Love makes the world go round, says the one time popular
song, and there are very few who will deny it. History
reveals that one of life's greatest tragedies is to die unloved.
During the Civil War, Charles Sumner was assaulted in the
Senate chamber, and was seriously ill for months. He
regretted he had to leave his battle against slavery
unfinished, but this was not his deepest pain. He wrote,
"But in the midnight watches, my keenest heart-gnawing
regret was that, if I were called away, I had never enjoyed
the choicest experience of life, that no lips responsive to my
own had said, I love you."
He expressed the minds of millions who would agree. It
would be terrible to live and die and never hear anyone say
to you, I love you. Love may not make the world go round,
but it makes men happier as they go around with it. Love
has enabled men to die with heroic valor. During the great
battle of Gettysburg, Pickett was ordered to charge the
Union artillery. As he went to the head of his lines, Wilcox,
another commander, rode up to his side, and taking a flask
from his pocket said, "Pickett, take a drink with me. In an
hour you will be in hell or glory." He refused the drink
saying, "I promise the little girl who is waiting for me down
in Virginia that I would keep fresh upon my lips until we
meet again, the breath of the violets she gave me when we
parted." Faithful to his love, he rode off to die without
whiskey on his breath. No one can calculate the power of
human love in overcoming evil.
Love is the major theme of the Bible. The two great
commandments that sum up the whole Old Testament are
love commandments. Love of God and love of man are the
highest values of life. In the New Testament love is not only
the highest virtue and the first fruit of the Spirit, it is the
very foundation of the Gospel. God so loved, is the
beginning of the Gospel, and the end result is, we love Him
because He first loved us.
It is of interest to note that love is the greatest theme of man's
songs whether they be sacred or secular. The world
revolves around romantic love, and the church around
religious love. The one appeals to the flesh, and the other to
the spirit. It is a serious mistake, however, to conclude that
the two are opposed. They are not necessarily in conflict, for
spiritual people also enjoy the experience of romantic love.
In fact, it is only as Christians that we can experience the
best of both worlds. The Christian can love on the physical
level and the spiritual level. In Scripture the two become
one, and are linked as closely as the body and spirit. Each
affects the other, and, therefore, romantic love is everywhere
in Scripture used as a symbol of religious love. In other
words, God has taken the most common and universal
experience of mankind and used it to illustrate the ideal
relationship He desires to have with man.
The Song of Songs is a great love song that deals with love
on the level of the physical. All the delights of an ideal
romance and marriage are dwelt with in beautiful poetic
language. The Bible would be sadly lacking if it had nothing
to say about one of life's most important realms-the realm of
romantic love. Few, however, have been content to leave it
as a romantic song. It is true that God is not mentioned in
the song, and there are no religious words. Yet, Jews and
Christians alike have always seen the secular language of the
Song as symbolic of the sacred. Just as the physical Temple
was symbolic of the heavenly Temple, so earthly human love
is symbolic of the eternal love union of God and man. It is
no mere accident that eternity begins with a marriage
banquet of Christ and His bride. Heaven is seen as an eternal
honeymoon.
This is the Song of Songs, that is, the supreme Song, like
the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. The ultimate in
songs does not deal with romantic love only, but with the
love of God and man. Religious love does not eliminate
romantic love, however, but exalts it. According to I Kings
4:32 Solomon wrote 1,005 songs. No doubt many of them
dwelt with the theme of love, but this one is the Song of
Songs and became a part of Scripture because it deals with
love on all levels. It is the worlds greatest love song.
Some Christians have been embarrassed by the romantic
and physical love of the Song of Solomon. They have
attempted to explain it away as if romantic love was the
devil's invention. The New Testament says in Heb. 13:4 that
marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled. If the
Song of Solomon is seen as a pure and honorable love
relationship, there is no reason whatever to be embarrassed
by its frankness. It is true that the language of the Song is
usually reserved for the privacy of the lovers and is not
uttered in public, but the fact that the Bible makes it public
shows that true and honorable love if God ordained. Man's
big problem is he cannot adequately distinguish between
love and lust and the result is confusion. Love words can
make us think lustful, for they both use the same language
and this can be shocking to our minds.
If there is great confusion over love and sex, then it would
be tragic if the Bible did not give us a description of what true
love is all about. It does, however, and we have it right
here in this Song of Songs. Like most poetry dealing with
love it is not always easy to understand. In fact, sometimes
it is very difficult, just like real love in real life.
Poetry tends to lend itself to a variety of interpretations, and
there has been a great deal of variety in interpreting this
book. Most everyone agrees it is hard to expound on this
Song, but Bernard of Clairvaux, in the middle ages,
preached 86 sermons on it, and this two monks who could
never marry.
From the more liberal perspective, the Interpreter's Bible
says, "Of all the books in the Old Testament none is so
difficult to interpret as the Song of Songs." From the
conservative side we read from Dr. James M. Gray, for
many years president of Moody Bible Institute, "Of all the
books of the Old Testament, I feel myself least competent to
speak of the Song of Songs. I am not ignorant of what others
have thought and written about the book, but personally I
have not grasped it's contents...." Only a person who has
done little study, or who has a great deal of pride, would
claim to fully grasp this great love song. My own approach
will be eclectic. It will attempt to see the truth and the
values of the different interpretations held by men of God,
both ancient and modern.
The most commonly held modern interpretation is that
the Shulamite is a beautiful shepherdess girl in love with a
young shepherd. They are engaged to be married, but one
day King Solomon traveling by spotted this lovely creature.
When he inquired and found she was not yet married, he
ordered his noblemen to bring her to the royal pavilion.
Solomon woes her and treats her like a queen, but all the
glory and splendor of Solomon the mighty king could not
take the place of her love for her shepherd. She longs to
return to her true love, and forsake the riches of Solomon's
palace. This view is spelled out in detail in the Amplified
Bible.
The Song is largely her song of love, and her desire to be
true to her shepherd lover, and him only, inspite of all the
appeals to forsake true love. She urges the ladies of
Solomon's court to stop trying to divert her love from the
shepherd to the king. She is persistent in resisting the
charms of Solomon, and dreams only of her lover. When the
ladies of the court ask why she is so loyal to her shepherd,
she describes him in eloquent poetry. Finally, true love
triumphs, and she is released, and goes to meet her shepherd
lover. In 8:7 she sums up her experience with these words:
"Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown
it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, it
would be utterly scorned."
True love is permanent and cannot be bought. She would
rather be the wife of a simply shepherd she loved, than
number 701 among the wives of King Solomon. Here was a
girl who could say no, even to the king, because she had
surrendered herself to her one and only love.
I love thee-I love thee!
Tis all that I can say;
It is my vision in the night
My dreaming in the day.
It is not difficult to see how this interpretation has a
spiritual application. Love, loyalty, and faithfulness to the
Savior is what the Christian experience is all about.
As part of the bride of Christ, every Christian goes through
what this young girl of the Song goes through. Every
Christian is tempted by the glory of the world to be
unfaithful to Christ. Israel was lured away time and time
again by other lovers than her husband Jehovah. She
became an adulterous wife and the whole book of Hosea is
about how God in His great love sought her out to forgive
and restore her. The Song of Solomon, however, is a song
where the ideal love is maintained. The bride does not go
astray, but remains faithful, and that is why it is the Song of
Songs.
Paul LeBotz wrote, "The Song of Solomon is the world's
greatest love song, because it is an allegory of the world's
greatest love story, that of Christ and His Bride." The
romantic experience of falling, and growing in love is the
most intense and interesting experience of life. It is the
nearest thing to a religious experience, and that is why
romance and religion are linked all through Scripture. Paul
used the language of love to describe the relationship of
Christ and the church. He says that every Christian is
engaged to be married, and it is his hope that they will be
virgins when the time comes, and not be unfaithful to the
Bridegroom. Listen to II Cor. 11:2-3 in the New English
Bible. "I am jealous for you with a divine jealousy; for I
betrothed you to Christ, thinking to present you as a chaste
virgin to her true and only husband. But as the serpent in
his cunning seduced Eve, I am afraid that your thoughts
may be corrupted and you may lose your simple-hearted
devotion to Christ." Paul fears they will follow false Christ's
and be untrue to their true Lover-the Good Shepherd.
Sex and satisfaction go hand in hand. The Bible makes it
clear that your sex life can either help or hinder you in your
spiritual life. If you are loyal in your love to your mate, the
chances are very good you will be loyal to Christ in the
spiritual realm. If you allow Satan to lure you into an
immoral relationship, the chances are very good he will
succeed in luring you into spiritual infidelity. Romance and
religion are as close as body and spirit, and what happens in
one realm affects the other. In the final analysis of life,
according to the closing chapters of Revelation, every person
will fit into one of two categories. They will either be a part
of the Bride of Christ, or part of the Great Whore, who is
judged and condemned. God uses sex symbolism to describe
the ultimate destiny of men. It will be an eternal marriage
or everlasting divorce.
If Christians ever needed to stress the importance of, and
the beauty of, a pure sex life, it is today. We live in a world
where the greatest competitor with Christ is sex. The world
does not have idols of wood and stone, but living idols which
seek to lure us from our Lord. It is a constant repetition of the
story of the Song of Songs. Romance, love, and sex need
to be diligently studied from a Christian and Biblical point
of view, if we expect Christians to be faithful to Christ, as
the Shulamite was to her shepherd lover.
Even a pure and noble sex relationship can be
embarrassing, however, because we are stuck with a fallen
nature which is far short of the ideal. Adam and Eve could
look upon nakedness, before the fall, and feel no shame.
This is no longer the case, and the result is,
not all of the Song of Solomon can be expounded in public.
There are many things that are pure and beautiful between
mates that are inexpressible in public. Some of these
intimate things are found in this great love song, and should
be read in the privacy of your home.
Someone may object, and insist that all Scripture is given
by God, and is profitable, and therefore, all Scripture should
be publicly expounded. This objection fails to take in
consideration the fact that the Bible was written primarily
for adults. The Bible is an adult book, and some
parts of it are such that only an adult can handle it without
being affected in a negative way. Remember, the devil used
the Scripture to tempt Christ, and he continues to do so, and
an immature person could even be led into immorality
through the reading of some Scriptures. I do not say this as a
theory, for I have read the history of how the Bible has been
used for the promotion of immorality.
Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher, preached many
sermons on the Song of Solomon, but he said, "The song is,
in truth, a book for full-grown Christians." It was one of his
favorites, but he recognized it would be a blank to many
Christians who had not gone far nor deep in their love for
Christ. He said, "It's music belongs to the higher spiritual
life, and has no charm in it for unspirited ears.....The
historical books I may compare to the outer courts of the
temple: The Gospels, the Epistles, and the Psalms, bring us
into the holy place or the Court of the priests; but the Song
of Solomon in the most holy place: The holy of holies, before
which the veil still hangs to many and untaught believer."
Many Christians fail to grasp the beauty of this Song
because of personal problems in their own lives. These make
impossible for them to link the sexual and spiritual. The
great expounders of the book were men who loved their
wives and their Lord, and could see the beauty of both, and
how one illustrated the other. G. Cambell Morgan wrote,
"It is, first, a revelation of the true nature of human love. It
is, secondly, an unveiling of the highest religious
experience." Then he said, "The cool, calculating,
mechanical man who dislikes this book has never been in
love, and probably never will be." According to Morgan,
the reading of this part of Scripture can be a good test of
your capacity to love. If it is disgusting to you, you are
wired wrong, and could use some counseling. If it is
delightful to you, you have the capacity to attain to God's
ideal for both romantic and religious love.
The value of studying this book is that it can lead us into
the depths of the two most important love relationships of
life: Love of a man and woman, and love of man and God.
We will better grasp the intensity of Christ's love for us as
we see how it relates to the passionate love of human lovers.
Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. And
here is the part of the Bible that tells it in powerful romantic
poetry. All love songs are an attempt to express the
inexpressible. There are no end to them, for none ever
succeed in saying it all. The Song of Songs says it better
than any other, however, and gives expression to numerous
values we will be considering. We need to keep in mind that
we are dealing with the love of Christ, the most intense love
that can be known. The poet put it-
One there is above all others,
Oh, how He loves!
His is love beyond the brother's,
Oh, how He loves!
Earthly friends may fail or leave us,
One day soothe, the next day grieve us;
But this Friend will ne'er deceive us,
Oh, how He loves!
If we expect to inner into the experience of this Song of
Songs, then our prayer should be that which Dr. Chalmers
prayed when he began his study of this book:
"My God, spiritualize my affections, give me intense love to
Christ."
