” section. My goal in collecting these verses was to try and show the overall biblical narrative. Or, as I named this blog, the greatest love story. 

The entire story of the Bible from start to finish is one of unrelenting love. It is truly the greatest love story. God created a world, perfect and lovely. He created man in his image and gave them the entire garden, the entire world, and only asked them to not do one thing: eat of the tree of good and evil. And yet, man did just that, falling to the serpents' lies. Man rebelled, disobeying the Lord.

But the Lord in his kindness did not justly kill them then. Rather, in his mercy he gave the great promise of redemption and stated that the serpent would one day be slain. 

God later made a covenant with Abraham, promising him an offspring as numerous as the stars in heaven (Genesis 15). This offspring promised were the people of Israel. 

But the life of Israel was filled with disobedience. Through the desert and from the very start of conquering the land, they disobeyed God’s word (Judges 1). During the times of the Judges, Israel was a wicked, idolatrous people who only cried for God when their lives were hard. But even through that time, God was merciful in sending Judges, men (and a woman) to relieve his people from their chastisement. But soon Israel desired a king, and though David was certainly the greatest ruler pointing to Christ, the kings only went downhill. Numerous wicked kings caused much bloodshed and led Israel astray.

Arcing through the times of the Judges and Kings, we see many prophets such as Ezekiel, Isaac, and Hosea all speaking of Israel's depravity. She is as a whore, allowing the other nations into her, unclean on the bed (Is.1:21, Ez.16, Hos.4:15). 

But even then, Christ came in the form of man and did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. He humbled himself and died a horrid, gruesome death on the cross. Not a death for a beautiful, faithful bride, but rather a wicked whore who had run to other nations. God’s love for us is unfathomable and steadfast. Christ was forsaken by the father out of love for His Bride. What wondrous love is this!

Yet we can rejoice, for He is risen! He is risen indeed. He is sitting on the throne on high and we shall be brought into heaven into perfect unity with Him. He made us lovely by His life, death, and resurrection. Something we could never have done on our own strength. He made us fit to be a bride to the Son of God. How great His love for such a wretch like me! How unfathomable it is, but oh how grateful I am to receive it. 

#17

22 Aug 2025