GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
SONG OF SOLOMON 5:9
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The Friends
9 What makes your husband better than any other husband,
O most beautiful among women?
What makes your husband more than any other husband,
that you make us swear an oath?
The word for “husband” is the same as “lover” throughout the Song, but since the context of the Song is always marriage, lover versus husband in the translation might give a wrong idea to a modern ear, since lover and husband are no longer synonymous in our culture. Sins against the Sixth and Tenth Commandments are so rampant and commonplace that shame itself is attacked openly as a greater sin than any violation of God’s law. We live in a time when “Pride Month” is an attack on the Commandment itself, a taller tower than Babel with an even greater tone of arrogance; a fist shaking angrily at God.
But returning to the text, friends of the couple ask: What makes your husband the best one? What makes him so much more? Better in what way? More than what? These are natural questions, and to the reader in most languages, they are questions that don’t make any sense because they present a comparison without anything to compare: Better, more.
But classical Hebrew is content to do this. It allows the one who answers to give whatever answer occurs. In this case, the wife will answer in verses 10-16, with a description of the husband’s appearance. But that isn’t the only answer. Even in marriage, there is more to a man than the way he looks. But the description of the way one’s spouse looks often says more about the one saying it and her love than it says about him.
This is also the opportunity that ancient prophets and modern pastors have to describe Christ for the church. In the Great Sermon, the Creed, Christ is described more in terms of what he did even than his relationship to the Father and the Holy Spirit, although that is not omitted. Consider the well thought-out lines of the Second Article and some of the doctrines that they stand upon:
a, I believe in Jesus Christ. The great statement of faith of the true Christian Church centers on the whole Triune God, but the Second Person of the Trinity is the God-man, Jesus Christ. “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men through by we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). His very name, “Jesus,” means “The Lord Saves.” His title, “Christ,” means “Anointed,” and has become as much his name as Jesus over the centuries, so that today “Christ” means Jesus alone.
b, His only Son. That Jesus would be the Son of God was foreseen and prophesied as far back as the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:15), but God affirmed that promise through David in the Second Psalm: “You are my Son; today I have become your Father” (Psalm 2:7). And John proclaims that Jesus is the only and only-begotten son of the Father (John 1:14; 3:16). The Son as to his human nature was begotten in time through the virgin Mary, but as to his divine nature, he was begotten in eternity and has always lived, reigning as God at the Father’s side, and appearing many times in the Old Testament as the Angel of the Lord, beginning with Hagar in the wilderness (Genesis 21:17-18).
c, Our Lord. “Lord” in Greek (the Creed was originally written in the Greek of the New Testament) is kyrios (κύριoς). The authors of the Creed saw fit to save this word until the Second Article, content to call the Father “God,” and the Son “Lord,” although both God and Lord apply equally to each person of the Trinity, as the Athanasian Creed also shows. In a certain respect kyrios “Lord” is attributed to certain creatures, such as when Joseph is described as “the man who is lord over the land” (Genesis 42:30). But the name kyrios is first and foremost used to refer to the true God alone in a loftier and proper sense. It is one of God’s proper names. The one who is called Lord is the true and eternal God. “Kyrios, your God, is one Kyrios” (Mark 12:29). He is the “One Lord” (Ephesians 4:5). And Paul says: “For though there are many so-called gods in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and ‘lords,’ yet for us there is one Lord (Kyrios)” (1 Corinthians 8:5-6). Jesus Christ is Lord, and he is variously called “the Lord Jesus Christ,” “the Lord Jesus,” and “the Lord” in so short a book as Philemon (Philemon 1:3, 5, 16). “Lord,” teaches Luther, “simply means the same as Redeemer, that is, he who has brought us back from the devil to God, from death to life, from sin to righteousness, and now keeps us safe there” (Large Catechism).
d, Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit. That is to say, Jesus Christ was not conceived by a carnal or fleshly act of any human father, but entirely without any human father or seed of man. This teaches us that he is the Son of God alone, so entirely removed from any human father that God the Father is his only Father, and yet God the Holy Spirit conceived him in the womb of the virgin, cleansing us from our sinful, carnal, impure and damnable conception in our original sin, as the prophet teaches (Psalm 51:5). This was the will of God the Father.
e, Born of the virgin Mary. For our sake, Jesus was born to a human mother who was the wife of a human husband by pledge and engagement by not yet by the consummation of their marriage, and the birth of Jesus did not change Mary’s physical virginity, “so that according to his fatherly mercy God might render our sinful birth to be blessed, innocent and pure, which he does for all believers.”
f, Suffered under Pontius Pilate. This sentence reminds us especially of three things: First, his suffering happened at a particular moment in time in history, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea. Our religion is not based upon myth but upon historical acts and historical facts. Second, the suffering of Jesus is shown to have drawn blood, and his blood was shed for our sins, as he says: “my blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” in the Lord’s Supper (Matthew 26:28). Third, his suffering transforms all suffering and every cross that Christians bear into a blessing, doing the believer no harm at all, and even being beneficial to the Christian and his faith.
g, Was crucified, died, and was buried. These could be taken separately, or as a group. But we do well to remember that by dying with our sins on his head, our sins died with him, and he put our sins to death, and has destroyed even death itself (2 Timothy 1:10). His burial proves, for the skeptic (if necessary) that he did not faint or swoon for our sins, but like any sacrifice, he died. His blood was shed, “and the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
h, He descended into hell. By descending into hell, our Lord Jesus proclaimed his victory over sin and death first of all to the one whom he vanquished, the devil, who was the author of our sin and the terrible enemy who brought death. His message is reflected by the many judgments of the prophets upon sinners, from the least to the greatest: “You will be covered with shame; you will be destroyed forever” (Obadiah 1:10; Micah 7:10; Daniel 7:26). This article reminds us that the devil can no longer harm our souls, nor our eternal bodies, and the small injuries he still inflicts in this lifetime are transformed by Christ into the crosses we bear, and which we have already seen do not harm our faith, but help.
i, The third day he rose again from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus was as the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Corinthians 15:20). Because he lives after death, we too will rise and live forever with him in heaven (1 Thessalonians 4:14).
j. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead. He has received the place of honor and power at the Father’s right hand. All mankind, angels, and devils will have to appear before him on judgment day (Matthew 18:25; Romans 14:10). At that time he will redeem us (Micah 4:10; Galatians 4:5), all who believe in him, from bodily death and also every bodily infirmity. He will also eternally punish his enemies and his adversaries, and he will deliver us from their power forever (Revelation 20:11-14).
These things, O Church of Christ, Bride of Christ, are what makes your Husband, the Lord Jesus, so much more than any husband. This is what he has done for us all. This is most certainly true.
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 5:9 The better Husband