Special Insights No. 7
First Quarter 2006
“Families in the Family of God”
(Produced by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)
“The Royal Love Song”
This week’s lesson brings us to an all too brief study of the Song of Solomon, that beautiful description of the joys of married life, which Elder Wieland says he was ashamed to be seen reading when he was a teenager. It would appear that Satan has done a very thorough job of robbing humanity of a proper appreciation of the gift of sexuality. From the
Monday’s lesson introduces the thought of the friendship between Solomon and Shulamith. It was God’s intention that the relationship between husband and wife should include all levels and aspects of love. First, a husband and wife should be friends. Considering the many ways in which they are so different, and the powerful ways in which these differences can be a distraction, friendship between male and female is an intriguing thought. Yet these differences become so minor and insignificant in comparison with the differences between God and man, that the concept of friendship with God is for most people beyond their wildest imagination. Yet this is what God desires.
In his book, The Lost Secret of the Covenant, Malcolm Smith describes the experience of a discouraged missionary who felt that God had let him down. He had won no converts in the many months that he had spent in the mission field. The meager offerings of the few believers in the region were far too small to support his family. He had spent his life’s savings and had concluded that his only option was to give up mission work and return to his former work as a businessman. But before leaving he decided that he must tell God what he thought of all that had transpired.
In a little hut isolated from his family he spent most of the morning pouring out his heart to God. When finally he was still and quiet, he “heard” the Lord “speak” to him very clearly. He said “Above all, I desire your friendship. If serving Me interrupts and disrupts our friendship, I would rather you go back to your business and continue to be My friend. Your friendship is more important to Me than all your acts of service.” The missionary dissolved into tears. He had never conceived of the thought that God desired a friendship with mankind. The idea revolutionized his entire concept of Christianity. After that encounter with God, he remained in the mission field and won many converts to Christ.
Amazing as the thought may have been to that missionary, it is the truth revealed in the Song of Solomon. “The wife declares, ‘This is my friend’” (
This thought is reinforced in many passages of the Bible. Jesus is the “friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov.
Marital love includes friendship, and as astonishing as the thought of friendship with God may be, marriage includes much more than this. It includes an intimate union of mind and soul and body, which human language is inadequate to describe. This aspect of marriage is also symbolic of the relationship which God desires to have with his church.
In his sermon entitled, The Freedom of True Love, Dr. Timothy Keller summarizes the Bible: In the first two chapters of Genesis you have a wedding. In the last two chapters of Revelation you have a wedding. If a book begins with a wedding and ends with a wedding it must be a love story. And the whole of the Bible can be summed up as follows; the Lord says “I loved you. And I lost you. And I am going to move heaven and earth to get you back.”
This summary is so succinct, so intriguing, so uncommon, but I thinks it is quite accurate. The Bible is a love story. It is the story of God’s amazing love for His bride. The “foolish” decision of Adam to die with his wife rather than live without her is a profound reflection of the decision of Christ to die for his bride rather than live without her. The story of Hosea pursuing his wayward wife is symbolic of God pursuing His wayward wife. The preparation of every woman for her wedding is to remind us that some day it will finally be declared that “the bride hath made herself ready” (Rev. 3:19).
Time does not allow us to explore the unspeakable heart rending agony involved in the symbols which have been chosen to represent the details of the poignant drama. Over and over God’s plea through the prophets is not merely, You are committing sins or you are breaking the law or you are rebelling against Me. No. The Divine Lover chooses to use language which speaks of inexpressible hurt and grief. He says, over and over, “you are committing adultery” (see for example Jer. 3:6, Judges
The marriage vow, in which to people pledge to love one another “for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part” is only a faint reflection of God’s love. His unilateral, unconditional, inextinguishable love which was fully revealed at the cross is the very heart of the 1888 message. It is the basis of the gospel, therefore essential to a proper understanding of the gospel. It is the “seal” which must be upon the “hearts” of God’s people before He can return to claim them as His bride.
May we come to appreciate that love in all of its dimensions for Christ’s sake. Amen.
—Mark Duncan
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