Song of Solomon

Q. 88 What are the outward means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption?A. The outward and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the benefits of redemption are His ordinances, especially the word, sacraments, and prayer; all which are made effectual to the elect for salvation.He Himself uses these means to bring the benefits of His redemption to us.

The Song ends with a request for Jesus to come to us. These words (v. 14) are clearly our words to Him if we are betrothed to Him.

This may seems like a surprising conclusion to the Song of all Songs. It speaks about the love between Jesus Christ and His church in a beautiful allegory. You might expect such a song to end with the bride, Shulamite (the princess of peace), moving into the palace of King Solomon (the prince of peace), to live happily ever after. Instead, we find the beloved and his bride separated—not due to a quarrel, but with Him expressing His desire to hear from her (8:13), and with her expressing her desire for Him to come to her (8:14).

What we have in our text today (Song of Solomon 8:10-12) is the bride, who has just expressed interest in helping her little sister, recognising the progress that she has made over the years by His grace.

Today we continue in our sermon series in the Song of Solomon. We are in the last chapter where the bride's desires desire for her husband's love are passionately expressed to Him. We have seen that the traditional, and best understanding of the Song of Solomon is that the bride is the church and that her beloved groom is Christ. It is about their mutual love. So here we are now, in the last chapter, and most of it is taken up with the church expressing her earnest desire for Jesus Christ to keep on manifesting His love to her as His bride.

Today in our Song of Solomon sermon series, we come to a verse that beautifully captures the essence of our relationship with Jesus Christ in this world.

Today we are returning to our sermon series in the Song of Solomon. This Song is an allegory about the relationship of Christ with His church. It has so much that is helpful. It shows the desire He has for us—the delight He has in us. It shows how we rejoice to be the object of His desire. It shows the ups and downs of our experience (very realistic). Most recently, we saw a time when He has been restored to her. He expressed His delight in her and His desire for her. She invited Him to come away with her and to delight in her fruits that she prepared for Him. Chapter 8 is really a continuation of the expression of her desire to commune with Him.

This Sunday, we will continue our series in the Song of Solomon. For the last couple of weeks, we have been looking at chapter 7 where the Bridegroom (who represents Christ in the Song of Solomon) expresses His delight in His Bride (who represents the believing church in this Song—she is one bride with many members). After hearing of His delight in us, we (His church) conclude that: "I am my beloved's, and His desire is toward me."

In this part of the Song, He describes how lovely we (His bride) are to Him once we have fully returned to Him. Last week we saw how eager He was for us to fully return to Him—without any of the hesitation that we so often have, especially when we have sinned. In the passage we are looking at today, He describes how desirable we are to Him when we are dancing with joy to be with Him.

You can see how He is continuing to reassure us of His full acceptance of us now that He is with us again. In verse 10, He uses yet another illustration of His present delight in us.

Today as we continue to work our way through the Song of Solomon, we come to a passage that is quite timely for us. The church around the world is experiencing the Lord's hand of chastisement. In such times we can wonder if our Lord still loves us the way He did before. In Song of Solomon 6:4-9, we are shown what Christ thinks of His church, even when she has resisted Him and caused Him to withdraw for a time.

The Song of Solomon is a book in the Bible that is often neglected and misunderstood. Although it is meant to be understood as an allegory depicting the relationship that Christ has with His church, many limit it to ordinary marriage.Nevertheless, even those who hold that view must admit that in the Bible marriage is a picture of Christ and His church which is called His bride. Therefore, even if you believe the Song of Solomon is not an allegory, you should still be able to accept these sermons that use this Song to speak of our relationship with Christ. The Apostle Paul goes so far as to say that even the one flesh aspect of marriage (the sexual aspect) illustrates our relationship with Christ as His church (Eph 5:30-32). He is not saying we have a physical sexual relationship with Jesus, but a spiritual relationship that illustrates and is illustrated by the physical sexual aspect of marriage.Today we are going to look at her answer which is given in 5:10-16.

The devotion of the Church to Christ her Bridegroom is quite conspicuous! The daughters of Jerusalem are struck by it. They have seen the bride's relentless pursuit of Christ. They ask her what makes Him so special (v. 9). They Repeat the question, showing how earnest they are to know.

You see that there is something very disturbing here. The song speaks of Christ our husband deserting us! We are going to look at this experience that characterises us as believers.

As we have progressed through this Song, we have seen how it speaks of the many different experiences that we have with Christ as His bride. When we left off at chapter 5, verse 1, Christ had been telling His bride how enraptured He was with her, praising her and enjoying her fruits as most precious to Him. In 4:9, He spoke of being ravished with her love. In 4:16, we saw how she was thrilled to have Him enjoying her and how she wanted her spices to flow out to Him for His enjoyment to which He responded that He was indeed already tasting of her fruit with great delight and sharing it with His friends. But in chapter 5 verse 2 (where we pick up today), we see that something has happened to her ardent affection.

So having seen last week that He is ravished with us, I want to move on to show you how glad we ought to be (and how glad we will be) to give ourselves to Him. The passage I began last week continues and brings this out. We pick up today in 4:12—Song of Solomon chapter 4 verse 12, but I will read from 4:1.

Last week, we saw how we who belong to Christ by faith were brought up out of wilderness of this world, as it were, to be His wife. Today that picture seems to go on, with Christ doing what grooms often did in those days at their wedding—they would praise their bride for her beauty as they prepared to consummate their marriage. Such a praise poem was called a wasf. So today, we are able to see through this allegory what Christ thinks of us (if we are His).