Special Insights No. 7
First Quarter 2006
Adult Sabbath School Lessons
“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 Hollywood screen to the magazine rack to the Internet, sexual
perversion and abuse is flaunted, and that which should be holy and
uplifting is made a demoralizing scandal. I have often thought that
this is because the ability to procreate is a reflection of the image
of God, which angels do not share, and it has become the special target
of the enemy in his campaign to obliterate the image of God in man.
In stealing this profound symbol he seeks to rob us of a proper appreciation
of the foundation of the gospel (God’s agape love) and make
marriage inconceivable as a symbol of the relationship between God and
mankind.
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’” (5:16). Yet this beautiful poem is more than a description
of a romantic human relationship. It is a picture of the relationship
between Christ and the church. The apostle Paul makes this clear in
Ephesians chapter five. After describing the relationship between husband
and wife he concludes: “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning
Christ and the church” (vs. 32). If the marital relationship is a picture
of what God wants in his relationship with the church, then God wants
to be our friend.
This thought is reinforced in many passages of the Bible. Jesus is
the “friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24). Toward
the end of His earthly mission, Jesus said “No longer do I call you
servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but
I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father
I have made known to you” (John 15:15). To be counted a faithful servant
of God is an honor. But to be counted a “friend” of God is indeed astonishing!
Yet the friendship aspect of marriage should also be a dimension of
our relationship with Christ.
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 think
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 8:27,
1 Chron. 5:25, Eze. 6:16, Hosea 9:1). Yet the Song of Solomon says,
“love is as strong as death” (8:6). This is a wonderful description
of God’s agape.
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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