The proclaimed sermon of this text may be found here.

Introduction

My aim in this series has been to draw you more into the love of Christ. As Ian Murray writes of Lloyd-Jones view of preaching:

The ultimate purpose of preaching to Christians is that they may be brought closer to the practice and the enjoyment of the First Commandment, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength’.  (Bio vol. 2, p.765)

In my first sermon on this text, I explained that,

“The Song of Solomon is a book in Scripture that unfolds the drama of the Bride’s faithfulness to her Shepherd-lover in the midst of a world seeking to captivate her by power, force, and seduction. If you require a simple answer, the Song is an exposition of salvation; an exposition of the love and grace of God! We are redeemed from an adulterous relationship with the world to a whole relationship with God; so now we love Christ by grace alone through faith alone.”

Ten years ago in 2012, my wife and I were living out of the Ronald McDonald House in UNC Chapel Hill getting the diagnosis of our third daughter, Lauren Faith’s, disability. We read many of the words by Susannah Spurgeon explaining from her Cluster of Camphire, among which was a devotion on Deuteronomy 7:7–8, which reads,

“The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loved you!" Deuteronomy 7:7-8

While receiving a difficult diagnosis, we never felt more loved by our God and by our church family as in those days and going forward. We needed that to know God’s love rightly and assuredly in our lives. Our Father knows what we need to get there! We need the truth and the pillar and buttress who holds it.

Why then is it so important to get the Song of Songs right? Beside the fact that we are to “rightly handle” the Word, similarly the church needs to know that she is loved like this! And our Father knows what we need to get there. He has inspired his Word in the Song of Songs to teach us about covenant love in context with his church.

1. The Expressed Need For Covenant Love (vv.5–6a)

The Shulammite expresses her need to know that she is clearly loved of the Shepherd.

Song 8:5–6 ESV “Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? Under the apple tree I awakened you. There your mother was in labor with you; there she who bore you was in labor. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm,”

The word “leaning” indicates that her trust was in the Shepherd lover. It meant that she acknowledged him as her strength and no other (cf. Jer. 9:23–24; Prov. 3:5–7). The “apple tree” is none other than the Shepherd lover, as she also called him in 2:3. The word is in the LXX “apples of mandrakes” as in the account of how both Leah and Rachel were made fruitful to bring forth the twelve tribes of Israel from their wombs (Gen. 30). Her request is for assurance or love’s clarity for her. She requests her Shepherd lover to act as a priest for her bearing her name on his breast and his arm just like the high priest of Exodus 28:12, 29 is described doing. Without understanding the Song of Songs is an account of redemption of Christ’s bride the church from the worldly Solomon and false daughters of Jerusalem, the church will lack the clarity that she needs concerning love and assurance. Let us not look to our works alone to assure us that we are his, but to Christ’s love sealed on his heart to remind him, and on his arms to remind others that we belong to him, and then and only then will we do works keeping with repentance.

Thomas Brooks writes,

“The saints are described by their leaning upon their beloved, the Lord Jesus (Cant. 8:5). He that leans only upon the bosom of Christ, lives the highest, choicest, safest, and sweetest life. Miseries always lie at the man’s door that leans upon anything below the precious bosom of Christ; such a man is most in danger, and this is none of his least plagues, that he thinks himself secure. It is the greatest wisdom in the world to take the wise man’s counsel: ‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding’ (Prov. 3.5).”

2. The Excellent Nature of Covenant Love

The Shulammite bases her request on the nature of love’s covenant in the words,

Song 8:6–7 ESV “for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. 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.”

2a. Unconquerable

The covenant love of the LORD (covenant name used) in his people is described as “strong as death.” George Swinnock rightly says,

The love of Christ in the martyrs, when the fire was kindled about them, made them despise all torments whatsoever. This will warm our hearts and make us go cheerfully to work. Let but a spirit of love be kindled in God's child, and it is no matter what he suffers; cast him into the fire, cast him into the dungeon, into prison, whatsoever it be, he hath that kindled in his heart, which will make him digest anything. We see the disciples, when they had the Spirit of Christ within them to warm their hearts, what cared they for whipping, or stocks, etc.? You see even base, carnal love will make a man endure poverty, disgrace, what not! and shall not this fire that comes from heaven, when it is once kindled in our hearts, prevail much more? What will make our passage to heaven sweet if this will not? Nothing is grievous to a person that loves.

2b. Inextinguishable

The covenant love of the LORD in his people is described as a “jealousy…fierce as the grave. It’s flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD [covenant name]. Many waters cannot quench [covenant] love, neither can floods drown it.” This inextinguishable covenant love ascends from someone who apprehends that they have nothing in themselves to merit it, and at the same time attains such high thoughts of their covenant head that not even our own doubts of ourselves can put out the fire of God in us! The difference between a jealousy for things of religion and the God of true religion is that of duty. John Owen rightly says that the,

“jealousy that is exercised about the person and love of Christ unto the soul is quite of another nature, and produceth other effects. It cheers, enlivens, and enlargeth the soul, stirs up to activity, earnestness, and industry in its inquiries and desires after Christ.”

Hebrews 12:29 speaks of God similarly as a consuming fire. It is a quote from Deuteronomy 4 that was given to protect the people from idolatry. When there is this fire within, nothing is able to quench it from without.

2c. Inestimable

The Shulammite mentions a third aspect of the covenant love of the Lord to support her request for assurance. She says,

Song 8:7 ESV “If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.”

She understands that no monetary value can be ascribed to covenant love. Thomas Brooks writes,

When the world would buy his love, he cries out with Peter, "Thy money perish with thee," Acts 8:20. Love makes a man look with a holy scorn and disdain upon all persons and things, that attempt either to force or flatter her out of her love and loyalty to her beloved. It is neither force nor fraud, it is neither promises nor threatenings, it is neither the cross nor the crown, the palace nor the prison, the rod nor the robe, the hempen halter nor the golden chain, that will make love embrace a stranger in the room of Christ. Go, says divine love, offer your gold and empty glories to others; your pleasures and your treasures to others; put on your lion's skin and fright others; as for my part, I scorn and contemn your golden offers, and I disdain and deride your rage and threats. Love makes a man too noble, too high, too gallant, and too faithful, to open to any lover but Christ.

Thus, the three-fold nature of covenant love—unconquerable, inextinguishable, and inestimable in value—forms the basis for her request for assurance. She says in essence that since the love that he has put in her is of such nature by his covenant, then let him wear\ her on his heart to be reminded of her and on his arms to remind all others (including herself) that she is his!

3. The Extensive Number in Covenant Love by the Cross (vv.8–10)

The Jewish believers speak of the Shulammite as their little sister. She is not a Jew, but a Gentile (a foreign woman Solomon was forbade to marry), so they say and she responds,

Song 8:8–10 ESV “We have a little sister, and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for?If she is a wall, we will build on her a battlement of silver, but if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar. I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers; then I was in his eyes as one who finds peace.”

Solomon was forbade to marry foreign women because they would turn his heart away from God to idols, but Christ is able to marry the nations and turn them to God from idols. The Gentiles and Jews are said to be in one body by the Cross (Ephesians 2). She is betrothed together in one body as a pure virgin though she was base and defiled. How is this possible that she is a “wall” while she by nature is a “door” to every sort of defilement? The cross of Jesus is the only answer. She was made ready for love, her breasts like towers, and she would find peace together with all who call on the name of the Lord with a pure heart. So the gospel is first for the Jews but also for the Greeks, and thus we remain unashamed of that which our Lord was put to shame for. As Isaiah writes,

Isaiah 2:2–4 ESV “It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

4. The Exalted Newness of Covenant Love by Contrast (vv.11–12)

The Shepherd lover sets forth the contrast of his covenant love with that of the lust of Solomon saying,

Song 8:11–12 ESV “Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he let out the vineyard to keepers; each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. [but] My vineyard, my very own, is before me; you, O Solomon, may have the thousand, and the keepers of the fruit two hundred.”

Solomon’s vineyard was contrasted: in possession “had a vineyard”; in location, “Baal-hamon” near Jerusalem; and in value, “each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver.” However, the shepherd lover’s vineyard was not merely “had” but owned of him; not near Jerusalem but New Jerusalem; not able to be bought, for the shepherd had no interest for Solomon’s supposed possession, for his vineyard was superior in possession (truly owned not rented or leased), location (above and eternal), and in value (unable to be bought with the blood of bulls and goats!). Solomon had a thousand wives and a growing number of concubines, and the shepherd says you can have them all, I take my bride who belongs to me.

5. The Experience Now of Covenant Love in Communion (vv.13–14)

The shepherd being ascended far above her calls for fellowship now in the gardens by means of prayer and waiting obediently upon him.

Song 8:13–14 ESV “O you who dwell in the gardens, with companions listening for your voice; let me hear it. Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices.”

Christ calls his church to the garden to pray. She is separate from this world, yet in it. We commune with our shepherd first in prayer. And this is our greatest witness to the world as it says, “with companions listening for your voice.” Martyn-Lloyd Jones said, “The best way to reach the unregenerate is to show him what Christianity is able to do for the believer” (Bio. vol. 2, p.766). But note, we are speaking so he hears our voice, the world is simply listening in at times. Furthermore, the church wishes for Christ to speedily finish his work which he hast to do on earth (Poole). So, we pray and we actively wait on earth for him who rules both heaven and earth at the right hand of the Father.

Conclusion

So, you must see here that getting the Song right matters. It matters not only because in general we are to “rightly handle” the word, but practically speaking the church must know how she is loved. She is loved by virtue of God’s eternal covenant which is an express need of the church, and is of an excellent nature, includes an extensive number, has an exalted newness, and is experienced now in communion with God through the Lord our Shepherd. Many may handle the Song of Solomon wrongly and leave the church without this great Song of love understood, but God loves his church too much to leave us without the truth in this world in the context of his church. While the world blurs the lines of everything, the Word proclaimed and rightly handled does not, because the truth is stronger still! It is a fire in the bones placed there by one whose love is a consuming fire against all obstacles and enemies of God. Amen.