Readings for today: Song of Songs 5:2-8:14, Psalm 45
“I am my lover’s and my lover is mine.” It’s perhaps the most beautiful expression of the oneness Christ desires for us in all the Scriptures. It speaks to the depth of the intimate relationship God desires to have with us. It speaks the union God wants with His people. Nothing held back. Nothing coming between them. All barriers coming down. All walls torn down.
Union with Christ is the “central truth of the whole doctrine of salvation” according to John Murray. You see it reflected in the number of times the Apostle Paul uses the phrase “in Christ” in his letters. 216 occurrences in the Pauline Epistles and 26 times in the Johannine literature. It conveys a wide range of meaning from the righteousness of Christ imputed to believers to the spiritual nourishment we receive from Christ day by day to the life of Christ that manifests itself in our lives as we grow in faith over the years. John Calvin taught that union with Christ was the basis for our justification and sanctification as nothing can happen apart from our relationship with Him.
The Song of Songs speaks to the experience of our union with Christ not just the theological principle. It speaks to the heart rather than the head. It communicates emotion and desire and seeks to awaken in us a deep longing for Christ, the lover of our souls. It’s one of the reasons the Song of Songs was read historically by the church as they prepared to come to the Lord’s Table. Similarly, it is considered one of the festal scrolls by the Jews for Passover. While it may have meaning for the relationship between a man and a woman, the deeper allegorical meaning relates to Christ’s relationship to His people.
God wants us to both know Him and experience Him. He wants to dwell in both our heads and our hearts. He longs for us to walk with Him in the cool of the day as He once did with Adam and Eve. He longs to reveal Himself to us in the day to day. As we reflect and pray over the words from the Song today, ask the Holy Spirit to give you a greater awareness of God’s abiding presence in your life. Ask the Spirit to give you a greater experience of the deep, deep love of the Father and the sacrificial love of the Son. Ask the Spirit to give you the eyes to see and the heart to understand the beauty and wonder and awe of the Triune God.
Readings for tomorrow: Proverbs 1-4