A Song of Love

KEY VERSE: “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.” —Song of Solomon 8:7

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Song of Solomon 2:8-17

THE SONG OF Solomon was written in the form of an oriental love song. It was intended by God to be an allegorical representation of the mutual love of Christ and the church. The language used in this love song is that of a young man and a young woman deeply in love. When God created man as male and female, he made them so that the motivating power of their attraction to one another would be love, because “God is love.”—I John 4:8

However, we must not suppose that the mutual love of Christ and his church was modeled after the love of man and woman. On the contrary, God had in his mind a plan that would center primarily around his Son, the first begotten of the Father; and secondarily, around the marriage of his Son to those to be selected as “a people for his name” (Acts 15:14), his “bride.” (Rev. 22:17) This plan was in God’s mind long before man was created. In fact, the mutual love of Christ and his church was to be the model for an ideal relationship between husband and wife, and for all human relationships as well.

Knowing this, the Apostle Paul wrote, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word. That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let everyone of you in particular so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”—Eph. 5:22-33

If, today, when nearly 50% of all marriages end in divorce, men would love their wives as Christ loves his church, and women would reverence their husbands as the true church reverences Christ, there would be no marital problems. If the fervent young love that is described in the Song of Solomon continues, and grows stronger into the later years of married life, the marriage will remain harmonious. It is only when love grows cold that problems arise.

God’s great divine plan is that love should be the motivating force in earth’s society. In his kingdom, the admonition of Paul will be applied: “[Submit] yourselves one to another in the fear [reverence] of God.” (Eph. 5:21) How appropriate it is that this love song draws to a conclusion with the words of our key text, “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.” (Song of Solomon 8:7) Just as true love cannot be affected by the natural imperfections of our friends and family, as these words suggest, so also true love will endure forever when God’s kingdom is established, because, “Charity [love] never faileth.”—I Cor. 13:8

“Now abideth faith, hope charity [love], these three; but the greatest of these is love.”—vs. 13

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