Written by way of Dr. Liam Goligher | Wednesday, January 22, 2020
The track of Songs, since it is Scripture, intends to convey us to this saving potential of God. Up unless the core of the nineteenth century, it turned into handled as a booklet of theological and religious potential pointing us to God. truly, one creator calls it a sacramental observe that makes use of seen and tangible issues to aspect us to issues which are invisible and immaterial.
Editorial word: On July 16, 2018, Dr. Liam Goligher, Senior Minster of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, delivered the inaugural Paideia core summer Lecture at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. we are pleased to post a transcript of his address.
It's a pleasure for me to be here at RTS Orlando, and a specific pleasure for me this evening to talk about the track of Solomon which has fascinated me in view that childhood. in reality, as a sixteen-12 months historic, I had the temerity to speak to our youth fellowship on a verse from track of Solomon which provoked some animated discussion I seem to bear in mind!
We truly are influenced by using the song of Songs in a whole diversity of how which we don't recognize. References to it are being gently edited, as an example, out of our hymns. We sang a hymn this morning in chapel and one of the verses from that hymn goes like this, "Jesus my Shepherd, Brother, friend, my Prophet, Priest, and King." The long-established by way of John Newton reads, "Jesus my Shepherd, Husband, pal." "Husband" has been modified to "brother" for some imprecise intent. however the hymnbooks we used when i used to be a boy, had the customary edition.[1]
after which there's its have an effect on within the works of Samuel Rutherford:
The bride eyes no longer her garment,however her pricey Bridegroom's face;I shall no longer gaze on gloryBut on my king of grace.no longer on the crown He gives me,but on his pierced hand;The Lamb is the entire gloryof Emmanuel's land.[2]
it is a really long hymn and we don't sing the entire verses. if you study the entire aspect, it is saturated, as had been Rutherford's letters, with the language of the track of Songs.
My third illustration is the amazing C. H. Spurgeon. He become a very good Baptist preacher and he preached 54 sermons on the song of Songs. He turned into a textual preacher, so that you ought to sift through his work to discover them. It changed into evangelistic preaching; it became pastoral preaching; and it turned into preaching that made the heart bounce as you regarded the topics that had been added.
So why preach on the song of Solomon? My reply is somewhat without difficulty: to understand God. At one stage we be aware of so little about God. Paul says that the heavens – the universe that God has made – shout to us of whatever thing of his eternal vigor and his divine nature. but we still understand so little about God. Yet the God who is aware of himself has graciously printed to us, the use of creaturely language, the language of analogy to speak anything of who he is. God is meaningless and in the end unknowable other than revelation. Scripture uses the language of analogy chastened and corrected via special revelation to speak really if now not exhaustively about God. That's one of the most issues that we're rediscovering, because it the place, as we come to seem to be at the entire manner wherein we interpret the Bible these days. God has given us two books by which we could know him: the ebook of nature and the booklet of Scripture. And he has given us two gifts through which we might comprehend him: he has given us his Son and he has given us his Spirit. The entire element of the Christian lifestyles is that we could be aware of the simplest proper God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent (John 17:three).
So how might also we be aware of God? all the way through Scripture God is concerned to talk to us theological potential, which by using extension potential Christological abilities. In other words, the point of the Bible is that we might know God. within the booklet of nature, God teaches us all kinds of issues that are available to americans no matter if they are Christians or no longer, even if they are God-fearing or now not. The publication of nature teaches us now not well-nigh God, however about how to reside as human beings in the world that God has made. From the ebook of nature, we find out how to farm and the way to have interrelationships with other human beings. but the special revelation we discover in Holy Scripture is given to us that we could be aware of God and that we may comprehend God particularly as he has published himself in Christ.
The track of Songs, because it is Scripture, intends to deliver us to this saving advantage of God. Up unless the core of the nineteenth century, it turned into treated as a ebook of theological and spiritual knowledge pointing us to God. truly, one author calls it a sacramental note that uses seen and tangible things to aspect us to things which are invisible and immaterial.
What took place within the middle of the nineteenth century? German better criticism, which changed into the fruit of the so-called Enlightenment, reordered the center of attention of our dealing with of the Bible to a starkly literal reading of the text, on the principle that the textual content has just one meaning and that's the type of surface which means, one which the common author changed into aware about or would have testified to. as a substitute of asking the query, what turned into within the divine author's intellect within the writing of Scripture, the query concentrated on what the human author changed into pondering. This turned into a naturalistic approach: what does it suggest at the natural degree? at the herbal stage, what do you read in the music of Songs, what do you have got? Keil and Delitzch say that you've a love music, duration. It has nothing to do with a relationship with God or the rest about our relationship with God. will we no longer examine the s ong as a sequence of lyrics about love and want? Paul Griffiths responds, "neatly, of route, it truly is feasible. however to do this would no longer be to examine the song as a Scriptural e-book; neither would or not it's to take severely the burden of the music's readings by way of Jews and Christians over two thousand years."[3]
The Christian church via most of its background has seen the song of Songs as a Christian ebook. D.M. Carr writes this, "The increasingly unique focal point of the literal feel of the track has corresponded with the purposeful decanonization of the music in those sections of the church and synagogue which had been most deeply influenced by way of the historic and significant formula."[4] In different phrases, you don't preach on it. You don't need to preach on intercourse, don't preach on the track of Songs (until you're a person like Mark Driscoll!). You don't go any place near it. but within the history of interpretation, each in Jewish circles as well as Christian circles, it has been understood to be about God and his relationship to his individuals Israel and the Church.
on the first century Council of Jamnia, Rabbi Avika stated, "nobody in Israel ever disputed about the tune of Songs. The whole world isn't worth the day on which tune of Songs become given to Israel. For all of the Scriptures are holy, however the track of Songs is the Holy of Holies" (Yadayim 3:5). The tune affirms two issues. It affirms that the intimate facets of human love and marriage are important and significant, however says it is teaching us that we ought to see past these to a spiritual, larger value within the textual content.
Paul Griffiths argues for a figural studying of the textual content and he says that Scripture "is first and closing about greater than what the surface of its text says. That greater is at all times and necessarily the triune Lord and, necessarily, that Lord's incarnation as Jesus Christ."[5] the brand new testomony teaches us that the important thing that unlocks the complete canon of Scripture are the movements surrounding the sending of the Son and the Spirit with a view to open the door of our understanding to a deeper advantage of the God who is there.
it's impossible for us to prevent the track of Songs if we now have any draw close of the God it really is published all through the relaxation of Scripture. here is a God who is passionate in his love for his chosen individuals Israel. he's a God who wants them for himself, who's jealous at her immorality with the aid of taking part in around with other gods. he is a God who's again and again drawing near his americans, wooing his individuals, speakme love to his individuals, drawing them to himself with the cords of affection. first rate passages similar to Hosea 1-3 or Isaiah 50 or 54 or Jeremiah 2-three and Ezekiel 16 reveal this passionate love of God for Israel. in the phrases of God, "in your maker is your husband, the Lord of Hosts is his name, and the Holy one among Israel is your redeemer. For a quick second I deserted you, however with everlasting love i will have compassion on you says the Lord your redeemer" (Is fifty four:5-6). The language of Hosea and Jeremiah is even more extreme and passionate on God's love for his people. He communicates his love for his americans through those creaturely realities of which we're aware, especially, human love. He makes use of human love at its optimum stage – that is in marriage – and on the optimum level within marriage – the sexual points of marriage – to talk by means of analogy the intensity, particularity and keenness with which he loves his people, his giving of himself to his people.
that's precisely what the brand new testament writers recognize. Paul when he's writing to Corinth says, "I consider a divine jealously for you. I betrothed you to one husband. To current you as a pure virgin to Christ" (2 Cor 11:2). Or Revelation 21:9 the place it is the church it truly is "the bride, the wife of the Lamb."
In Ephesians 5, we read that "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." right here the apostle addresses Christian marriage and the accountability of husbands to love their better halves as Christ cherished the church, and he quotes from Gen. 2:24: "because of this a person shall go away his father and mother and will be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh." That language of leaving and cleaving in the old testament is used of ways by which Israel is in a covenant relationship with God. Israel has to go away its idols and cleave to the Lord. This stresses "a radical exchange, now not of domicile, however of 1's pre-eminent loyalty." In other words, the marriage relationship becomes a template for the spiritual relationship between Israel and the Lord, between Christ and the church. all over the old testomony the Lord's relationship to Israel is that of between a husband a wife.
When Paul is quoting that in Eph. 5, he says about marriage: that this secret is top notch, and he's talking about Christ and the church. Greg Beale and Benjamin Gladd of their book Hidden however Now printed, emphasize that nowhere else within the New testament is the note mystery is labeled as "fantastic," within the way during which it is finished right here in Ephesians 5. Metaphorically, it applies to God and Israel. Sinai could be considered as a wedding between the Lord and Israel. It points forward to the consummative marriage of Israel in the conclusion time of which Isaiah speaks in Isaiah 61 and sixty two. Paul's circulation is readily to identify the Lord with Christ and the church as the conclusion time Israel. The note mystery captures the continuity and discontinuity between the two testaments and the fulfillment in opposition t which the OT is relocating. so that when Paul says of this mystery of marriage pointing to Christ and the church and says it's aw esome, he is echoing the language of the track of Songs that says the song concerning the marriage between the Lord and his individuals is the tune of Songs. that is, it's a superlative tune as we are able to see in a second.
I want to a couple of issues concerning the publication as a whole. first off, it is a poem. It isn't a set of poems, however a unified piece of poetry. Now, we see poetry all over the place the Bible. We see it within the psalms and the prophets. We need to understand anything about poetry. We need to take into account that poetry at its ultimate is evocative speech. Its metaphors, photographs, and phrases stir the creativeness. They heighten our feelings. they are aesthetically beautiful. In poetry the impact of language is simple and uppermost. It elevates our ideas. it is marked with the aid of the noblest of issues. it is supposed to stir the purest of emotions and it should cope with the richest of ideas and will connect with the deepest feelings of our hearts. John Milton referred to, actual poetry is "simple, sensuous, and passionate."[6]
examine greater
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