The Song of the King of Peace

1The Song of songs, which is Solomon’s. 2Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth; for your love is better than wine. 3Your oils have a pleasing fragrance. Your name is oil poured out, therefore the virgins love you. 4Take me away with you. Let us hurry. The king has brought me into his rooms. Friends We will be glad and rejoice in you. We will praise your love more than wine! Beloved They are right to love you.

*The Song of Solomon* was written by Solomon, and its name means “the beautiful song.” The Jews read a particular book at each of their feasts: at the Passover they read *the Song of Solomon*, and at Pentecost *Ruth*. At the Feast of Tabernacles they read *Ecclesiastes*, at Purim *Esther*, and on the day Jerusalem fell they read *Lamentations*.

The word God never appears once in *the Song of Solomon*. There is nothing there but a love story between a man and a woman, King Solomon and the Shulammite. Chapters one through eight record the love of a man and a woman, physical love included, and looking at that, it is not easy to draw out of it the love between God and believers.

But as we know, the Bible is without fault and without error, written by the inspiration of God’s revelation. So we must find the work of salvation hidden like treasure inside *the Song of Solomon*. Read it literally and it is easy to see only the love of a man and a woman. Look deeper, though, and you see that in his love for the Shulammite Solomon has set down in detail the relationship between God and the people he chose.

Before you read *the Song of Solomon*, remember first that the whole Bible, all sixty-six books from Genesis to Revelation, testifies to nothing but Christ. Then you can see the work of redemption running through the whole of Scripture, and you will meet the deep love of Christ hidden inside *the Song of Solomon*.

Solomon was king of Israel. He spoke three thousand proverbs and his songs numbered a thousand and five, so he was a man who had both outstanding wisdom and spiritual power. The wisdom he received from God was astonishing, because it came through the prayer of his father David and God’s answer to it. With that wisdom he wrote *the Song of Solomon*, taking his own love for the Shulammite and making it a love toward God.

Now he is beginning a song of love for one woman. Solomon held the rank of a king; the Shulammite had been made a vineyard keeper because her brothers mistreated her. The love between the two of them rose above rank and circumstance.

One day the Shulammite saw Solomon, who had come to the vineyard, and fell in love with him. Love begins like this, with a chance meeting. That a vineyard keeper should meet King Solomon was an event like a miracle in her life. Everyone dreams a Cinderella dream of meeting such a miracle, and lives holding on to that longing. When people of the world study hard, they do it to rise in rank; and when they work at raising their own worth, that too is an effort to catch the eye of some king of this world. The character and the position of the person you meet change your life that much. That is why people give everything they have to a meeting.

What meeting are you praying for? It is true that the road your life takes changes according to whom you meet. Some live unhappily because of a meeting they never wanted and never chose, and others meet a person of character and steadiness and spend a lifetime happy and at peace.

Meeting a pastor, meeting a husband or a wife, meeting a friend — every one of these can change your life, so you must be very careful. There are people who go spiritually barren because they came to the wrong church and the wrong pastor, and there are couples who spend in tears the time that should have been happy, because they married the wrong person. Parents take an interest in their children’s friends because those friends have that much influence on their children’s lives. Children judge poorly, so parents guiding them with sound judgment is a matter that decides their children’s future.

What do you think about the pastor beside you, your husband or wife, your friends? Come to the wrong church or the wrong pastor and you will suffer great spiritual harm. That would probably be the most damaging thing that could happen in your life, because you could end up as chaff who attends church and is never saved.

We cannot choose our parents or our children either, but meeting the person who will be the husband or wife you make a home with is a meeting so important that it decides one person’s happiness or misery, so you must choose carefully. When both wife and husband work at every moment for the other, both of them precious and beautiful, that home can be at peace. The meeting of those two carries on into the happiness of their children, and inside that home they can share their hearts and share a real love. If you have already chosen someone and made a home, you must take responsibility for it. Once there are children it is no longer a matter for the couple alone; a child’s whole life hangs on it, so any parent must train themselves to give themselves up.

Loving someone begins with giving myself up and sacrificing. If my strength hurts the other person, I must take the seat of the servant; if my weakness causes the other person pain, real love is to put myself down without hesitating.

Christians are people who have been given a particular blessing: by meeting Christ they became children of God. Without that meeting with Christ we would never have dared to call God our Father, and we would never have received eternal life.

Romans 5:8

8But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Christ paid for our sins and died on the cross, and that is the love of God toward us, who are sinners. God went as far as putting his only Son to death in order to meet sinners lower than worms. Hold this costly blessing of God in your heart while you read *the Song of Solomon*, and you will hear a beautiful song of love.

Solomon’s name means “peace.” That is to say, Solomon is the king of peace.

Isaiah 9:6

6For to us a child is born. To us a son is given; and the government will be on his shoulders. His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

The prophet Isaiah is saying that Christ, like Solomon, is the king of peace.

And the name Shulammite means “daughter of peace.” The love of Solomon and the Shulammite is the love story of Christ, the king of peace, and believers, the daughter of peace. Solomon had to come down from the throne and come to the Shulammite as a man before that love was possible; in the same way the love between Christ the king of peace and believers the daughter of peace was possible because Christ left his throne and came to this earth in the form of a sinner.

Love is possible when one side sacrifices. Nothing is better than two people loving each other equally, but a love can last forever when one side waits in a spirit of sacrifice and pours love out. The relationship between Christ and believers was possible because Christ sacrificed himself entirely. If Christ had not sacrificed himself in obedience to God’s will, there would be no work of salvation and no eternal life for the people God chose. The Shulammite received Solomon’s love with her whole self and came to love him; in the same way believers must receive the love of Christ with their whole selves, love him, boast of him before the whole world, and serve him.

Song of Solomon 1:3

3Your oils have a pleasing fragrance. Your name is oil poured out, therefore the virgins love you.

Verse 3 tells us this: just as Solomon was anointed as king, so Jesus too was anointed with the Holy Spirit, with the standing of high priest, prophet and king. Solomon’s name spread through every land as a great king, and the Shulammite, who was loved by that Solomon, came to be loved by everyone as well. The name of Jesus, born in little Judea, has spread over the whole earth and is loved by many believers. So the name of a believer who is loved by him is also made glorious in God.

Someone who has walked into a room where perfume has been sprayed carries that scent out with them. Brushing it off does not make it go away, so you will smell that good scent on them. It is only natural that a believer who holds Christ inside should give off the fragrance of the Lord. To keep that fragrance you must be zealous in faith, and must work at living as a virgin who is spiritually clean.

But the world will not leave a believer alone to live holding Christ. Just as the serpent deceived Eve and drew her away from God, it tempts believers so that their hearts will not be true toward Christ. Thinking hard about how to guard that love, wrestling with it — that is the work believers have to do inside their faith. Without a burning love for God, a faith will lean to the left and the right and will not go straight down one road.

Song of Solomon 1:4

4Take me away with you. Let us hurry. The king has brought me into his rooms. Friends We will be glad and rejoice in you. We will praise your love more than wine! Beloved They are right to love you.

For the king to call her into his chamber means entering the innermost room of all the rooms in the palace. A woman who goes into that inner room with the king comes under the same protection the king has for his own person. While the Shulammite is in the inner room with Solomon she has no need of any doubt or any fear. When she is with Solomon, the soldiers who guard the king guard her too. That is how she has become the most preciously protected woman in the world. Believers, too, when they are with Christ, have no need to be afraid that the world will obstruct or attack them, and no need to doubt whether Christ will protect them from Satan’s attacks. A believer who is loved by the Christ who gave his life has only to rest with Christ, inside Christ’s power. Because once you are in Christ, every problem that arises in the world is worked on from then by Christ himself, not by the believer.

Romans 8:38-39

38For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from God’s love, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The apostle Paul tells us plainly that for those who are with Christ, neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor anything else can separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Inside Solomon’s arms she has only to think of Solomon and love him; in the same way believers who are in Christ have only to look at Christ, trust him and love him. Everything in the world that comes at the Shulammite is Solomon’s business now. To protect the woman Solomon will call up all his authority, all his wealth and all his people, and will guard her. This is exactly what Christ is like.

You are the bride who is loved by Christ. Christ is calling up all the power of heaven, the angels and the authorities, and is guarding you. So your work is to trust that he will protect you from any attack at all. A love that trusts without doubting is a true love, and a love that hands itself over completely gives the other person a greater sense of responsibility. Christ is fighting a spiritual war for you at this moment. It is because the Lord is there that you were able to live through today, and that you will live tomorrow inside joy as well. As long as you are with Christ, every hard problem you are holding has become a problem for Christ to solve.

Trust the Lord’s power and hand it over to him. He will surely give you an answer that brings joy, and he will make a way of escape. Christ gives his own life and asks for love — what would he ever hold back? Now receive that light and shine with it, so that his love can shine.

May you always receive the love of God in full inside Christ. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.