Song 5:9-16

Last time we saw the groom, the voice of God, praising His bride. Today, in 5:9-16 we see the bride return the favour.

Poem and Man
This poem is a clear answer to the perhaps slightly aggressive question asked in verse 8, ‘what is your beloved more than any other man?’ Why is this guy making you love-sick? Surely a question that many women have asked of their friends down the years. The bride responds with beautiful poetry…  He is ruddy, he is radiant, he glows. Every part of his body is the ideal, the perfection. Among ten thousand men there is no one like him. We can pause here to observe some horrible analogizing to try and give the Song a more modern sexuality. One commentator has concluded that ‘his body is polished ivory (v14) is a simile for ‘his member is a tusk of ivory.’ As amusing as it is awful, and proof that not all poor analogy belongs in one camp.
Interestingly ‘his legs are alabaster columns set on bases of gold,’ (v15). It’s as if the bride is pointing to the ideal statue of manhood and saying ‘this is the man I love, this is the man that makes me sick!’ More than the physical, the man’s mouth is sweet, his speech is lovely and perfect and alluring. He’s no quiet strong man, but he lavishes praise on his bride, as we’ve seen. Finally, the groom is perfect in love and company, as a lover and friend, their attraction is mental as well as physical.

God and Man
Gregory of Nyssa says ‘all these similes of beauty do not point to the unseen and ungraspable things of deity, but rather to what was revealed in the history of salvation, when God the Word was seen on earth…and put on human nature.’ Jesus is the most beautiful, the most distinguished among then thousand men. Beautiful in love, in purpose, in righteousness according to the law. 

 The church sings the praises of her Groom. Last time we saw that it was impossible to love Christ but not the church. This time we see why, the church is the earthly organ that communicates her love of Christ. Jesus wants His bride because it is His bride that manifests, shares and communicates to Him, and to the world her love to Him. There is terrible analogy here as well, Honorius of Autun has the ivory body as referring to Jesus ‘belt of chastity.’ Not much better than the opposite alternative really!

Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, the man who was God,  is the desire and delight of the church. In her right state she can not get enough of Him, and her delight issues forth in praise that answers the question of verse 9, ‘what makes your God so special?’ The church can not help but join the Trinitarian spreading goodness as she communicates God to the world. This is the role of the church, not to entertain, not to provide a social scene, not even just to do good works, but to commend Jesus to a world that needs Him. The world says ‘there’s nothing special, divine or wise in your God,’ like the bride in verse 15 pointing to the statue of the ideal man, we must point to the cross and show the world the ideal God. He is all we need.

We must not, again, over look the physical nature of both the Song and the way of salvation. Our faith doesn’t rest in what we feel or believe, but in real historical events that happened. Just as the bride’s man has a body, so does our Savior. He gives us bread and wine, and covers us with water to declare physically the Gospel. The sacraments, rightly understood, do away with the need for ‘Gospel drama’ forever. God knows we need physical presentations, so He’s given them to us!

Woman and Man
Jenson says ‘the woman provides analogies of Israel’s and the church’s devotion to the Lord by her adoration of his body and by her hanging on his word.’ Again, the Christocentric reading of the Song gives us permission, gives us a vocabulary, to express our love for one another. It sets the guidelines and guardrails firmly in place to express our feelings for our spouses.

How? Where love between a man and a woman is not at some point grasped as a reflection of, and a part of the story about, God’s love for His people there is much danger. We love (anything at all) because He first loved us. Without reference to God human love either becomes idolatrous or rife with hopeless rhetoric. Without God we either do that or we end up treating the object of our affections as a deity. Which is obviously idolatry plain and simple. Human love, outside of the love of God is groundless, and eventually will be found to be so.

Without God as the reference point for our human affections, all that is left is a gaping void. Our hearts are restless until we find rest in Him. Human love is a divine gift, but without reference to the Giver, it will destroy us from the inside out. Love is hard, and misunderstood without God, and so we have a multi billion dollar sex industry. What everyone wants is love and purpose, that’s what we were designed for. That’s what we find in God alone, but the pursuit of these things apart from God will destroy us.


 The Song knows this, and it is not so cruel as to cut us off from all joy and hope by cutting off human love from the love which it reflects.