His Perfect Love

Matt VanderVen: God doesn’t find marriage to be shameful, and he doesn’t find sexual intimacy or relations to be shameful. He wants us to come at marriage with the same heart he has, with the same beauty he has. The reason for that is because when we begin, the marriage is so often a picture of our relationship with God in a covenant relationship. He’s the bridegroom, we’re the bride, and one day we’re going to go to the wedding feast of the Lamb. We're in the book of Revelation; it’s in Revelation 19. So he’s given us this beautiful picture here.

Guest (Male): Hello again. So glad you’ve joined us for His Perfect Love. Pastor Matt VanderVen is in the early stages of a study of the Song of Solomon. In our introduction, we hope to arrive at a better biblical understanding of marriage and true love and intimacy. While this book is poetic and practical, not all will agree on the interpretive approach. So that’s where we’ll begin, and Pastor Matt will explain why he’s landed on the literal approach.

Matt VanderVen: The Song of Solomon proclaims the glory of wedded love. It declares the sacredness of the marital relationship and the fact that the marriage is a God-given institution. This book shows us what real love is. The Jews that did bring the typical approach to the interpretation taught that it reveals the heart of a satisfied husband and a devoted wife. That’s how it was taught very early on for those Jews that took it as a literal instead of allegorical.

The devotional benefits from an allegorical or typical approach to the song cannot be denied. The question, however, is what did the author intend? I believe any allegorical reading can be hazardous because of the possibilities for a variety of interpretations. It can almost be limitless. If you start to allegorize everything in this book, we could be talking about anything and everything.

We need to be careful. I believe it opens the door for one to be more apt to find ideas rather than letting the word speak for itself. That’s something that I believe is really important in hermeneutics. When we put a class together here and we teach hermeneutics or biblical interpretation, one of the things we do is we say that sometimes the Song of Solomon can be taken allegorically without necessarily taking it out of context. That’s an interpretive approach to it.

There are books that you cannot do that with. That would be wrong. If I took the book of Revelation and I tried to bring an allegorical approach to that book, that would be wrong. If I tried to bring a post or a pre-tribulationist view and said it's a post-tribulationist view, that is not what I read in the book of Revelation. It’s what we call mere reading. It’s interpreting and bringing in. It’s also called eisegesis instead of exegesis. Eisegesis meaning reading into in the Greek. Exegesis in the Greek means to take out of or to pull from or to allow it to come off the page.

I’m going through this just because I think it’s important we understand this in reading all of our Bibles. If you do take it allegorically, there’s nothing wrong with that interpretive approach. If you take it literally, there’s nothing wrong with that interpretive approach. Please understand you cannot do that with every book of the Bible. In hermeneutics, we're not allowed to do that because context is king. Context is king. We cannot do that with every book.

Again, we don’t want to open the door, but we do want to understand that we can read it in its natural sense. I know there’s somebody here tonight that will say, "But Pastor, this is very explicit in certain areas, describing intimacy and relationships." I just want to remind you that God authored marriage in Genesis chapter one, and it was pre-curse. Last I checked in my Bible, he said it’s very good.

He didn't turn around and bring any negative stigma to any association of intimacy within the marriage between a husband and a wife. That is God’s design. There’s another interpretive approach called the dramatic. It's the presence of a dialogue, a soliloquy, or a chorus that led students in literature, both Origen and Milton, to treat it as drama. They went back and started treating this as drama, maybe like a play that you would go see.

Some have interpreted this as a nuptial song. A study of the Syrian wedding rites fostered a fresh look at the song in the end of the last century. Some scholars found in such a week-long festival several parallels to the elements of the song. They’re saying maybe it was a song that just happened to be written as part of the marriage process. So maybe that’s what the writer was having us do, that the song would just be sung when people were getting married. No, there’s way more detail and depth than just that.

How about liturgical rites? A few scholars have sought to illuminate obscure Old Testament passages by comparison with religious customs in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Canaan. An example of this idea is that the song is derived from liturgical rites of the cult of Tammuz. I kind of have a problem with this a little bit because I don’t think we would pattern anything after cults or pagan rites. We've seen that throughout human history and Christian history if we've studied that.

All Saints’ Day is an example. But this was the Babylonian god of fertility. These rites celebrated sacred marriage of Tammuz and his consort Ishtar, which produced the annual spring fertility. So some are saying this is probably just a song that was given in the area of Mesopotamia, Egypt, or Canaan, and maybe it was just copied into the Hebrew and then sung as part of the time of Passover, but it was really just the effect of the surrounding pagan nations and their liturgical rites that then seeped into Israel or to the Hebrews.

This is where they're coming forward with this, and this is their belief of interpretation. I think it’s highly questionable that the Hebrews would have accepted a pagan liturgy smacking of idolatry and immorality without a thorough revision in terms of Israel's distinctive faith. I think the song bears the marks of no such revisions.

Some say from an interpretation that it’s a love song. Lastly, in recent decades, some scholars have viewed the song as a poem or a collection of love poems, perhaps not necessarily connected with the wedding celebration. In other words, some will actually parse the book of the Song of Solomon and say this is a compilation of multiple songs. I can take a rake through that, meaning when I go through scripture, I can teach it that way. I’m not opposed necessarily to teaching it that way. That’s not the way we're going to go through the book together this first time going through it, but you can see where it could be broken. It doesn't necessarily have to be broken that way.

But I just want us to understand that. It’s important because when you talk to somebody and say, "I’m in the book of Song of Solomon," you don’t know what’s going to come out of their mouth. They’re either going to look at you like, "You’re reading the Song of Solomon? What are you doing? You’re a pervert." Oh yeah, there are people even in Christian circles that will say that even today.

They won’t teach the book. Do you know that many pastors wouldn’t touch this book until they were well into their 60s as part of the pastorate? Seriously, literally, you can go back and read. Many of the Jewish people wouldn't allow this book to be taught to their people until they were of age, 30 years or older, or were married.

There were all kinds of things that happened in regards to when this book was taught and who was able to hear. If you were unsaved, you were never allowed to be brought in to hear this book. This was supposed to be only for those that were born again that would be able to hear. Throughout history, I’m not exaggerating.

So let’s get down to more as we're going through it here tonight. What is the purpose? What place does such love poetry have in scripture? I’m sure there’s somebody here tonight thinking that, especially if not originally intended as allegorical or a typical message of God’s love. Though expressed in bold language, the song provides a wholesome biblical balance between the extremes of sexual excess or perversion or asceticism.

I just said a whole lot there, and what do I mean by that? Like anything else, when we handle the Word of God, we know that most times extremes are wrong. Let me give you an example: legalism. We all agree that is wrong. Antinomianism is on the other side of the pendulum; grace upon grace upon grace without any responsibility. We all agree that is wrong.

A balanced approach is right in the middle, the Word of God. We can do that with so many things. So many have come to the book and prescribed, "Well, we’re not going to handle this because of the sexual aspect and intimacy and the nature of all that." Some have come and said, "Yeah, but this whole book is very perverted, it's all perversion."

Then some have said, "This is why I want to be holy, so I’m actually going to prescribe a form of asceticism," which is, "I’m not going to marry ever, I’m not going to do anything because I think that makes me holier." As a matter of fact, we know that there are denominations that have taken priests or their pastors and said, "You are not allowed to marry if you are going to be a pastor in this denomination." Right off the top of your head, you can probably think of one that is prescribed those things. That’s a form, believe it or not, of what we would describe as asceticism.

It’s an extreme. It’s not a biblical extreme. It’s not what the Bible teaches. So we have to be careful because that’s why people have avoided this book. The purpose is not to prescribe that in one way or another. It is to bring a balance. Too often the Christian view of sex denies the essential goodness and rightness of physical love within the divinely prescribed framework of marriage.

There are those that are Christians that believe that once they got married, they read the Song of Solomon and they said, "Oh my, that’s not our marriage. We shouldn’t be doing that. That’s perverted and that’s wrong." I’m here to tell you tonight that is unbiblical. Unless there is a medical reason or something like that, that is unbiblical. God has, again, said very good.

We may even go further. Not only does it speak of the purity of human love, but by its very inclusion in canon, it reminds us that the love that God is showing through this and what he has ordained in marriage—and ultimately our marriage to him—is pure. It's more pure than anything we possess, which is, again, why it was pre-curse, Adam and Eve.

God’s design for marriage and the physical aspects that embody the consumption of marriage represent a pre-curse understanding. In Genesis chapter one and two, God stated it was very good. That’s Genesis chapter 1, verse 31. You can go back and look yourselves. That meant that marriage was very good, the command to multiply was very good, and sexual relations were very good and enjoyed by married couples.

Marriage is God’s design and therefore he can detail the arrangement. We’re good with that? If God creates marriage, he gets to detail the arrangement of how it’s supposed to look and work and function. He decided it’s going to be between one male and one female. He didn’t say polygamy, 700 wives, 300 concubines like Solomon. Solomon was in sin. God’s not negating what Solomon did. God’s not negating what David did, but just because they had individually sinned didn't mean that God’s Word wasn't true. Are you with me in what I’m saying there?

We understand that many times the Bible captures the historical narrative of the fact, but that doesn’t mean God condones the fact that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He didn’t. The law expressly stated that was not to happen, and there were consequences to that. One of the consequences that Solomon faced was that he was led into idolatry by one of those wives in particular, many of them. Remember, he started worshipping in the high places and he started taking the incense to the pagan gods that his wives served. This was not God’s design for marriage.

Origen and Jerome tell us that the Jews would not permit their young men to read the book until they were 30 years old, sadly. The reason that they felt there was a danger in the reading into it was because of the suggestive nature. They thought it was vulgar, voluptuous, and sensuous. On the contrary, when we're going to read this, this is a wonderful picture of physical human wedded love.

It answers the erroneous group of people, those who hold on to asceticism to think it's wrong to get married, and those who have subscribed to hedonism, which is the belief that they can satisfy their lusts and that's the primary importance. Both are extremes and both are wrong. The book makes it very clear that both are wrong. It holds the wedded love as a very wonderful thing, a glorious experience and, again, very good.

If you were to compare the Song of Solomon with other Oriental poetry, maybe another way of saying it, part of the Eastern world today, you would find that the Song of Solomon to be very mild and restrained. Many times if you read—and I don’t encourage any of you to do that—but if you want to fact-check, look up some of that Persian poetry from this time and dated from 900s BC. You would find it today to be pornographic.

You would consider it pornographic or one of those books that are out there that you hear about, like those they call love novels. No, they're lust novels. It would read more like one of those books with extreme details. So at the time when the Song of Solomon was given, even though the rabbis were cautious because of their single men, there was not this idea, even before the rabbis, that this was a PG book. This would have been rated G because compared to all the other writings when they would touch the subjects of marriage and sexuality or intimacy, they would go completely to the perverted. The Song of Solomon never does that. It’s completely mild and restrained.

On the other hand, contrast the Jews called the Song of Solomon the Holy of Holies of scripture. Did you know that? That’s actually what the Jews called the Song of Solomon: the Holy of Holies of scripture. Therefore, not everyone was permitted inside its sacred enclosure. Here's where you dwell with the Most High in the secret place. In other words, people that would come to it were to come to it with the right heart.

As I’m going to go through this, I’m going to go through it with a literal interpretive approach. The Song of Solomon is poetic, and I believe it’s very practical for married and widowed alike, for all Christians. We are on holy ground. The Song of Solomon is like a fragile flower that requires delicate handling.

Today we see a great movement, and I think we need to talk about this. I know we have some young people here. You might want to take a minute and think about whether you’re comfortable with them being in here. I certainly don’t want to be handcuffed, but if you want to take a moment because I’m going to talk about some of the things of sexual freedom today and the things we're seeing. If you’re comfortable with that, then that’s fine. If not, in the lobby or where you may not want the young ones exposed to that.

But when we think about our generation, the generation of today, we see a movement of sexual freedom and people think it's very normal. The generation today is geared towards sex. Their lifestyle is one of sexual expression. They believe it's part of expressing themselves in that capacity. Really, all they would know about sex is more or less what an animal can be observed or learned or known.

The idea is something is missing. There’s a terrible void in their lives. I remember when I worked in a public school at one time back in New York. One of the things that I saw was these bracelets on the young girls' wrists. I had no idea, I just thought, "Wow, that’s nice." Then I started seeing more and more girls wear these bracelets. So I went over to see Pat Ferrity, who was the principal of the high school. I was from the district office so I was administrator. I went over to check and see what was going on at the school in general. I said, "Pat, I noticed the bracelets. What is that?"

He said, "Oh, that’s all their dating. Whoever dates whoever, they get the bracelet." I said, "Oh, really?" And he said, "Well, that’s sort of the G version." I said, "What?" He said, "Yeah, they started now collecting bracelets, and they’re color-coded by the boy that they had relations with."

I remember sitting there and thinking to myself, "Oh my." I had no idea that was even going on. It is very much going on today. I don’t want to go into details, but it is very much going on today. Sex in the casual aspect, people hooking up for a night, many times not even remembering who the person was that they had the intimate relationship with, waking up the next day, the heart being so cold not even feeling conviction or guilt or anything about that.

The reality is human beings have such a void in their lives. They’re trying to do all these things to fix it. They don’t want to commit or marry many times because they feel like that’s going to tie them down. We’re seeing the average rate of marriage go up in years. Some of that could be because you want to wait on God’s very best, but some of that is also because people are engaging in sexual relations at a young age, so they'll say, "We’re going to sample the milk."

That is exactly what is going on, and I don’t think I’m shocking any of you here tonight. I think you understand the culture we're living in today. I just don’t think we realize just how pervasive it is. I think sometimes we thought, "Oh yeah, that’s this girl or this neighborhood," maybe when we were growing up. No, it’s very commonplace anymore, and it's not just you go to the bars to hook up. There are churches that actually have social connection times for people to come together to effectively hook up.

I don’t have any other term for it. They even have churches in our area that have Bible studies with alcohol. At one of the Calvary Chapel conferences we go to, it was actually addressed by some of the senior pastors that are on the council. They said, "Hey, if you guys start hearing about this in the area where you're serving in your churches, this is growing. People are thinking this is okay that we can have a Bible study and have alcohol next thing you know."

You understand where all this goes. It becomes a mixer. This is not church. This is not what God has. Because of that, the generation may have a great deal, again, with all this experience of sex and different things. But how about love? How about experience with true love? They know the Hollywood version of love and they think they know it all, but there’s a stark contrast between the ideas of our generation and the glory of wedded love as portrayed in this book.

That is what is so beautiful about the Song of Solomon. This is going to draw us to a biblical understanding of marriage, a biblical understanding of true love and intimacy. People are being very deluded today. They feel that living the Christian life is like following the instructions and putting together a toy. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it, or try to do it.

Maybe some of you had Legos or put piece A with piece B, and piece C here and piece D goes here. These instructions are complicated. You literally feel like you’ve got to be an engineer to put some of these toys together. I think some people think that way of the Christian life, rather than going back to the book of the Song of Solomon and finding the joy and the purity and the holiness of having a true love and God bringing people together for the beautiful sacred matrimony of marriage, and then turning around and watching that love and intimacy that grows in the heart, in the mind.

Even as the Shulammite is going to be, she’s going to have these friends and she’s going to tell them, "Wait. Don't just rush in. Wait, wait, wait. I have something really special. Wait for the right person." This is going to be beautiful because they're all seeing her experience this beautiful true relationship like that, and they want the same thing but they want to rush right in. She’s going to say, "No, wait."

I think that points to so many things today about what in Isaiah it says, that they will call evil good and good evil. I don’t know about you, I can’t even turn on the TV and watch. I have VidAngel or a tool that I use, and we will watch movies that we want to watch, but we filter them so it takes out the inappropriate parts, you can take out the language, you can take out kissing and scenes and all of that. You can take whatever you want out. It's the best seven or eight dollars a month I’m going to spend.

At the end of the day, I think people have become just so calm to it. When we go to the movie theater, we don't go often, maybe once a year, but when we go to the movie theater, one of the things that I love to watch my boys do—I don’t care if it's my 23-year-old or my 13-year-old—when there’s something that comes on the screen, I don’t have to say a word. They just do this. They just know because in our house we grew up reading the Bible to them and they know the purity of God.

This is holy and beautiful. God doesn’t find marriage to be shameful, and he doesn’t find sexual intimacy or relations to be shameful. He wants us to come at marriage with the same heart he has, with the same beauty he has. The reason for that is because when we begin, the marriage is so often a picture of our relationship with God in a covenant relationship. He’s the bridegroom, we’re the bride, and one day we’re going to go to the wedding feast of the Lamb. We're in the book of Revelation; it’s in Revelation 19. So he’s given us this beautiful picture here.

Guest (Male): Well, thanks for joining us today for His Perfect Love. You can hear this study from Pastor Matt VanderVen again when you visit HisPerfectLove.org. There are four messages in the Song of Solomon series. Catch up what you may have missed at HisPerfectLove.org. Look for us on OnePlace.com and most of the major podcast platforms.

The Calvary Chapel Harrisburg mobile app is another great way to listen to Pastor Matt’s messages shortly after they’re delivered. We can help you get started when you visit HisPerfectLove.org. His Perfect Love is listener-supported. It's listeners like you that help us bring the truths of God’s Word to the radio every day. Together we can reach people with the love and truth of God.

You can make a donation at HisPerfectLove.org. Pastor Matt would love to hear from you. Tell us the station you’re listening to and how you’re helped by this ministry. Email us there at the website HisPerfectLove.org. We want to invite you to join us for a service at Calvary Chapel Harrisburg West Shore. Sunday morning services begin at 8:30 and again at 10:30. We have a midweek service too, Wednesdays at 7:00 PM. We're located at 20 North Locust Point Road in Mechanicsburg, PA. Go to CCHarrisburg.org for more information. We'll put a bookmark here in the Song of Solomon and join us next time for His Perfect Love with Pastor Matt VanderVen. God bless.