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; its Korean name, Aga, means “a beautiful song.” The Jews read a particular book at each of their feasts: at Passover the Song of Solomon, and at Pentecost, Ruth. We are told that they read Ecclesiastes at the Feast of Tabernacles, Esther at Purim, and Lamentations on the day that marked the fall of Jerusalem.

The word “God” does not appear even once in the Song of Solomon. It is nothing but a love story between a man and a woman, King Solomon and the Shulammite. From the first chapter to the eighth, it records the love between a man and a woman, physical love included, so finding in it the love between God and his people is no easy task.

Yet, as we know, Scripture is without flaw and without error, written under the inspiration of God’s revelation, and we ought to grasp the work of salvation hidden like treasure in the Song of Solomon. Read at the literal level alone, the book is easily taken as nothing more than the love of a man and a woman. Look more deeply, though, and you find that through his love for the Shulammite, Solomon set down in detail the relationship between God and his chosen people.

Before you read the Song of Solomon, I hope you will first remember that all sixty-six books of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, bear witness to Christ alone. Then you will see the history of redemption that runs through the whole of Scripture, and you will meet the deep love of Christ hidden within this song.

Solomon, king of Israel, spoke three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered a thousand and five; he was a man endowed with outstanding wisdom and spiritual power alike. The wisdom he received from God was remarkable, for it came through the prayers of his father David and God’s answer to them. With that wisdom he wrote the Song of Solomon, setting down the love between himself and the Shulammite as a love directed toward God.

Now he begins a song of love for one woman. Solomon held the rank of king; the Shulammite had become a keeper of the vineyards because her brothers mistreated her. Their love rose above rank and circumstance.

One day the Shulammite saw Solomon when he came to the vineyard, and she fell in love with him. This is how love begins: with a chance meeting. For a keeper of vineyards to meet King Solomon was something close to a miracle in her life. Everyone dreams a Cinderella dream of a meeting like that and lives with that longing held close. People of the world study hard to rise in status; they labor to raise their own worth so that some king of this world will notice them. They give their best to such meetings, because the course of their lives depends on the character and standing of the one they meet.

What kind of meeting are you praying for? It is true that a life takes a different road depending on whom we meet. Some live unhappily because of a meeting they never wanted and could not help, while others meet someone of sound character and steady temper and spend their whole lives in happiness and peace of mind.

The meeting between a pastor and the people of a church, between husband and wife, between friends—because each of these can change a life, we must approach them with great care. Some people fall into spiritual ruin through finding the wrong church and the wrong pastor. Some couples, badly matched, spend in tears the years that should have been happy. Parents take an interest in their children’s friends for good reason: those friends have a strong influence on a child’s life. Children cannot yet judge well for themselves; that is why a parent’s sound guidance can decide a child’s future.

How do you regard your meeting with the pastor beside you, with your husband or wife, with your friends? To fall in with the wrong church or the wrong pastor brings grievous spiritual misfortune. It would probably prove the most fatal thing that could happen in your life, because you could go to church and still end up as chaff that is never saved.

Again, we cannot choose our parents or our children, but meeting the one who will become our husband or wife and build a home with us is among the most important meetings in a person’s life, deciding whether that life will be happy or unhappy. It must therefore be chosen with care. When a wife and husband both strive at every moment for each other, each dear and lovely to the other, that home can live in harmony. Their meeting flows on into their children’s happiness. Within that home they can open their hearts to one another and share a true love. If you have already chosen your partner and made a home, you must take responsibility for it. And if there are children, it is no longer a matter for the two of you alone. Because your children’s lives are at stake, as parents you must train yourselves in self-denial.

Love begins with giving up the self and making sacrifices. If my strengths are hurting the other person, I must take the place of a servant; if my weaknesses are causing them pain, then firmly putting myself aside is true love.

Christians are people who have received the special blessing of becoming God’s children through meeting Christ. Without that meeting we would never have presumed to call God our Father, nor would we have gained 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 bore the penalty for our sins and died on the cross, and that is God’s love for us, sinners that we are. To meet with sinners lower than worms, God went so far as to give up his only Son, Jesus, to death. If you keep this precious blessing of God in your heart as you read the Song of Solomon, you will hear a beautiful song of love.

Solomon’s name means “peace.” Solomon, in other words, 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 says that Christ, like Solomon, is the “Prince of Peace.”

And the name Shulammite carries the meaning “daughter of peace.” The love of Solomon and the Shulammite is the love story of Christ, the Prince of Peace, and his church, the daughter of peace. That love was possible only if Solomon came down from his throne and came to the Shulammite as a man. So too, our love with the Prince of Peace was possible because Christ left his throne and came to this earth in the likeness of a sinner.

Love is possible when one side makes a sacrifice. Nothing is better than two people loving each other equally, yet it is when one side is willing to give itself up, waiting patiently and pouring out love, that love can last forever. The relationship between Christ and his own was possible because of Christ’s complete sacrifice. Had he not obeyed the will of God and given himself up, there would have been no work of salvation for the chosen people, and no eternal life. Just as the Shulammite took Solomon’s love into her whole being and came to love him, we too must take the love of Christ into our whole being, love him, boast of him to all the 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 that just as Solomon was anointed king, Jesus too was anointed by the Holy Spirit as high priest, prophet, and king. As Solomon’s name spread to every nation as a great king, the Shulammite he loved 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 those he loves is also made glorious in God.

Someone who has been in a room sprinkled with perfume carries its scent out with them. Brushing it off does not make it vanish, and you would still catch a sweet fragrance on them. It is only natural, then, that those who hold Christ in their hearts give off the fragrance of the Lord. To keep that fragrance, we must be zealous in our faith and strive to live as a spiritually pure virgin.

But the world will not leave us to live with Christ in our hearts. As the serpent deceived Eve and caused her to turn away from God, the world tempts us so that our hearts are not true toward Christ. What we must do in our life of faith is think deeply and wrestle with how we will protect that love. Without a burning love for God, our faith will veer to the right or to the left and will never keep wholly to the 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 bring her into his rooms means entering the innermost chamber of the palace. A woman who goes into the inner rooms with the king will be kept as safe as the king himself. While she is with Solomon in those rooms, the Shulammite has no need for doubt or fear. Because the soldiers who guard the king guard her too while she is with him, she has become the most carefully protected woman in the world. So it is with us: when we are with Christ, we need not fear that the world will hinder or attack us, nor wonder anxiously what will happen if Christ does not shield us from Satan’s attacks. Loved by the Christ who gave us life, we need only rest in his power at his side, because once we are in Christ, it is no longer we but Christ himself who goes to work on every problem the world brings.

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 neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth—nothing whatever—can separate those who are with Christ from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

In Solomon’s arms the Shulammite need only think of him and love him; likewise, those who are in Christ need only look to Christ, believe in him, and love him. Everything the world brings upon her is now Solomon’s affair. To protect her he will marshal all his power, his wealth, and his men. That is what Christ is like.

You are the bride whom Christ loves. Christ is watching over you with every power of heaven, with angels and authorities. Your part, then, is to believe that he will protect you from any attack whatever. When love trusts without doubting, it is true love; when it entrusts itself wholly, it gives the other a deeper sense of responsibility. Even now Christ is fighting a spiritual battle on your behalf. Because the Lord is with you, you were able to live through today, and tomorrow too you will live in joy. As long as you are with Christ, every hard problem you carry has become a problem for Christ to solve.

I hope you will trust the Lord’s power and place your burdens in his hands. He will surely give you a joyful answer, and he will cause you to escape. Christ gave his own life and longs for our love; what would he hold back? May you take in that light and shine with it, so that his love may shine.

May you always receive the love of God in Christ in all its fullness. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.