Customer Reviews

The Divine Romance (Inspirational)

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The Divine Romance was... well... um... divine! And, gosh, the only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was because there's a few other favorite titles I've read that impacted me more intensely than this one in particular. I realize that this may make it seem I don't regard this book as a "hot" title, but nothing could be further from the truth. I really did almost give it 5 stars. This was a fantastic read and I highly recommend it to anyone, Christian or not!

Gene Edwards is a remarkable story teller and has the wonderful ability to draw the reader into reality through fiction. I don't know how else to put it. The Divine Romance is a fictional story (based completely on the reality of spirit life) about the creation of the world and God's intent for man from before the world was made. It illuminates a most spectacular description of the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ and God's romantic passion for her. The reader in turn is drawn into a rich encounter with Christ that is far from fiction. I felt the Lord's presence immensly while reading this book. It made me want to pray and to cry and to get really serious about my relationship with Jesus.

Gene's account wholly gels with Scripture, but he uses his imagination which is sparked by his deep love for Jesus to paint this incredible picture for the believer to understand how God really views His children. If you're a biblically technical critic, you might struggle a bit with this book because it is largely Gene's imaginitive insights into the Scripture and the reality of Christian life, more than it is verbatim Scripture. I found it delightful, and though it is fiction, it's almost impossible to just shelf it as a mere fictional story because, in reality, Gene is telling the Gospel truth. This book will grip your heart and set it ablaze with an increased desire for more of Jesus. It will also, more than likely, make you discontent with your present spiritual condition and cause to grow hungrier for a more intimate relationship with God. It will also convict and stir your heart to be more mindful of your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ as you start to see them a the Lord's beautiful bride. The themes of grace and the romance of God for His people flood through the pages of this book.

Ok, I'm starting to feel guilty about my 4 star review (grin). Maybe it should have been five. This is a remarkable book! Worth reading indeed, as are any of Gene's books. Some of his titles have some controversial elements about them in that they do not necessarily encourage Christians to get all wrapped up in the "business" of doing church. Gene focuses on real, intimate, life-changing relationship with God and places this quest on the highest pedestal. Everything else is insignificant and pales in comparison to the mindset of becoming completely filled with God and completely dead to self and religion so that Christ can live His life through us... So that we can truly become that beautiful bride of Christ.

Ok... after all that, I'm starting to think 5 stars is a bit low. Please excuse me while I go read this book again. ;)

Gene Edwards has attempted the impossible: to describe in finite language the infinite love of God and His purpose in creating and redeeming humankind. No one, and I repeat, No one has ever even approached doing this description better than Gene Edwards. Joy and indescribable intimacy permeate these words, as I rejoice in the love of God as I read this book. But it is not a once in a lifetime experience. Over the 10 or more years that I have owned a copy of this book, I have read it multiple times, and it affects me deeply every time I read it. I recommend it to everyone who wants to experience the depth of love a human being can experience with the living God.

Despite not being a fan of "allegorical " or "fictional" storytelling based on biblical truths, I found this book a valiant attempt to put into words a marvelous truth in the Bible. God wants to get married! While I find many readers tend to get stuck in the allegory, some may discover something that they may have never considered before... the Bible is actually a book detailing a divine romance between God and His creation. It is easy to see how the ministry of Witness Lee (titles also available on Amazon) has influenced Gene's understanding of the Bible and contributed to his realization of the divine romance. One warning though, don't get stuck in the allegory-- let this book open your eyes to what may be a fresh perspective to God's plan for His chosen people.

This book puts forth a beautiful message of the love between God and His creation. Edwards also does an excellent job of explaining the mystery of the Church as the Bride, as well as stepping out of time and space to try to view the universe as God does. However, I am only rating the book with four stars due to several questionable beliefs which Edwards seems to state as fact. Readers should consult with the Bible before blindly accepting these views. First is Edward's statement that Eve was created on the eighth day (after Creation) rather than on the sixth day along with Adam. I have never heard of this view before and I believe Genesis is very clear that God created male and female both on Day 6. Secondly, Edwards writes that God only wants man to love Him in return and does not require obedience to the law or adherence to any church practice including prayer. While it is certainly true that love is paramount in man's relationship with God, to negate the importance of prayer and the commandments is a disservice to the reader. Jesus Himself taught His disciples how to pray and told them to keep the commandments. In summary, I recommend this book as a good way to examine God's love for creation and to meditate on the salvation in Christ, but readers should realize this is a fictionalized account based on Biblical truth, and thus should not look to it as the Gospel itself.

I have read a number of Mr. Edward's books, but this by far is my favorite. I try to read this book once a year. It makes real creation, Adam and Eve and how much he loves each and every one of us. I am particularly struck by how eloquently he describes God's craftmanship in fashioning woman. We all know how he caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep and extracted one of his ribs. He tells a beautiful story of how women are everything he could ever want if he could have the perfect companion. All of that went into creating who I AM as a woman. This is a must read for anyone interested in stories based solely on books of the bible explained in such a way that you feel like you're actually there. I really loved the part about Adam and Eve being in different parts of the garden and knowing the other one was there but not how or where to find the other. Absolutely awesome!

I do not understand the glowing reviews of this book, which on many points is contrary to the Bible. The main theme, which is flawed, is that God is lonely and needs a "counterpart." The main purpose of creation is so that God will have a "counterpart," a mate, like Adam and the animals. Here are some major problems in the book:
1. God is lonely because although he is love, there is "no one to love" and he needs a "mate." God does not need anyone or anything; to assert this is unbiblical and goes against how God has revealed himself.
2. God creates a "spiritual sphere" out of his being; angels come out of God; God marks off "portions" of his being. This is panentheism, a decidedly anti-biblical view.
4. The main purpose of creation is for God to have counterpart.
5. Eve is created on the 8th day, contrary to the biblical account.
6. God tells Adam that he will know the love of a counterpart before God will know such a love. This means that God is not omniscient.
8. Before the Fall, God is sad and lonely and declares that all things are not good, contrary to Scripture.
9. It is implied that God the Father incarnates because God "disappears" from heaven when Jesus incarnates and the angels wonder where God is. God the Father never incarnated.
10. The fallen angels, including Satan, are "crucified" with Christ. The angels bring Satan to the cross to crucify him with Jesus. However, Hebrews 2 states that Jesus did not come for the angels; angels cannot be redeemed and Satan was certainly not crucified with Jesus!
11. There is a strange theme about the wound in Jesus' side correlating with Eve being taken from Adam's side. The author writes that Jesus is wounded to pay the price for his "counterpart."The resurrected Jesus states that "someone that has been inside me for all eternity is now missing!" Jesus reaches out as a young girl comes toward him and places her in his side. Later, someone comes from his side and is portrayed as a raven-haired beautiful girl who is the bride of Jesus. This is clearly meant to be the church but the language and imagery are surreal.

The message of this book is that God and Jesus are lonely and need a mate, so God creates the world, and Jesus suffers, dies, and resurrects so that He can have a bride. Sin and the need for man's redemption are downplayed and this other message about God's loneliness and need are highlighted. Of course, the Trinitarian God is not lonely and he has no needs. If God had a need, he would not be God. But God is all-sufficient and needs no one.

About a decade ago I first picked up this book. Something was bothering me, and I put it down. In the intervening time two things have happened. One is that, completely apart from this book I, too, fell in love with the story of God's divine romance with us. Passages like Ezekiel 16 would jump out at me, and I began to savor a figurative reading of the Song of Songs. I even read other authors on the topic like Brian Simmons and portions of Madame Guyon. This first step was important b/c in a way I may not have been ready for the unabashed bliss of God in relation to His Bride without it. This was not a truth trumpeted by my tradition, and it took awhile for me to be comfortable with it. The second thing that happened is that I started to become theologically savvy. Having been immersed in a lot of theological errors that had a negative effect on those I loved and upon me, I started to understand the import of theological study not just for head knowledge but for personal formation and the shaping of the Bride.

These two parts of me have been a bit at war while finally picking up this book for a full read-through. I don't often write book reviews, but I thought engaging this might be helpful for others either in choosing whether to read it or in reading with discernment.

First of all, I do find much in this book beautiful. For instance, there is a lovely scene when God is about to build woman in which His overwhelming passion at considering His own future counterpart is brilliantly evoked. Likewise, the scene in which Adam and Eve chase through the nascent world to find each other (he takes liberties in this regards, broadening the account and not having God lead one to another as God does in Genesis 2:22) is in some ways spell-binding in their pure hunger for human community, in other ways a bit disturbing for reasons I will get to. Also, I don't mind a writer fleshing things out in ways that are not explicit in scripture. It is ok to me that he sends the angels, for instance, on complicated assignments related to Christ's passion that are nowhere mentioned in scripture. Even when I trip on some choices, I recognize that this can be helpful to narrative development. Some people will cry "eisegesis" in resistance, however.

What DID repeatedly trouble me was where the narrative explicitly conflicted w/ a plausible read of scripture or doctrine of God. For instance, even in the earliest pages of the book we have several significant mischaracterizations of God's nature. (a) God is presented as downright weary from creating, I suppose as a way of explaining His choice to rest a day, establishing the patterns of rest for creation, but scripturally and doctrinally God never wearies. (b) Although this point is partially reversed, it would seem, three-quarters of the way through the book, God is presented as needing an angel to plant a seed of revelation in Him that He might be able to have a counterpart (and around the time when this point is--although not clearly--corrected later in the book by an allusion to God's knowing before time, we are given a new doozy in that God disappears from heaven during the incarnation and that the angels are left leaderless after His death... both poor doctrine that is never especially corrected). (c) God is presented repeatedly from the outset as male--not just as "He" but as male (and there is a profound theological difference). Moreover, the man Adam is repeatedly presented as the only member of creation who thereby can be His image and as the only one who rules the earth (Eve is his non-ruling counterpart who by contrast does not image God). Adam is the only one like God; Eve is an other even though taken from Adam's substance. The writer repeatedly displays awe at Eve and women, but it is for her beauty, her incomprehensibility, and her ability to lavish love in return.

It is possible that some reading my review may wonder what is wrong w/ the points I have listed as error (c). Some of these errors have spotted church history again and again. In regards to the concepts of women, they have even taken harsher forms. As Genesis 1:27 makes clear in the Hebrew and in its better English translations, both sexes are in the image of God, "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." Moreover, in verse 28, this "them"--male AND female--were charged to rule the earth. God is indeed primarily (although not always--e.g., Isaiah 42:14; 46:3-4; 49:15; 66:13; Hosea 13:8; Psalm 123:2; Luke 13:20-21; 15:3-10, and as a midwife, then a female profession in Psalm 22:9-10; 71:6; Isaiah 66:9; additionally Wisdom is personified as female in Proverbs) revealed to us in terms of masculine metaphors and is even personable to us that way as Father and Son, and it is appropriate to refer to Him w/ the male pronoun. However, it is clear that He is a spiritual being, and that this being is what you might either call gender-full or gender transcendent (encompassing the giftings we find strongest in both genders, both of which are a faint reflection of Him). Eve is given to Adam as his help meet, but what is sometimes obscured is that this "help" (or ezer) is a military term usually applied to God and always (other than here) applied to a power that comes to the rescue of another who is weaker. The "meet" (or kenegedo--face to face, one like unto him) is what makes it clear that they are on the same footing (as opposed to hers being superior, lol) and are meant in their purest creation to see each other face to face (vis a vis) as equals in essence and authority. Adam needed a warrior-rescuer equal to him, not just someone to adore for her beauty and mystery. Unfortunately, Edwards both gives way to poor theology about God and about human gender and falls into biased cultural caricatures about what woman is and has to offer. To a strong degree, this book is built upon this unstable footing as it seeks to compare the divine romance of the Lord and the Bride to that of a little "lord" and his pretty bride.

I think a lot of this problem is because some exegetes are prone to reading "back" the mystery of Christ and the Bride into the mystery of husband and wife (as mentioned in Ephesians 5). The reasoning is that if Christ is that much greater than the Bride, then so must the husband be to the wife in God's ideal. The problem is that you aren't supposed to read analogies that way. The mystery of the husband and wife has some pertinence to the mystery of Christ and the Bride, but the latter is a mystery that far supersedes the former and that has components that the former does NOT hold as is typical with analogies (for analogies are different from one another by definition). This is read back into Genesis, into 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, and even into the way 1 Timothy 2 is often quite unnaturally translated to seem to say something about women that it does not.

There is good news in all of this!!! When I was starting the final chapters of the book, after having scribbled "No"s of frustration in the margins of many pages, I mentioned my conflict to a friend. It was a book in some ways near to my heart, but in other ways the theology was driving me crazy. And the fact that this book was often recommended to single women during my college days compounded that frustration due to the untrue presentation (even if cherishing us in a one-dimensional way) of women's gifting. My friend informed me that she was fairly certain the author, Gene Edwards, had changed his position on these theological issues since writing the book. I did some internet searches, and it would appear that she is correct!! It would appear that in his golden years he is able to proclaim both the divine love story and a true appropriation of women (that I would imagine would have to have something to do with a corrected appropriation of the "gender" or non-gender of God). It's just too bad that the errors were woven throughout what has become a classic book, whereas his corrective book (see link below) has gotten far less press/audience. Perhaps my review can be a drop in the bucket to change that. Amazon is not letting me link to the page I wish to, but search for "God's Word to Women, Gene Edwards, A Time Past Due" and you'll come up with an interesting article which comprises the first chapter of his book "The Christian Woman Set Free."

This is quite an extraordinary book! The author succeeded quite well in his imaginative but Biblical attempt to tell the story of our God - from creation onward. Though there are inevitable questions left unanswered & perhaps minor disagreement with the author's viewpoint, he seems definitely guided at least in part by revelation from God's Holy Spirit & shows great skill in his writing about a difficult subject. The only argument that I have with the book that kept me from giving it 5 stars is the author's failure to incorporate a conception of the Trinity into his story. His viewpoint seems closer to "Jesus Only" theology - but that does not spoil what is truthfully a very inspiring book!

This book really helped me to see things from God's point of view. Too often, way to often, we see things only from our point of view. Having such a self centered point of view causes us to miss seeing GOD's heart in the bible. Edwards does such a good job of putting God's heart before.

This is the hardest of Edwards books to rate that I have read. I alternately hated it and would want to throw the book away and loved it for the insipation it was giving me. It is poetry in the sense that it uses images to move your emotions. I have read about 5 of Edwards books. He is great at getting you to think differently about the Christian Life and how things could (and often should) be different. However, he often takes what would charitably be called "poetic license" when he uses the Bible to support his ideas. In this book, he took the most poetic lisence of all, even changing the timing in the creation story to move Eve to day 8. Since it is a poetic book, some poetic license seems OK, but it would often drive me crazy. many of the ideas are hard, so even a couple of months later I am not sure if I loved the book or hated it.