A Sermon on Song of Songs 8:5-7
If someone mentions Song of Songs, we tend to think of the passages that speak of hot romance, and such a passage is found in 4:9-5:1. We might not fully understand the imagery, but we get the idea. These verses are describing the ecstasy of the wedding day and night. 5:1 even mentions the friends or the wedding guests who celebrate the couple’s conjugal union and desire that they be intoxicated and ravished by their love for each other. Let me say that such rapture is God’s will as well. These verses are found in his book. He heartily approves of conjugal love and lovemaking. In fact, he designed romance, marriage, and sex. Why he even gave away the first bride in the Garden of Eden.
Today, though, I wish to direct your attention to 8:5-7. These verses present a complementary perspective on marriage. For all its joy and bliss, marriage is not to be entered into lightly. Song of Songs warns of the challenges to marriage and the potential for heartache. Consider 8:4, which is also found in 2:7 and 3:5. These verses balance the erotic passages for which Song of Songs is better known. Love is not a passing fling but a demanding, exhausting relationship. One should not rush into it or try to make it happen. It should not be awakened until one is ready to meet its rigors.
For those who are ready, something becomes more precious than wild lovemaking, and that something is faithfulness, constancy, tenacity, “stick-to-it-tiveness,” and even forgiveness. The imagery in verse 6 conveys these qualities. Just as death and the grave are relentless, so is love. Death and love both attain their objects and hold them under their sway. In other words, love will not give up. It pursues the object of its affection with intense devotion. True love is as inextinguishable as a raging, out-of-control fire. Neither is soon put out. Verse 6 also contains the image of the seal. Seals denote ownership and good-faith pledges. True love is not sealed by a kiss or other romantic activity. Rather, it is sealed by the unyielding commitment of the heart, and the commitment of the heart is seen in a person’s actions (arm). It’s the faithfulness and loyalty of our spouse that we come to value the most. Yes, steamy romance adds necessary sugar and spice, but a thriving marriage can’t survive for long on the candy of romance. Why?
Very simply, life doesn’t allow us to remain in a constant state of passionate arousal. Romance may be thrilling, but it cools off. In marriage we spend a lot of time over the sink washing dishes or under the sink fixing leaky pipes. Feelings are not enough to sustain us through these mundane moments. The marriage vow speaks of richer and poorer, better and worse, sickness and health, joy and sorrow. Throughout the years, the love of each couple is tested by each of these polarities—not to mention in-laws and children. Moreover, our own idiosyncrasies, failures, and sins get in the way. None of us is Prince Charming or Belle all the time. In our marriages, we experience the height of joy and the depth of pain. Spouses can cause each other’s worst pain. True love endures such challenges and vicissitudes and emerges stronger and purer. As verse 7 says, such deep and intimate love cannot be bought. It develops slowly in the crucible of marital commitment and faithfulness.
What, though, is the source of true, tenacious love? When so many marriages fail, is such love even possible? Verse 6 says that love burns like a mighty flame, and the word mighty is a shortened form of Yahweh used adjectivally. So, love burns like a flame of Yah. The shortened form of Yahweh, however, may express a superlative. In other words, love burns as the hottest flame or as a mighty flame. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which translation option is preferred. In the wider context of the Bible, true love comes from God who loved us first. When we were unlovely because of sin, God loved us sacrificially in Jesus.
In Jesus, God has provided the supreme demonstration of love. When two people are in relationship with Jesus Christ, they too can love as God has. Despite the circumstances, they choose to set their affection on each other, and each strives to do what is best for the health of the relationship. More important than getting what you want is doing what promotes the marriage. In effect, the woman is asking her husband to be an Ephesians 5:25 kind of man who loves his wife as Christ loves the church and gives himself for her. In other words, he is committed to the point of death. If the man spoke in our text, he would ask the same of his wife. The seal to which the woman refers has to do with the permanence of the bond that true love desires and requires.
We celebrate the Lord’s Supper today. The bread and the cup remind us of how sacrificial God’s love for us is, but the Lord’s Supper is more than a memorial. It is a sacrament—a means of grace to build us up in our faith and life. This means of grace, though, follows the preaching of the Word, and today God’s Word is telling us about conjugal love. As we eat the bread and drink the cup today, the subject of marriage is on our mind. How does the relentless, irresistible, sacrificial love of God apply to your marriage? Given what Jesus has done for you, how can you imitate Jesus to your spouse?