Dr. Brian German — The Song of Songs

Transcript (edited for readability).

But now, onward, forward, to our first speaker. Our first speaker this afternoon is a theologian, and he's a scholar well known to the CUW community. The Reverend Dr. Brian German serves as associate professor and department chair of theology here at Concordia, and he also serves as director of the Concordia Bible Institute, with his main area of research in the history of biblical interpretation.

Any seasoned program planner quickly moves beyond the CV and checks things such as the Rate My Professors page, if you really want the scoop. And what I've learned—and I wouldn't do anything but quote the text—I have learned, for example, there's a consensus. He's the best. He's amazing. He's an amazing guy. He's an awesome teacher. He's absolutely awesome, amazing. He's a ten out of ten. No pressure.

He earned his Master of Divinity from Concordia Theological Seminary, then a PhD in Old Testament at Wycliffe College of the Toronto School of Theology. He's going to set the stage for us this afternoon with his presentation, "The Song of Songs as a Resource for Sexual Sanity." We're going to give him a little bit longer of time, so please allow yourself to move a little bit beyond the constraints of the 2:45. Please help me welcome Dr. Brian German.

Hey, thanks so much. Okay, thanks so much. Can you hear me okay through this, through the lapel mic? Thanks to the AV crew. Thanks for that wonderful introduction. Rate My Professors—I was told never to look at that when I started on the faculty here. Just don't even look. It doesn't matter what it says, just don't look at it. But now I know, and so I'll just skip all the rank and promo stuff. I'll just quote that, and hopefully that'll work.

So thanks so much for the kind introduction. It's a pleasure to be with you. It's too bad Reverend Fleming can't be here. I wanted to thank him in person for the invitation. I'm a big fan of Doxology. I've attended some of the conferences in the past, but never spoken for it. And he came to me probably in August—it was over the summer—and he said, "You know, what do you think of Doxology?" And I said, "I'm all for it." But then he says, "Why don't you talk for it?" And I thought, that would be a wonderful privilege. So I look forward to the conference. I look forward to Dr. Anderson also. I'm a big fan of his work. I'm happy to be the warm-up band for him, as it were. Is he here yet? I haven't seen him. No? I was gonna give him a big compliment, but never mind. I'll go on with that.

Okay. And thanks also to Pastor Wolfmuller for the fine sermon there. That Revelation text is very powerful, very fitting for the conference theme, certainly. The devil goes after those holding to the word and to the testimony, and that's exactly what defeated him. So in verse 11 of that chapter, that's exactly what defeated the devil. And then, at the end of that chapter, he goes after the one holding to the word and to the testimony. He goes after the ones—he goes after the very stuff that kicked his butt. And those holding to that word and testimony overcome. Nike—you've heard of Nike. Nike just plagiarized out of Revelation there, the Greek word nikē for overcoming. It's precisely when the saints in the book of Revelation feel as if the pressures are overwhelming and they are being overcome, that is precisely when they do their best overcoming. And that's why it's so important to have conferences like this.

So again, I'm very honored to be with you. This is a conference about courageous conversations. And when Reverend Fleming asked about this, and I thought about it, I'd say, well, if I do anything, I'm going to do something probably on the Song of Songs. And I was waiting for his reaction of puzzlement or whatever, and he said, "That'd be great. Let's do that." It is maybe not a book we know very well, the Song of Songs. But I would submit, and would like to make the case today, that there is quite the courageous conversation taking place in the Song of Songs that can be very helpful in the midst of a decadent culture.

Song of Songs. So again, probably not very familiar with it, all sorts of traditions about how you need to be a certain age to even read the book, right? So I don't know if there's an age limit for registering for Doxology. So some of these students back here—if you're not thirty years old, everybody's got to leave now? No. But it's a fascinating book, and it was one of the biggest deals for over a thousand years in the history of the church. Now, that's something to say—one of the most heavily engaged books of the Bible for over a thousand years, especially between, let's say, about the fifth century to the sixteenth century. It attracted more attention, more commentary, than any other book of the Bible. It was right up there with Psalms. Psalms, of course, near and dear—memorizing, praying, and so on—but the Song of Songs was right there.

One estimate is that there were already over a hundred commentaries on it by the year 1200. Think about it—no printing press as we know it, no literacy like we know it—over a hundred commentaries on it by the year 1200. It's the most heavily glossed book in the Middle Ages. So the Glossa Ordinaria—this big fat Bible with wide margins and all the notes in the columns; maybe some of you have heard of this before—which book was packed more than any other? Song of Songs. Word for word, it is probably the most commented-upon book of Scripture in the West.

Now, that's a huge deal. What happened? Where is it now? How often do you hear it in the lectionaries? How many verses of it do you have memorized? How many sermons have you preached on it? How many Bible studies have you taught on the Song of Songs? Well, it's fair to say that the Reformation adjusted things a little bit. Luther comes along, we have to deal with justification. He points us a little more toward Romans, Galatians, right? There are some things that need hashing out, and rightfully so. But then the Enlightenment kind of killed it off. The Enlightenment dictum was basically, read the Bible like any other book. And if you do that, what's the Song of Songs? It looks like a few love poems, eight chapters, some flowery language. I don't know if it has God. Nope, God's not mentioned in it. The Lord's not mentioned in it. It doesn't even mention God, right? So I can get a Hallmark card and it'd be about the same thing—a Valentine's card or something. This is about what we have. And so it definitely got killed off, I think, when you get to the early nineteenth century.

And so it has me wondering. It has me wondering, are we missing out on something? Are we missing out on something? Is it an overlooked resource, especially for understanding marriage and sexuality? Can it help us in our current crisis in any way? This was such a popular book for so many, for so long. And so I'm going to unpack this with you today, this idea that this book can equip us to have some courageous conversations in rather profound ways.

I'll need to do just a little bit of introduction here, maybe a little bit longer intro than I would normally do in a conference paper, but I don't know how much familiarity to assume about this book. So let me give you just a brief intro of what this book is all about. Eight chapters, three voices—it's one way to condense things. Eight chapters, three voices. The first voice is—this would be Solomon. Solomon, okay. It's technically Song of Songs, but if you've heard "Song of Solomon"—okay. So Solomon authors this thing. The first voice is Solomon's. The second voice, let's say, is the Shulamite. The Shulamite—this would be the bride. This would be Solomon's wife. Shulamite is mentioned only in chapter 6, verse 13, twice—Shulamite. And there's all sorts of speculation: is this a title? Is this Abishag? Is this some sort of other historical figure that we know from another book? You'll remember Abishag was brought to King David when he was near death, in early 1 Kings. Is that her? I think some of this is all missing the point. Shulamite. You can see it even in the name Shelomoh. Shulamite. Hebrew doesn't come with vowels originally. And so what are you going to see? Sh-l-m, Sh-l-m. Even their names look like they should be in a one-flesh, verbal union: Sh-l-m, Sh-l-m. They belong together. One name derives so closely. It's ish and ishah, if you know a little Hebrew, right? Some of my Hebrew students are back there, so I'm going to have to pick on them here and there—but ish and ishah, man and woman, this kind of resemblance.

So, one voice, Solomon; second voice, Shulamite; and third voice, Daughters of Jerusalem. The Daughters of Jerusalem, mentioned about eight times, depending on how you count. I'm doing this to first make the point that this book is loaded with dialogue. Three voices: Solomon, Shulamite, Daughters of Jerusalem. Most of the talking is between Solomon and the Shulamite, okay? But there is about 10% of the book with this group called the Daughters of Jerusalem. And that's also worth thinking about—daughters, not sons. Okay, of Jerusalem, not of Babylon or something like that. The Daughters of Jerusalem. They are overhearing things. They are wanting to get in on things. They are asking questions about things. They are prompting speeches about things. It's the world of us. It's the world of the reader, the world of the hearer, wondering about that dialogue between Solomon and the Shulamite.

All right, just to give you an idea here of what that would look like, let me just show—and I know this will probably be small for you—yeah, it's going to be real small for you to see. But you can see that already, a lot of English versions give you these little subtitles: "She," "Others," "He," and so on. Those are added, to give you a sense of this dialogue. I'll talk more about this down the road. But I wanted to give you a sense of this book, especially if we don't know it. How does this book work? Let me give you a taste of it in a ten-verse taste. And also a sense of why this was so popular, why everybody loved this book. And I've done that by means of highlighting some trigger words.

How does this book work? Well, it only really works in association with other books. That was the conviction. If you isolate it and take it outside of any other scriptural context, yeah, it does maybe look like just a Valentine's card or something like that, and that's about it. But for the vast majority of the history of interpretation, they saw this as—in the modern era, we think this is one of the least scriptural books out there; for them, it was the most scriptural. Because they went through the book, and they saw trigger words like fireworks all over the place.

And so when you start getting into the book a little bit: "The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine. Your anointing oils are fragrant; your name is oil poured out; therefore virgins love you. Draw me after you, let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers." Let me just take that chunk first. First, notice the switch in persons throughout this book—it's really fascinating. "Let him," third person. And then all of a sudden, "for your love," second person. Okay? Already in the switch: I was thinking about him, and then I'm talking to him. Okay? And sometimes it's singular, and sometimes it's plural. And the switch is almost like in the Psalms, where the person changes quite a bit. "Your name, your anointing oil," and then it's "let us run," and then back to the third person, "the king." Okay, this is the Christian life here. You're walking through the tunnels of Concordia, and you're thinking about him, right? And then you just prayed Vespers, and you're saying, "You, O Lord, have mercy." This is the life, okay?

The words that are in yellow—these are the kinds of—okay, "let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth." Great. Why would you say "mouth," though? Why not just "let him kiss me"? How else does one kiss? With the elbow? Kiss with the mouth, okay? Whoa, trigger word—"mouth," "mouth of the Lord." How does he kiss us? How does the Lord kiss us? By his word. "The mouth of the Lord has spoken"—Isaiah. Loaded, all over Isaiah: "The mouth of the Lord has spoken." Okay, so now we have this trigger word that gets us thinking about all these references in the prophets about how the Lord might kiss us, the mouth of the Lord. Kissing us with his mouth, with his word. It's one thing to say, Romans, "faith comes by hearing." Great. That needs to be asserted and confessed and loved. What does that really look like, when the Holy Spirit works faith, when we are being embraced in that way? "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth." This enhances the overall picture of what's happening. This is what the Song of Songs does. It shows what kind of union is at work here.

So, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth." "Your love is better than wine." Anointing oils, fragrant—or smell, depending on how you translate—oil. Where do you see these things? Temple, tabernacle, all over the place. Oh boy. And then you start to realize there are allusions in this book to the temple, tabernacle, all over the place—oil, spice, curtains, smell or fragrance, lilies. This is now in later chapters—pillars, doors, cedar, all this. Wait a minute. There's an embrace of God that we experience when we go to his house, when we are receiving his things. All of these allusions. This isn't just some schnazzy love poem. This is how our Lord is embracing his bride when we're in the house of worship, when we're receiving his things—his oil, the fragrance, the mouth.

And then before too long, the song lets you know that others want to get in on this. So now we have a plural, a "we." And the English Bible usually puts something like "others." Okay, "others": "We will exult and rejoice in you; we will extol your love more than wine." Notice what happens: "rightly do they love you." Do you see how this book just extended? Solomon, Shulamite, and then we have the Daughters of Jerusalem. And then it's another: "rightly do they love you," third person plural, right? What's happening in this book is extending. It's not just about one couple; there are others who praise what's happening and realize it has implications for their life. And then there's an extension of that group; you might say others of the others, as the book rolls along.

And then, kind of like the Psalms—first person: "I am very dark but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem." Here's where you get the actual Daughters of Jerusalem, okay? This shouldn't shock us. Daughters of Jerusalem, of course, is something we know from—well, just think Palm Sunday: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout and sing aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Your king comes to you, righteous and lowly, on a colt, on the foal of a beast of burden." We say this all the time. So Daughters of Jerusalem—that's very deliberately, intentionally selected. That's God's people, in various ways, here in this book. Sometimes they're asking questions, sometimes they're rejoicing, sometimes they need more catechesis. We'll talk about that.

Okay: "rightly do they love you. Like the tents of Kedar, the curtains of Solomon." And then that's ten, twenty pages of commentary right there—tents and curtains, tents and curtains. Why is she speaking of herself like the tabernacle? This is how the Lord sees her: clothed, washed, covered, forgiven, blessed. She speaks of herself through the lens of the things of the Lord. And this is just a constant theme throughout the whole book: tents, curtains. This is why everybody loved it. This was the stuff that was available to God's people in God's houses throughout all times and places—the things of the Lord. This is what he does for his bride. This is what he does for me. I'm like the tents of Kedar, I'm like the curtains of Solomon.

"Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me. My mother's sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept." There's another trigger word—vineyard. Who's a vineyard? Israel. God's people. God has a vineyard, and he planted it, and he dug around it, and he put in a wine press. His love is better than wine. He put in a wine press—Isaiah 5. Now we're thinking Isaiah 5. Now we're thinking of the vineyard, God's people, as a vineyard, pasturing the flock, making it lie down, green pastures. Now you're hearing it, aren't you? This is pastoral. Where do you pasture your flock? Where do you make it lie down? Where can you be located for my benefit? "I see the creation and I'm happy to be alive. What do I mean to you? Where are your things? Where do you pasture? Look for the tracks." You can see that in the response there: "If you do not know, O most beautiful among women, follow in the tracks of the flock." Go to where the flock gathers, go to where my things are being given out, "and pasture your young goats beside the shepherds' tents," and so on. Temple allusions, tabernacle allusions, things-of-the-Lord allusions—this all enhances what it means to be married, to be in this union with God, in a way that no other book would.

So, I'm doing this partly to sort of set up a governing perspective for the talk here. In, with, and under this song is most certainly this depiction of a marriage between God and his people, or Christ and the church, as we heard about. And you can also think of the many other places in the Bible where we have this—Pastor Wolfmuller mentioned a couple. The Garden of Eden especially, but the prophets—think of how often our Lord tells a prophet to do something maritally, to depict the relationship that his people now have caused to himself, namely God. Can you think of some examples? Jeremiah: don't marry. Don't marry; you stay single, like me. Or Ezekiel: your wife—your wife must die, because mine did too, okay? What about Hosea? Oh, boy, there's another one, right? Go take a wife of harlotry, have children of harlotry too, because that's where I'm at. Okay, that's what my situation is. Then the book of Proverbs: two different women competing for your attention, Lady Wisdom, Lady Folly, and then all of the language about sexual infidelity as spiritual infidelity.

Toward that end, here's what I'm going to just kind of assert up front so that you know what I'm operating with as I get into this talk, and that is: the Song of Songs then speaks to the individual as a member of the bride of Christ. Okay, I'm going to be asserting these things. It speaks to the individual, the individual Christian, as a member of the bride of Christ. It also speaks to Christian marriage, as it reflects the marriage between Christ and his bride, the church. And I'll add a little bit at the end here that it also speaks to those wishing to enter into either or both of those estates—entering into the relationship, entering into the marriage between Christ and his bride (I think baptism and so on), or entering into the estate of Christian marriage.

And if it helps—I put together a little—I don't know if that means anything. The point is that the substance of the thing is Christ and his church. And in this book, Solomon and the Shulamite—we will see correspondences; we can see them, and we can draw from them correspondences about Christian marriage. Ultimately, the big deal of this book was this: this was the end goal. This was what it was all about. "Be with us, O Lord." Emmanuel—we'll celebrate very soon: God with us. It's one thing to be given all sorts of special things, but I want to be with you. Don't leave us, don't forsake us. In this book, it stirred up contemplation of union with God. Here's how one person put it: the highest and the holiest and the happiest hope of the human heart, the thing we were all born hungering for, hunting for, longing for. This is the last chapter of life's story, the point, the purpose of it all.

And what I hope to show today is that in this book you will find quite the conversation—it's a courageous one—one that includes a courageous confession about what marriage is, a courageous defense of marriage, and then finally a courageous instruction about marriage and sexuality. So those three parts—confession, defense, and instruction—will make up the three main parts of my talk.

So let's take a look here. Remember that the whole Song of Songs, except for the title I guess, is a dialogue. In some rather remarkable ways, this dialogue makes for a profound confession about marriage. Consider something that's very fascinating to me. This is how Solomon and the Shulamite echo each other throughout the book. Solomon, for example, says that the Shulamite's eyes are doves. She says the same thing of his eyes later on. Solomon says that the Shulamite is his dove. She says he is her dove. They both also confess, "my dove, my perfect one." And a similar thing happens with the word "beautiful." Solomon says, "You are beautiful." She says the same thing of him. Again, Solomon says that the Shulamite is lovely. She says that he's lovely. Solomon says that her love is better than wine. She says that his love is better than wine. Solomon says that her shoots are like spices; and she, in turn, says that his cheeks are like spices. Solomon says that her neck is like ivory; she says that his body is like ivory. And there are other examples of this that go on and on.

But closely related to this is how often the Shulamite also rehearses what Solomon said to her, either to others or even to herself. Okay, so it's one thing that they say this to each other a lot, back and forth—think of an antiphonal kind of thing. But she also says what she has heard from him to others, the Daughters of Jerusalem, and even to herself, which makes for other echo chambers as you make your way through the book. For example, just as Solomon calls her lovely, she then says this about herself to the Daughters of Jerusalem: "I am lovely"—actually, I just saw that in verse 5: "I am dark but lovely." That's what he said about me, so that's what I'm telling you about me. He said that.

And then there are also moments in the book where the Shulamite gives a whole lengthy praise of Solomon—for example, Solomon's body in chapter 5. And then she ends her speech by saying, "This too—this is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem." So here's this huge piece, and you think this is a nice little poem, and then at the end of it, this whole thing: "My beloved is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand. His head is the finest gold; his locks are wavy, black as a raven. His eyes are like doves beside streams of water, bathed in milk, sitting beside a full pool. His cheeks are like beds of spices, mounds of sweet-smelling herbs. His lips are lilies, dripping liquid myrrh. His arms are rods of gold, set with jewels. His body is polished ivory, bedecked with sapphires. His legs are alabaster columns, set on bases of gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem." You'll notice—and there are some of the temple allusions to him: "His legs are like alabaster columns," right? She is speaking of him like an incarnate temple, an incarnate temple, a temple that's taking on flesh. Sound familiar? It should, right? But the point here is, this whole thing is rehearsed to the Daughters of Jerusalem.

On the other side of the same coin are those moments in the book where—go back to the picture there, you can see—I think this group here, this would be your Daughters of Jerusalem, back in the upper left; and on the right, I think, are the watchmen. I'll talk about them. On the other side of the same coin are those moments in the book where the Shulamite rehearses what Solomon has said about her to herself. So it's very important to say what Solomon has said—back to Solomon, and also to the daughters, but also to the self. In chapter 2, for example, she remembers the speech that Solomon once delivered to her as he was approaching her on one occasion: "My beloved speaks and says to me." Notice the repetition there—"speaks and says." Why do you have to say these things? It's about his speaking. This is what he said, this is what he speaks. And then she rehearses to herself, for six verses, what it was that he said to her. A similar thing happens later in chapter 5: "He said to me, 'Open to me, my sister, my love, my perfect one'"—that's 5:2.

What we can see in all of this is that the kind of love that is on display throughout the Song of Songs includes a profound interest in each other's words. In fact, here's a point for you to think about: the Song of Songs spends far more time talking about what Solomon and the Shulamite have to say to and about each other than on how the two engaged in acts of physical intimacy with each other. The Song of Songs spends far more time talking about what Solomon and the Shulamite have to say to each other than on how the two engage in acts of physical intimacy with each other—which is somehow, that's sometimes how it's characterized. It's totally unfair. Even if you grant some of the more ambiguous texts in the book, ones that might be difficult to tally what's exactly going on—even inclusive of those more ambiguous texts, I count only eight verses in this whole book of 117 verses that speak overtly about exchanges of physical intimacy. That's less than 7% of the book. The emphasis is very clearly on speech.

And that's not just a matter of interest for biblical weird people like me. I think it's a feature of the song that holds strong implications for Christian marriage today. And I'm thinking here of vows, pledges. My wife may cook a fancy meal or bake her famous sourdough bread and all of these wonderful things, and it is very tasty. But for all these wonderful things, I am first and foremost to my wife what she has said about me in the sacred assembly. Far beyond whatever else she gives to me are the words she spoke to me, for my own rehearsing—to her, to others, to myself—throughout the whole course of our marriage: "wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part, according to God's holy will; and I pledge to you my faithfulness." These words, vows, pledges are at the heart and essence of what I am to her, and should therefore be fresh in mind, for recounting, through thick and thin, whatever comes our way—richer, poorer, and so on—not unlike the ups and the downs of the relationship between Solomon and the Shulamite, on which I'll say a little bit more in a moment.

In fact, the very literary structure of this book reinforces this same claim from a different direction. So I told you before, the Song of Songs has eight total chapters, okay? Where's the center point of the Song of Songs? It'll be at the end of chapter 4, the beginning of chapter 5. And that's no coincidence that that's exactly where they join together in the garden and they consummate their marriage. That's where they have this physical intimacy. That's the centerpiece. It occurs right in the middle. What's striking about it is what's on each side of that exchange of intimacy. In chapter 4—sorry, I don't have all these texts; if you have Bibles, you can look at them; I'll tell you what's going on, but you can trust but verify—in chapter 4, Solomon offers a hymn of praise for the Shulamite's body. And in chapter 5, the Shulamite does the same for Solomon.

After Solomon speaks seven verses of this, he then says, for the first time in the book—this is 4:8, if you're tracking that—she is his bride. This is a nuptial term that he then repeats to her five times in the next five consecutive verses: 4:8, 4:9, 4:10, 4:11, 4:12. You can look at them. Before they unite conjugally in 5:1. On the other side of this central moment, and in a similar fashion, the Shulamite speaks her hymn of praise—just like he had for her, she speaks a hymn of praise to Solomon's body—before confessing, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine," which is language that is evocative of God's covenantal marriage with his people. "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine." Think of our Lord saying often, "I will be your God, and you will be my people"—that kind of covenantal pledge.

So you see the implications here. These powerful words of marital pledge and commitment bracket the physical consummation of their love for each other. Bride, bride, bride, bride, bride—that comes first, then the intimacy. Bride, bride, bride, bride, bride. And on the other side, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine." The speeches that they give to each other, in other words, frame their intimacy. It gives it its meaning. And it endures whether the couple is together or apart, for better or for worse, and so on. Without pledges or vows along these lines, physical intimacy has no sacred context or character or framework, and is therefore none other than unholy, irreverent, and, as our marriage rite puts it—and you pastors know this—simply carried out in the passion of lust. Those pastors who have done the marriage rite, you know this language: "simply carried out in the passion of lust."

But in the Song of Songs is a marriage that does not exist without words, is largely characterized by words, and in certain respects is framed by words—and not just any words, but sacred words, confessed for the sake of a sacred estate: vows and pledges in the midst of a sacred assembly, to recognize that the one-flesh union of husband and wife is sacred turf, with sacred contours that have been providentially arranged by our Lord before the creation of this world. I'm reminded here of a wedding sermon that Luther preached, where he said that you should look on your wife as if she were the only woman on earth, as if not a single other woman existed. You should look on your husband as if he were the only man on earth, not a single man other than him exists. So that no king—yes, not even the sun—should shine brighter and light up your eyes as much as your wife or your husband. Because right here you have God's Word, which promises you this woman or this man. This Word of God gives you this woman or this man, saying, "This man shall be yours; this woman shall be yours; this pleases me greatly." All angels and creatures rejoice because of it. There is no greater adornment than God's Word, with which you look on your wife as a gift from God.

So that's a good place to start, I think: the Song of Songs showing us a courageous confession of what marriage is, as this confession takes place between husband and wife, and then is confessed as well beyond those confines. One man, one woman, in a holy estate whose physical intimacy is framed by these sacred pledges for recounting—to one another, to the self, and to others—until death does those two part.

On a related note here, I noticed that Dr. John Kleinig—you know that name, right? John Kleinig wrote several things, but that most recent book, Wonderfully Made—who knows that book, Wonderfully Made? All right, that's right. And the rest of you? Okay, now it's time for public shaming. No, it's a great book. Lexham Press. Lots to say in there; I commend it. Wonderfully Made is the title—Kleinig, K-L-E-I-N-I-G. But I noticed in there that he has a little quote where he references the Song of Songs. And he said—this is the context of Christian marriage and so on; he used the Song of Songs as a kind of text that extols marriage—he says, "When married people use this poetry, that is, of the Song of Songs, to meditate on each other physically and sexually, God himself orders and refines, purifies and sanctifies, their imagination and their desire for each other." That's not too bad. It's pretty good. And that alone is more than enough, I think, to make this book great again, as it were. That was pretty bad. But anyway, I've just gotta see if you're still with me at all.

Part two: the Song of Songs also teaches us that this very state of marriage will be resisted. This shouldn't surprise us. In fact, if you track the Song of Songs carefully—I won't get into all this today—but you'll see how marriage suffers ridicule and persecution from a number of different places, including the extended family (that's in there), the world, and even the wider church. But the book does this to equip us, I think, to keep us ready and able to give a courageous defense of marriage, especially in the midst of a corrupt culture that we live in.

One of the clearest ways I think the Song of Songs depicts ongoing opposition to marriage is by way of the Daughters of Jerusalem. It's a fascinating group. I mentioned earlier they basically stand for this wider assembly. And they listen in, and they're very intrigued by what they hear, and they offer encouragement sometimes, and even praise sometimes. And then at other times, they are certainly in need of some guidance and instruction. It's the question that they twice ask in 5:9 that really intrigues me for our purposes here. After the Shulamite learns that Solomon had turned and gone away, she goes searching throughout the city and ends up getting beaten up by the city's watchmen. In 5:7, you can see that "the watchmen found me; they bruised me and beat me and took away my veil." I'll return to that in a moment. Now she's bruised, she's unveiled. She urges the Daughters of Jerusalem to swear that if they find Solomon, they are to tell him that she is "sick with love"—5:8 there. I'll return to that phrase too in a moment.

It's in this response to this solemn plea that the Daughters of Jerusalem then ask, in 5:9—you can see it there—"What is your beloved more than another beloved, O most beautiful among women? What is your beloved more than another beloved, that you thus adjure us?" Notice how they twice ask why the Shulamite's beloved is so special—a given, especially given what had just happened to her. She gets beat up and unveiled and so on. Why would you go through all that? They wonder, and still persist in this "sickness" you are calling love. Is the kind of love you are pursuing with your beloved, and bearing witness to by your actions, really worth all this? What's so special about this beloved, especially in relation to another kind of beloved?

And it's at this point where I think the questions of the daughters should start to sound familiar. What's so special about marriage that you can't lighten up a bit? Why only one beloved, or only that beloved, or only male-and-female beloved? Better yet, why not redefine beloved? Or make beloved a social construct, or a fluid concept? "What is your beloved more than another beloved?" This the Daughters of Jerusalem will be asking about the estate of marriage throughout the ages. And sometimes things will even get violent.

To illustrate that, let's return to those so-called watchmen, who beat her up as she was going about the city. This is not the first time that they appear in the book; the watchmen actually appear in chapter 3, where—this is 3:3, if you're looking and following—the Shulamite simply tells us there that "the watchmen found me as they went about the city." And that's the end of it. They left her unharmed. They didn't do anything. Okay, in chapter 3 the watchmen just—yeah, they saw her, and it was fine. Chapter 5, it doesn't go so well. So why is it, then, that in this first encounter in chapter 3 they leave her alone, but during the second, things get ugly? There are a lot of details here that I'll skip, but to make a long story short: in chapter 3 she appears to be dreaming. In that context, she's imagining an encounter with the watchmen that will take place peacefully and uneventfully. But by the time you get to chapter 5, she says, "My heart is awake"—chapter 5, verse 2—"my heart is awake," and it's awake even more fully when he's knocking at the door. She gets out of bed, opens the door, no one's there. She then searches—now we're at 5:6 here on the screen. She then searches. And then she gets roughed up.

Back in chapter 3, she imagines how the encounter with the watchmen should go. She searches, and she bears witness to the same kind of love that she has for him, and this activity on her part, this very pious confession on her part, should—as it plays out in her mind—come at no resistance, much less persecution. In reality, however, things are much different. In chapter 5, she experiences the real deal. In reality, the watchmen want nothing to do with the kind of love they see being displayed in her. Does that sound familiar? As we imagine the scenario playing out—our witness to what marriage is, by our words, by our actions, will bring about a peaceful and tolerant hearing. In reality, however, just as the Shulamite experienced, such witness will continue to elicit degrees of resistance and even persecution. And maybe we haven't been on the receiving end of a physical beating—although those certainly do happen. Perhaps we have felt the effects of a verbal beating: bigot, homophobe, misogynist. Or financial beatings—think of the fines and the firings. Or institutional beatings. This one's kind of near and dear to me; this is where I work. Universities being classified as LGBTQ-unfriendly and whatever else, whatever other lists are out there—the Concordias find their way onto some of these lists.

But whatever the attack may be, we also join with the Shulamite in giving a courageous defense. Immediately after she was interrogated by the Daughters of Jerusalem, her response—this is in 5:10, so the very next verse—her response begins with a confession about the nature and character of her beloved, and I think we should follow suit. So—just because this was already—where is this thing? I had this slide a couple minutes ago; there it is. Since this was already up—so there you go. She responds with a confession about the nature and character of her beloved, and I think we'd be wise to follow suit. We can draw on her words. And our response to any animosity that comes our way should begin with the fact that we have a beloved who is distinguished among ten thousand. There is simply no other like him. He is radiant, he is almighty, and he is altogether desirable. His love for us is as strong as death, prevailing over even the grave. This is our beloved; this is our friend. There is no other like him.

And as a witness to his great love for us, this same beloved has instituted marriage between one man and one woman until death does them part, to be the clearest depiction in all of his creation of the marriage he has with each and every one of us by means of his only-begotten Son. There is no other union in all creation like this one-flesh union between husband and wife, established as it is with his word and blessing, grafting these two people into a trajectory of procreation, presupposing the biological realities of male and female that can be observed across the very fabric of creation—the very creation that's filled with doves and herbs and water and spices and gold and everything else the Shulamite mentions.

And, at the end of the day, we Christians, whether married or not, are indeed, with the Shulamite, "sick with love." That is—it's a very fascinating word, this word for "sick." It's like Hezekiah being on his deathbed, sick. We embody a love for our beloved that is ultimately oriented toward dying, a love that is constantly undergoing mortification at the hands of the world in order to bear witness to the nature of that love that is stronger than death—the very love we have with our beloved on high by means of his Son. It's a constant putting to death as the only way to life. This is the way of our beloved. This is uniquely reflected in holy matrimony, and this is the kind of defense of marriage the Song of Songs is meant to stir up in us.

With that in mind—having first taken a look at the courageous confession of what marriage is, and now just here a look at the courageous defense of what marriage is—in this third and final part, I'd like to also talk about how the Song of Songs gives us courageous instruction about what marriage is for the sake of others. This is another fascinating feature in the Song of Songs: how it shows great concern for those who are wishing to participate in what this book describes as "the love," and always uses the definite article throughout the whole thing, which is just great. There's "love"—you've talked about love. "I love you, honey," whatever. The Song of Songs uses the definite article throughout the whole book: "the love." This is the love. You've heard of love? That's great. You got a Hallmark card, that's great. This is the love. This is the love.

Once again, it does this from a few different angles, and here I'll take a look at just two of them: the Shulamite's repeated adjuration to the Daughters of Jerusalem—I'll put those up for you—and then an unusual question that's posed near the end of the book regarding how to deal with one's little sister. So let's take a look at these.

First things first: four times in the book, in some form or another, drilled into the ears of its hearers, much like a sermon theme, the Shulamite adjures the Daughters of Jerusalem like this: "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases." Each of these is worth a close look. So, that language "adjure you"—that is, literally, "I cause to swear you," "I put you under oath," as it were. It's like causing someone to swear, urgently begging you, I guess, in one way. "Daughters of Jerusalem"—that's, again, the wider assembly. "By the gazelles and does of the field." Now, this is just how it goes, and that is: the "gazelle" word—what's the word for gazelles? It is tsevaʾot—where are those Hebrew peeps back there? Yeah, tsevaʾot. When you sing the Sanctus, and you say "Lord God of hosts"—yeah, same word. See how clever that is? That's awesome. Now, it's not in English, I know. That's part of how this goes. "I adjure you"—I cause to swear you—"by the Sabaoth oath." Yeah, divine turf. So this is not even a Christian thing; this is a Jewish thing, really, long before. And that is, this is an evocation of God. Both ancient and modern, Jewish and Christian commentators—this is an allusion to God. That's just 101 business right there. "That you not stir up or awaken the love until it pleases"—that you don't take matters of the love into your own hands.

Okay, so what does this mean? It's a good Lutheran question now: what does this mean? Well, I think the first thing that's kind of interesting is that there's a particular context in which each of these four appears throughout the book. So the first one takes place right after the Shulamite is thinking about how she was once together with Solomon. She was thinking about it. In the second one, she's dreaming. In the third one, she's actually searching—we talked about that third one, 5:7. And then in the fourth and final one, it's similar to the first one in that she's again thinking, this time about how wonderful it would be to be with Solomon again. The Shulamite is begging her hearers, her readers, to recognize that divine love—the love—is a love that comes to us and draws us in by way of a God-pleasing order and arrangement. We simply cannot earn the love, or redefine the love, in any way according to our own will and whim. In each of these, she is either thinking or dreaming or searching for the love before it suddenly approaches in its own way and at its own time. We could think here of one's entrance into the bride of Christ by means of holy baptism. It's entirely his work. We could think here of one's entrance into Christian marriage as a reflection of the marriage between Christ and his bride—whether you are dreaming, or thinking about, or earnestly searching for it, that too happens in his time. This actually might have been in the apostle Paul's mind when he tells both the married and the unmarried in Corinth to lead the life that the Lord has assigned to you.

In any case, the repeated adjuration throughout the Song of Songs is about adhering to divine order and arrangement. We are dealing with a sacred estate that has well-defined contours that are well beyond human talent and ability. Peter Kreeft, the philosopher, sensed this when he writes: "The fact that God spiritually impregnates us, and not vice versa; the fact that God creates new life in us, and not vice versa; the fact that God comes into us, and not vice versa, cannot be changed any more than the fact that a man impregnates a woman, and not vice versa." Why any marriage at all among humanity, if not to give a picture of a much greater marriage? We heard about that in the sermon today—forming man from the dust of the ground. Why not just do that ten million times? Why any marriage at all among humanity, if not to give a picture of a much greater marriage? Why a gendered humanity, with biological realities of male and female that can be observed to varying extents across the fabric of creation—the animal kingdom and so on—if not to depict the greatest kind of complementarity possible?

So to obscure what marriage is, is to obscure not only the order of creation but also the order of salvation. And the same goes for gender. To obscure what gender is, is to obscure the witness that male and female each gives to the nature of salvation. And the same should be said about being single, too, while we're at it. To obscure what being single is all about obscures, in the words of Kleinig, "the single-minded service that reflects Christ's wholehearted service to his heavenly Father." So Kleinig continues, "When God considers the sexual union of husband and wife in marriage, and the devotion of an unmarried person to Jesus, he sees in them a preview of Christ's union with his beloved earthly bride. That gives both marriage and a single life eternal worth." In this way, God's divine order and arrangement for marriage and human sexuality is forever tied to that ultimate reality which it reflects. All of this, I would submit, is encompassed by the Shulamite's repeated admonition in this Song of Songs: "I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the does of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases."

One other way—it's pretty remarkable, and I'll end with this—and that is that this book offers courageous instruction about marriage, sexuality, and so on, that comes toward the end. And it speaks especially well to those wishing to enter into holy matrimony. Usually the ESV, some of these English versions, give something like "final advice." I don't know if that's helpful; I guess that's fine, "final advice." It's not in the Hebrew, but this is how these things go. But it's kind of fitting, because that's sort of what's taking place. "We have a little sister, and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister on the day when she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we will build on her a battlement of silver; but if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar." It's probably the brothers who are talking here; we're not explicitly told. And there's a lot of details, but I'll just kind of cut to the chase here. The imagery of a wall—I highlighted the term—the imagery of a wall is, throughout this book and elsewhere, a symbol of protection, inviolability. And the door, on the other hand, conveys the allowance of invasion. And so it speaks to the issue of chastity. And so the brothers conclude: if their little sister is a wall, they'll heap silver upon her, loads of praise for the precious value of fidelity. But if she's a door, they will instead enclose her with boards of cedar, which I take—and many others take—to be a clear allusion to the temple, a place of forgiveness, especially in a book of Solomon, who built a temple. Solomon, right? And he speaks in this book of "the beams of our house are cedar," and again, all of this in the book of Solomon. So they'll bring her to the temple.

I'll end here because this book revolves overwhelmingly around the nature and character of the love between Solomon and the Shulamite, but it also gives a profound concern for those not yet spoken for, those not yet incorporated into the love in some way. So it anticipates its hearers, its readers; before it concludes, it gives them a word of instruction how to deal with the love, a word of rebuke for those stirring up the love before it pleases, a word of encouragement for those striving to remain faithful regarding the love. Lots of law and gospel, we might say. Why does it do this? To encourage members of the bride of Christ—to encourage them to be constantly speaking, constantly defending, constantly having conferences like these, constantly encouraging one another about matters pertaining to the love. It means that we should be praising fidelity, for example, while also pointing to the need for forgiveness and proclaiming how indeed we have it. It also means that we should be calling a thing what it is, whether consistent or inconsistent with God's design and purposes for marriage and sexuality. And in every case, seek to bring about one who finds peace—that's 8:10.

The Shulamite wasn't perfect. We know this about her. She was scorned because of her darkness and so on, and yet Solomon calls her "my perfect one." She has no flaw. The ultimate aim of this book, then, is to bestow the peace of perfect fidelity, even and especially for those who have fallen short, and this comes, of course, by way of one far greater than Solomon—our perfect, peaceful one, who forgives, renews, and makes flawless, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

In the end, I would submit to you that this book offers an unparalleled window into how divine love—the love—lives and moves and has its being. And it comes with many implications for marriage and human sexuality. It speaks a lot about lilies and doves, but it is far more than daisies and kittens. In this book, you will find a courageous conversation: a courageous confession of what marriage is, a courageous defense of what marriage is, and courageous instruction for what marriage and sexuality are all about. And I think it's something, in light of this, of an overlooked resource for sexual sanity in decadent times.

In the second-to-last verse of the book, Solomon longs to hear the voice of his bride and calls out for it with these words: "O you who dwell in the gardens, with companions listening for your voice, let me hear it." It's a cry for us too, to speak and bear witness to what marriage and human sexuality are all about, to have courageous conversations about these matters until our Lord returns like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountain of spices. May God grant it, for our Bridegroom's sake. Thank you very much.