To finish up laying the groundwork for our adventure in Song of Songs, I thought I’d write a short post on Old Testament perspective. It seems that Solomon wrote this in his youthful time, when He was very close in his relationship with God. As Old Testament characters go, Solomon was as close as anyone ever was in his “relationship” with God during this period, yet there is a danger for Christians in understanding how far this could be likely to have gone.
Obviously, living as he did in the Old Testament, Solomon couldn’t have enjoyed the sort of relationship that many of us might think about, for there wasn’t yet direct access between Man and God at that time because of the impediment of sin. Sin isn’t just an abstract point; it is very real as an obstruction. The Old Testament Law placed human intermediaries between us and God, with sacrifices galore being required; there was no indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and no forgiveness of sins. There was atonement through blood sacrifice of course, but atonement only puts the penalties for sin off for a period of time, which makes our blessings through Christ all the more amazing.
For Solomon to have written such an intimate book about personal relationship with God, he must have been either an exception to the rules of the Law or very farsighted about the glory of what was coming in Jesus, and I believe that the latter must have been the case in this instance. Before I move on, I want you to take note of the language I am using here, because this is an opinion and you are welcome to disagree. I am basing my opinion of this on the sin issue first of all, and upon the fact that the notion of Christ as Bridegroom and the Church (Body of Believers) as the Bride is a New Testament and not an Old Testament concept other than in typological analysis that relies on the New Testament.
OK, I’m on the verge of getting into deeper academic territory than I normally do here…
Trying to keep this post reader-friendly, let’s look at it this way: The Old Testament has the hierarchy I mentioned in the last Song of Songs post as does the New. The New Testament adds the Bridegroom – Bride imagery. Solomon uses Husband and wife as the basis of his book, and so I’m suggesting that Solomon had much deeper recognition than his contemporaries about what God was planning on doing in the future. With this deeper understanding on his part, and his relationship with God imperfect though it would have been, I think Solomon, together with the added insights of the New Testament, has painted for us an amazing picture of what the Christian relationship between Man and God is supposed to be.
Oh, and by the way, a beautiful picture of what human marriage is supposed to be.
Thus, I would maintain that this is a book that all of us should study carefully, and if necessary, ask ourselves how we can get from the place we are now to the place we should be in both our divine and human relationships, and that is how I plan on dealing with Song of Songs.
Whew! I’m glad I’ve gotten that all said and done with… we’ll jump into the fray in earnest in the next post; see you then!
Life Project Blog 
Morphing the Song of Solomon into a type of Christ and His church is a popular and “safe” interpretation, but I believe it does a huge disservice to the narrative. Yes, it plays well to our contemporary taboos against talking about anything “sexual” in the church, but it also ignores the vividly-graphically–sexual parts of the narrative. For us to believe that God doesn’t have anything to say about marriage and sex other than “Get married, have babies and don’t screw around” ignores that God created us and our sexuality. God is using this narrative Song to describe how He wants us to view His gift of sexuality.
Christ is never depicted as having a “sexual” relationship to His church, nor would He describe the Church, His bride, in graphically-sexual terms. Certainly we are described as “parts” of the “body”, but never in sexually-explicit terms.
This narrative Song is too rich to be reduced to a mere spiritual-allegory.
God bless!
Steve
Hey Steve,
Without a doubt there are lots of people who would agree with your comments, and you may well be entirely correct. Certainly when you mention some of the taboos that have developed in the church over the centuries, we agree more than you might suspect. However, there is one point about which we disagree, I’m afraid, and that is this one:
When you say “This narrative Song is too rich to be reduced to a mere spiritual-allegory.” I would feel compelled to point out that that “mere spiritual allegory” just happens to be the purpose for which God created Mankind in the first place; it is His eternal purpose and the theme of the entire Scriptures. Thus I would respectfully suggest that the richly erotic text isn’t being “reduced” at all, but rather elevated to the highest purpose there is in this universe. Incidentally, you might even be a little surprised where this goes before we’re done.
Of course in writing these posts, I’ve made it quite clear that I am nothing, if not a fallible human, and so I appreciate your comments and views and agree that you could be right… and I could be wrong.
My choice of words may have been poor, but any time a person takes what they don’t like out of a narrative, keeping only the “nuggets” they do like, they have “reduced” it. Yes, redemption is the overarching theme of the Bible, but without the human story, and humans, there would be no need for redemption. God did not promise redemption before there was a need for it.
The Gospels have succeeded in their intended purpose beyond the writer’s wildest dreams, leading people to faith and trust in Jesus Christ, however, as they have only told His human story in a bare-bones fashion, they left the door open for those who believed that Jesus Christ only “appeared” to be human to peddle their wares with little in concrete “evidence” from the Gospels to refute their claims. We only “appear” to be saved if Jesus Christ only “appeared” to be human. Thus, our salvation hinges on His true, full and complete humanity.
I struggle with the effects of the false “spirit=good/body=bad” dichotomy which I not infrequently see in my own church, which is part of why I believe that the human story is as crucial to the history of redemption as the spiritual story.
I am interested in your “take” on the Song of Solomon, and have no intention of further interrupting your interpretational process. I read SOS in a very different “light” than most, and I believe that it can speak volumes to those who are willing to read and understand it as it was written. The church is NOT being the prophetic voice on marriage and sexuality which it could be, and our society is suffering as a result.
God bless!
Steve
I hope you’ll chime in along the way, Steve, there’s quite an adventure in store 🙂
Don my friend, I think you are on to something very rich and exciting here as you write this beautiful story. I for one am in agreement with both you and Steve on this one. It has some critical points to understand when we open our spiritual minds and look deep inside vibrations of the human mind which I personally think Solomon was doing as he explored the human sexuality in comparing it to the Church. Keep writing my friend I want to here more. And yes Steve your view point holds a lot of weight. I would also like to here more of what you have to say as well. My Brothers, I thank both of you for this deep discussion. May God bless you as you continue to share his word in a most powerful way so that many may read and learn from this type of discussion.
Thank you Pastor Davis! I’m hoping to generate a lot of discussion of these things for various views so we can all explore our own priorities in this journey through life. God Bless!
I’ll be around, and chime in when I feel that I have something to contribute. I suspected that we have very different interpretations of the Song of Solomon, so I thought I would put my interpretation on the table before you get into the series. Many Christians are bothered by the graphic descriptions of the crowns of God’s creation, man and woman, co-image-bearers of God, but I am not one of them, so I have no trouble dealing with the Song of Solomon as it is written. My mom pretends the Song of Solomon isn’t even in the Bible.
In my almost 59 years in conservative, reformed churches, I have only known one pastor who had the cajones to preach a series on the SOS without “spiritualizing” it. He preached that series in bits and pieces when he was filling in for the regular pastor of one particular church. I would have like to have heard the whole series, but I didn’t, and he moved on to another call right after he preached the last message on SOS. He DID “spiritualize” that last message, and I suspect that was to make sure that he would be welcome back in that pulpit in the future.
God bless!
Steve
Well Steve, I’m delighted to have your aboard!
We live in a society which is overloaded sexually and starving spiritually. Rather than teach a holy sexuality, as found in the Bible, the church has chosen to try to “fix” the problem with legalism. A pastor’s daughter got pregnant out of wedlock, even as her father thundered the Ten Commandments from the pulpit every Sunday. An elder in that same church left his wife and family to move in with his secretary, who he had a long-running affair with. Lest you surmise that this must have been a liberal church, au contrare, it was an Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which is the most conservative of the bunch. Legalism is woven into the fabric of that denomination. My parents weren’t allowed to take communion in one OP church because they weren’t “members”. A young couple in a conservative “Reformed Baptist” church I used to attend had to get married because she got pregnant out of wedlock. The pastor publicly shamed them for their sin as he announced that they had gotten married. The joy of them getting married was muted by the public shaming of their sin. We, as their church, should have been celebrating with them, but there wasn’t any celebration that day, only the somber reminder that “Thou shalt not commit adultery”, and if you do, the pastor had better not get wind of it. Where was the love?
“Business as usual” isn’t working, and never will work. The church will either have to step up to the plate and become the prophetic voice of holy sexuality it was intended by God to be, or it will have to simply accept the consequences of its neglect.
Enough of my soapbox…
God bless!
Steve
Preach on Brother: Amen
A budding exeget, I wonder about the assessment of most of the consideration here tbat Solomon was writing of his relationship with God in his youth. Let ‘s assume it IS he that wrote the epic poem. It seems far more likely that his youthful ‘exhuberance’ was inspired by more human, ok, ‘manly’ considerations. The metaphores (or is it similies?) are far more likely created in rhetrospect rather than intended as Holy Scripture from the time of the 1st and 2nd Deuteronomists, yes? My inclination is that the level of sophistication of the poetry for the time and the honor given Solomon by Israel would have been a more likely reason for the Songs inclusion in the books, especially following the return to Jerusalem from the Diaspora. That the Song remains after another 2000 is more likely Divine intention as the Church came to understand Christology better and found the early writing suitable for instruction.
As working theories go, yours is better than most, and certainly gives the community more to consider; thank you for sharing it
Finally got back to this. Interesting debate. It is late. Bed time. Read more tomorrow.
🙂
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