I am my beloved’s and his desire is for me. Song of Songs 7:10-13

If you have read The Song of Solomon you know that it is clearly about the intimacy between a king and a common girl who has become his obsession and the sole object of his affection. He chooses her and showers her with his attention, with thoughtful gifts and tender words. While these initiatives would be worth emulating in the marriage relationship, I believe the inclusion of this book into the scriptures was not just as a manuel for marital intimacy. I believe it is there because the Spirit, who loves to reveal God’s nature, was saying something about God’s love for us.

There are many different types of love. Each type of legitimate love came from God, who is Love. There is familial love, fraternal love, and there is the love expressed sexually between a man and his mate. The Spirit elects sexual love to depict something about God’s love in this book but I don’t believe it is the sensual dimension of sexual love; rather it is the dimensions of passion and intensity of this king’s love that is the point. I believe that even though it is imperfect, the intimacy of marital love is simply the closest thing (though still relatively weak), in our available human points of reference for God to refer us to as a starting point in understanding the passionate and intense nature of God’s love for us.

He doesn’t just tolerate us and endure our depraved fallen natures. In Christ, He has buried that aspect of us and raised us up with new natures (His own) that are no longer in bondage to sin, condemned and rejected by God. He no longer sees in us the defilement of sin. He sees Christ and His righteousness. We may sin still but that sin is not proof that we are still ruled by a depraved lower nature and rejected by God. It is simply proof that we still have the power to choose which is essential to us so that we can respond to the love of God.

Within Christianity, so many believe the best and most important response to God’s sacrificial love is the living out of a holy and obedient life (as we have envisioned them). I will not argue that holiness and obedience (as God envisions them) are not an essential part of the normal Christian life. I will argue though that in and of itself, just the setting of the will to achieve a standard (regardless of its height) is counterproductive and will not produce intimacy. It will produce something that may have the appearance of righteousness but it will be performance oriented and fail to result in the intimacy that can only be received as a precious gift which I believe is integral to God’s type of righteousness.

How do we partake of this gift? How do we shake this sense of being a tolerated step-child who never quite measures up? What is due from us in this relationship so that we can partake of and enjoy this intimacy? We simply live by faith. We daily practice our response to the unseen reality of God’s infinite love and compassion for us. We train our selves to live gratefully regarding His acceptance of us and his celebration over us. We keep at it day in and day out always deferring to ourselves in our thoughts as “His beloved“. Life will become abundant for us when we grasp that the deepest and truest thing about us is not that we are fallen; rather that we are His. Gratitude is natural for the common one who has been chosen and enjoined to Royalty. We simply live presumptuously in regard to His favorable disposition toward us. This is the root of all true abundance and the cause of authentic obedience.

Father, may You bring into full view of all creation, the redemption of the sons of God – those whose identities, as Your children, have been and are being restored in the context of their intimate union with You. May You awaken us to Your invitations to come away with You and personally hear Your kind words, receive Your special gifts and enjoy Your undivided attention. Amen.