GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
SONG OF SOLOMON 4:11-12
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11 Your lips drip honey from the honeycomb, my bride!
Honey and milk are under your tongue.
The fragrance of your garments
is like the fragrance of Lebanon.
Verse 11 continues the thought of verse 10, that the bride’s kisses are sweet, and that her fragrance is delightful. Lebanon was a region filled with the aroma of pines and cedars; my mother always used to take a deep breath whenever she would open her cedar chest. She didn’t always comment, but her audible “Mmm” was enough, and the memory of her little pleasure still lingers in my heart long after.
A husband should give his wife compliments whenever he has an opportunity, and they should be clear and specific. Here, the husband has praised his wife’s lips and her kisses, but also the scent of her clothes. To tell her that he likes her kisses invites more of them. To say that he likes the scent of her clothes tells her that he likes many things about her: her choices in what she wears, in the way that they look on her, in the way that she washes them, and more. A wife whose husband likes her, and who lets her know, is a wife who is blessed more than she knows. For a woman who has a husband but is not loved is one of the three or four things that makes the whole earth tremble (Proverbs 30:23). But, “A modest wife adds charm to charm, and no balance can weigh the value of the chaste soul.”
Spiritually, each and every Christian must listen to and believe the compliments that Christ gives to his people. When he praises our righteousness, we should and must be delighted, for he himself gave us that righteousness. The same is true of our faith, of our forgiveness, and of our place with him forever in heaven. He does not say such things about us idly, as if they are mere wishes. These are the very things he delights in most, and he has handed them out to each of us, pouring them on us in our baptism.
12 You are an enclosed garden, my sister, my bride,
An enclosed spring, a sealed fountain.
For a long time, Lutherans have answered the claims of the Pope and his priests that this verse and some others like it (Song 2:2; 4:7) elevate the Virgin Mary and her own immaculate conception. The “enclosed spring” is thought by Roman Catholics to be Mary’s womb, the sealed fountain never violated by any man, from which Christ sprang. Modern Christians are so far removed from the Catholic claim that Mary was sinless that they need to have the doctrine explained before they can respond through the Scriptures.
The doctrine brought forward by the Roman Catholic Catechism is this: that to become the mother of the Savior, “Mary was enriched by God with gifts appropriate to such a role.” The angel Gabriel saluted her as “highly favored (full of grace)” (Luke 1:28). The claim is that “full of grace” means that she was redeemed from the moment of her conception. Passages like those mentioned above from the Song of Solomon are used to support this claim.
Our response comes from the lips of Mary herself, who sang in the Magnificat, “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (Luke 1:47). Mary’s fallibility is also proved by her actions in the Gospels, such as when she believed and said about her son, “He is out of his mind” (Mark 3:21, cp. 3:32). Mary, a sinful human woman, needed a Savior from her sins just as Eve, the mother of all sinners, needed a Savior from her sins. On top of this, all of the saints– that is, the whole Christian church– are said to be “blameless” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Likewise, Christ “chose us before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Ephesians 1:4). Do these passages mean that not one single Christian has ever been stained with original sin? Not at all. But we are all (including Mary, the mother of Jesus) stainless of sin because this stainlessness is imputed to us all through faith in Jesus, in God our Savior.
In our text, the husband’s delight is that his wife is like an enclosed garden, a fountain that is forbidden to all but himself. This is the difference between chastity and celibacy. Chastity is the bride’s love, which is only for her husband. Celibacy is the rejection of marriage and of God’s will for men and women to be married. Doesn’t Paul speak about celibacy and living an unmarried life when he says, “I wish that all men were as I am” (1 Corinthians 7:7)? But Paul’s wish is tempered by his own admission that living an unmarried life is a special gift that few have, for “each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.”
When we apply this verse to Christ and the church, we remember that God does not want us to be barren with our faith, but to act on it. Consider how often God compares keeping the First Commandment with keeping the Sixth. The idolater is constantly compared with the adulterer. “They are all adulterers, a crowd of unfaithful people” (Jeremiah 9:2). “A spirit of prostitution leads them astray; they are unfaithful to their God” (Hosea 4:12). “She will return to her hire as a prostitute and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth” (Isaiah 23:17).
Perhaps there is time for one more observation. Jesus sometimes said that “when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven” (Mark 12:25; Luke 20:36; Matthew 22:30). We believe that this means that marriage ends in death, and that marriage will not continue in heaven, nor will any new children be born in heaven. However, we also know from such passages as Luke 16:22-23 that we will still know and recognize one another in heaven. Friends will still be friends, and so on, but without any sin, jealousy, or covetousness. Therefore, permit a widower to carry through with these things and apply them to our text. The one who called a woman, his best friend, “My sister, my bride,” in this world, will no longer call her or think of her as “my bride” in paradise. This we accept. But the same man teasingly calls her “my sister” in life, meaning much more than that, as a nickname given for their intimacy. But if “sister” meant less than “bride” in their relationship on earth, and if “bride” will mean less (far less) in their relationship in heaven, doesn’t it follow that “sister” will mean more, far more, in their relationship in heaven, just as “bride” means less, far less, likewise in heaven? Therefore, the one who was his bride, his lover, his best friend, in this lifetime, will remain his friend, his sister, in paradise? But there will be no jealousy, and therefore she will be happy to share his friendship with all who are there, and he will be happy to share her friendship with all who are there. But they will not cease to be friends themselves, and a sinless, ideal, and perfect friendship will continue for them as for all, all on account of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Forever.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Song of Solomon 4:11-12 My sister. My bride.