4.5.32 7.2.2023 Song of Solomon

The value of the relationship between women and men, the power and beauty of sexual intimacy and the mysterious connection between Husbands and wives and Christ and His Church.

This book seems out of place. Its language and subject matter are frankly erotic.

The Church has always treasured it and found it to be an important part of the Canon even when it was interpreted allegorically. Prior to the Reformation it was more popular than formative books like Romans or Galatians. It is right here in the Bible, and as hard as it might be to interpret it, I’m fool enough to preach it.

Expand: The Song, like Psalms is an anthology. Each song, poem, dialogue, or episode can stand on its own. To understand the reason it was written requires quick review of how Pagans, ancient or modern, view sex.

The Song of Solomon discloses a Biblical theology of sex.

Sex?

Theology?

Yep. Every attempt to understand human sexuality has an embedded theology. An understanding of how God operates and what He desires for his creation.

Canaan was dominated by fertility religions, most famous being the Baal cult. Fertility cults saw sex as a magical, performative, and transactional way to give the Gods what they wanted or tricking them into thinking that their “needs” had been addressed. All pagan deities regardless of region were petty, capricious, selfish, jealous, and needy. Human sexuality was not a gift to us it was something to be used in service to the Gods.

The Song of Solomon discloses a cultural battle between two theologies of sex and culture. This was a battle that Ol’ Solomon knew all about. Each new wife or concubine in his Harem came complete with a different deity and its embedded theology of sex. The battle lines have always been clear.

Polyamory vs. Monogamy.

Polytheism vs. Monotheism.

The background question to the Song of Solomon.

What does God think of sex,

and why was this gift given?

Monogamy is the natural extension of Monotheism into human relations. In the Biblical view sex is not for Him it is for us. Sex is not to appease, please, or persuade Him of anything. He is not small minded and capricious He is gracious, kind, and loving to His creation.

Engage: The Song of Solomon unashamedly celebrates God’s gift of human love. It is earthy and real. Our love life is not some magical ritual designed to appease a far-off deity convincing him to make our corn grow and our sheep bear healthy young. Our view of sex like everything else is an extension of our understanding of God.

Excite: If I were a woman this sermon, in fact the whole series would be different. Romance is complex. Men and women are different approaching those complexities differently. But mark my words.If you are not in love marriage won’t work.

Explore:

Physical and emotional love for our spouse is a good gift providing pleasure, security, and community while illustrating the love God has for His people.

Expand: The magnificent Song makes three recommendations about how to make love work.

Body of Sermon: First,

1 Praise your mate.

Song of Solomon 4.1-7

Song of Solomon 4:1–7 ESV

1 Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead. 2 Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them has lost its young. 3 Your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. 4 Your neck is like the tower of David, built in rows of stone; on it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors. 5 Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that graze among the lilies. 6 Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will go away to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. 7 You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.

Next,

2 Prize your mate.

Song of Solomon 6.4-10

Song of Solomon 6:4–10 (ESV)

4 You are beautiful as Tirzah, my love, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners.

5 Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me— Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead.

6 Your teeth are like a flock of ewes that have come up from the washing; all of them bear twins; not one among them has lost its young.

7 Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil.

8 There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and virgins without number.

9 My dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the only one of her mother, pure to her who bore her. The young women saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines also, and they praised her.

10 “Who is this who looks down like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners?”

Finally,

3 Protect your mate.

Song of Solomon 8.6-7

Song of Solomon 8:6–7 (ESV)

6 Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord.

7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.

Shut Down

Christ and His Church

Jesus repeatedly described Himself as the bridegroom and those who attended Him as the bridal party. His creation of the Church is affirmed as a wedding. The final act will be when the bride, adorned for her husband is presented to Him holy for the wedding supper of the Lamb.

Paul used similar imagery in describing the Church

Ephesians 5:22–33 ESV

22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Gentlemen, Love your wives. Ladies, Love your husbands. As Jesus loves His Church and His Church loves Him. Not just a theology of sex. A theology for life.

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