Step Into God’s Heart and Emotions
For many years I couldn’t get past what felt like significant barriers to my understanding and appreciation of the Song of Songs. I wondered: Does Jesus really want to know us the way a groom knows his bride? How can I see this theme as something healthy instead of something weird? Does the rest of the Bible affirm this kind of intimate relationship with Jesus, or is this message isolated to the Song of Songs? In other words, how seriously should I take this perspective? And how do I apply a seemingly allegorical love poem between a man and a woman to my everyday walk with Yeshua (Jesus)? What, if anything, does the Song have to do with my life today?
Before encountering the Song afresh, I certainly knew Yeshua as my Savior, Redeemer, Messiah and friend. But I didn’t understand the deeper mystery of His relationship with me as expressed in this book. Serious questions and reservations stood between me and the Song, and I’m sure this is why it has been one of the most neglected books in the Bible throughout history and still today. Some Bible students and scholars even wonder why it is in the Bible! Aside from the fact that they don’t find its flowery, poetic language appealing, they question whether King Solomon can teach us about pure marital love or even divine romance for that matter since he had hundreds of wives and concubines. For these reasons and many others, some sincere believers simply leave the book alone—or just read it through quickly in their Bible-in-a-year plans.
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My view of the Song changed rather suddenly, however, when the Lord knitted my heart to this book in a way I never expected. In December some years back, I asked the Lord what I should focus on in His written Word in the coming new year. I was looking to Him for the next level of revelation He wanted to bring into my life. At that time, I sensed the Lord beckoning me to give myself entirely to the study of the Song of Songs. I felt He was going to open up a new mystery to me. So, I studied the book every day for 52 whole weeks.
Through the Song I have come to understand Jesus’ love for me in a way I didn’t truly see before. The Song of Songs shined a great deal of light on the kind of relationship God created for me—and you—to have with Him.
Jesus is on a journey of love with each one of us. His deep, personal interest in His beloved ones is never casual or offhand. He has committed Himself to having the closest fellowship imaginable with us individually and corporately. While we may be inclined to keep Jesus at arm’s length, He is content with nothing less than communing with us in the deepest ways possible. The good news is that He is totally committed to helping us love Him as fully as He loves us. This is the purpose of the Christian life—and the Song of Songs.
Our Prophetic Destiny
The rabbis have taught for centuries that among the wisdom books of the Hebrew Bible, Proverbs is like the outer court of the temple, Ecclesiastes is like the inner court and the Song of Songs is like the holy of holies, meaning it reveals to us the deepest mysteries of divine love. The rabbis also teach that there are many different levels of understanding Scripture: the surface understanding, which is the purely natural reading, and other layers of revelation as you keep digging. This is certainly true when it comes to understanding the prophetic revelation of God’s Word. Without forcing anything, we search for meanings beneath the surface.
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