How Do You Love Him?

April 3, 2008

By Jerry Scott

Have you read the Song of Solomon lately? It can make you blush! One of the more "tame" passages reads like this: "You have captured my heart, my treasure, my bride. You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes, with a single jewel of your necklace. Your love delights me, my treasure, my bride. Your love is better than wine, your perfume more fragrant than spices. Your lips are as sweet as nectar, my bride. Honey and milk are under your tongue. Your clothes are scented like the cedars of Lebanon" (Song of Solomon 4:9-11, NLT).

Yes, that’s right. The Bible has a whole book that celebrates the intense physical passion that draws Solomon and a young woman together. Some of it is hard for us to understand, for it is written in metaphor and allusions that are from another era and culture. But even then, we understand this couple was really, really focused on each other! So is this book in the Bible included just to tell us about a couple’s attraction to each other (which, by the way, is God’s design)? I believe there’s another application that goes beyond that first and obvious one.

In the Old Testament Israel is called God’s wife! "For your Creator will be your husband; the Lord of Heaven’s Armies is his name! He is your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of all the earth" (Isaiah 54:5). Nuptial imagery is often used to describe God’s love for His people. When they follow other gods, God calls them adulteresses and speaks to them in the voice of a brokenhearted husband (see Jeremiah 3:6-8).

In the New Testament, the Church is called the Bride of Christ. Christ’s love for His people is a model for spousal love. "Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church — a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her" (Ephesians 5:25,26, The Message).

Since this is the way God sees us — as His love, His wife — we can read the passionate poetry of Solomon’s Song with a secondary understanding about loving our God and Christ with real passion. For many 21st-century Christians the core of their religion is an intellectual exercise. Knowing God becomes learning doctrines, working out a creed and knowing the history of the Bible. They can argue about interpretive models for Genesis, and how scriptural principles shape a humanitarian philosophy of life. All that is good, but that is not all that there is!

We must love God passionately with our hearts. Jesus, quoting Deuteronomy, says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30, NKJV). In addition to our intellect, we are to be passionate in our love and worship of the Lord our God.

How does that look in our everyday living? We ought to let the things that break God’s heart break ours, too. We need to feel His grief when we spurn His love and misdirect our love toward this present world. We should expect Him to come near to us. We should wait for Him to comfort us. We should earnestly desire that He guide us as our loving Husband.

— Jerry D. Scott is senior pastor at Washington (N.J.) Assembly of God.