From time to time we post articles on various aspects of love making and on attitudes towards sex in the church and in society.
The Song of Songs
Sometimes called the Song of Solomon (from the opening verse), this book has been the subject of diverse interpretations. In view of the line which we have taken we feel a word of explanation is called for. Many commentators have treated the book as an allegory by which they mean that the text is merely the vehicle for a higher, spiritual message. The job of the commentator is to explain this ‘hidden meaning’ to the reader.
Although the allegorical approach has produced some deeply devotional writings, particularly concerning the believer’s love relationship with Christ, it does present grave problems. There is the difficulty of actually agreeing upon the hidden meaning of the verses. In addition, it is questionable whether we should ever ignore the plain literal meaning of Scripture in favour of a mystical interpretation. Most serious of all is the fact that the allegorical approach reflects an unbiblical Greek view of the world in which the physical and particular the sexual is seen as essentially unspiritual.
The Bible makes no such sacred/secular divide but sees the whole cosmos as created by God, ruled by God and in the process of being redeemed by God. Physical love in the context of marriage is holy in his sight.
Another popular approach to the Song has been to recognise the reality of the events and the story line but to claim that the overriding purpose of the book is to convey an added dimension, namely the love of Christ for his church. So, most commentators who adopt this line ignore the immediate meaning and concentrate on this added dimension.
The major problem with this approach is making everything fit. It requires incredible mental gymnastics to make each verse carry a double meaning of this kind. In the end one finishes up with a strained interpretation and, practically speaking, the possibility of preaching upon only a few verses.
All these problems are solved if we read the Song as a love poem, similar in literature style to many others of the era, deliberately placed in Scripture by God to convey and extol the joy of sexual love between husband and wife. It is the positive to the many negative warnings about adultery and fornication in the Bible. We suspect that, historically, Christians would have appeared better balanced in their views on sex if more had read the text in this way.
This book thoroughly fuses unabashed sexuality with full-blooded romantic love, and does so in the context of uncompromising marital fidelity. That has always been God’s will and is never more needing to be heard than in the present day. Because the poem speaks in such terms it conveys its own meaning and there is no need to look for hidden interpretations, beyond recognising the fairly obvious double-entendres that are used to describe some of the intimacies of lovemaking.
This doesn’t mean one cannot ever use the story to illustrate the love of Christ and the church. In the same way that Paul in Ephesians 5 parallels the man/woman relationship with that of Christ and the church it is perfectly legitimate to draw some comparisons. But that is quite different from claiming that this is the prime purpose for the existence of the book.
The Song of Songs teaches us the beauty, joy and freshness of human love when expressed in the will of God; it conveys a spirit of sexual celebration. There can be no better antidote than this to the selfishness and cynicism of our society about love and marriage. We hope we have been able to convey something of that spirit of the Song through what we have written.
For those readers who wish to explore this theme further we heartily recommend G Lloyd Carr’s commentary in the IVP Tyndale series.