The Old Testament and the New Covenant Part 24
The Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs as it is often called, is a beautiful love ballad between a bridegroom and his bride. In a rapturous display of romance, the bride and her groom share a back and forth portraying their love for each other.
Reading this portrayal through the lens of the new covenant, we see a beautiful foretelling of the powerful love between Christ, our bridegroom, and the church, His bride. The unconditional love expressed in this book is a vibrant picture of Christ’s love for us. I encourage you to read this Old Testament book as a love letter from your bridegroom, Christ Himself.
We will look at three examples of this preview of Christ and His church in the Song of Solomon.
First, “You are altogether beautiful, my darling, and there is no blemish in you” (Song of Songs 4:7).
How is this a picture of us under the new covenant? How did we become clean with no blemish? “Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (I Peter 1:18-19). The unblemished blood of Christ has washed us clean and made us without blemish, “holy and blameless and beyond reproach” (Colossians 1:22).
We are reminded of this in a beautiful song by our friend, Honeytree, from the early days of the Jesus music movement. “Clean before my Lord I stand, and in me not one blemish does He see.” It is a powerful expression of His complete cleansing.
Second, “How beautiful and how delightful you are, my love, with all your charms!” (Song of Songs 7:6).
Did you know that in Christ you live a charmed life? Not “charmed” in the sense of no problems, living on easy street. No, the charms that make you beautiful are your new heart, your new Spirit, your new nature, your new purity, your new self, your new power, your new love for your Savior, and so much more. You are altogether charming.
Finally, “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine, he who pastures his flock among the lilies” (Song of Songs 6:3).
Does our Beloved as a shepherd to his flock sound familiar? “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep” (John 10:14-15). We are the sheep of His pasture. We know the voice of the shepherd. Jesus is the good shepherd. And He does not only pasture His flock, He lays down His life for His sheep.
Three snippets of who we are. Life without blemish, delightful and charming, belonging to our Beloved.
The Song of Solomon is painting a love story that has now come true for us. The Song of Songs is a visual of Jesus taking delight in you. You are deeply loved, completely forgiven, fully pleasing, totally accepted, and absolutely complete in Christ. You are completely beautiful in His eyes!
Jesus is our love in the Song of Solomon, because Jesus was there from the beginning!