Adult Sunday School: Marriage - Between God & Israel

Christ and the church. And then I was thinking, well, if we're going to talk about the New Testament view of God's marriage with the church, we should be first looking at the

Old Testament view of God's marriage with his people. And so that's what we're going to do today is we're going to back way up and just look at an overview of what the

Bible says of God's marriage to his people. And once again, this is important because marriage is given as an illustration of God's relationship with his church.

And it's not merely the case that it is an arbitrarily chosen thing from nature used to illustrate, like Jesus does when he tells his parables and he uses farming, he uses all kinds of things to illustrate heavenly truths.

It's more than that. What Ephesians tells us is that it was given to us by God as an illustration of Christ and the church.

So in other words, its purpose, its purpose in God giving it to us was in part to communicate to us about his relationship with us.

So just reading that New Testament passage again. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the

Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as the church is head of, even as Christ is head of the church, his body and is himself its savior.

Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water of the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

And the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.

Therefore, man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

You know, Paul is saying that this mystery, that there's a mystery involved in the union between man and woman and that that mystery refers to the church.

So, in other words, there's something being revealed and yet at the same time concealed through this thing that God has given us in marriage and union between man and woman.

All right, so with that in view, yeah, let's look back at some of the passages where the

Old Testament talks about God's marriage to his people. And these instances give us some instruction.

A lot of times they're only descriptive. We can't take a lot of things out of it necessarily as far as, you know, for example, sometimes it describes

God as being married to both Judah and Israel, right? And so would you conclude from that, oh, well, polygamy is therefore acceptable because God describes himself as a polygamist in these passages?

No, actually the kind of union he's describing to sister wives is explicitly condemned even in Old Testament law.

So that's not a sound conclusion. But there are some conclusions that you would draw looking from the divine marriage to our earthly marriages.

I like that unfaithfulness, you know, results, can result in divorce.

And that is frequently why this marriage is brought up. God has bound himself to his people, he has saved his people, and as they turn against him, he either threatens divorce or actually divorces himself from them in the

Old Testament. All right, I'm going to, let's see, this is just going to be a big, broad overview, so we're going to just look at several passages.

I wanted to read several from Judges just to give you a flavor of what these often look like. Judges 2 .17

says, and yet they did not listen to their judges, their judges being like the lesser kings that existed back then, for they played the whore after other gods and bowed themselves down to them.

They turned aside quickly out of the way in which their fathers walked, obeying the commandments of Jehovah, but they did not, but they did not so.

All right, so frequently, the Bible will speak of idolatry as adultery, right?

It'll speak of it as prostitution. Why? Because they are supposed to be married to the Lord, and for the sake of some benefit, they go after other gods.

And so carrying out that analogy, it describes, yeah, it describes idolatry as prostitution very frequently.

Judges 8 .27, and Gideon made an ephod thereof and put it in his city. Ophrah and all

Israel played the whore after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and to his house. So an ephod being that breastpiece that the priests would wear.

Gideon makes himself one, and then they treat it idolatrously, where they're worshiping it as one would worship

God. And it's described once again as them playing the whore after it. So, you know, doing, making pilgrimages to this thing and worshiping, as opposed to that relationship being dedicated to the

Lord. Judges 8 .33, and as soon as, and it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again and played the whore after the

Balaam and made Baal -barith, their god. Balaam being the

Baals. Im in Hebrew is plural, so that's why I like seraphim, you know, that's fiery ones, or cherubim, right?

Those are, we might say cherubs in English, but a lot of times if you see things more transliterated, more faithfully to Hebrew, it will end in im for plural.

So Balaam is the Baals, the various false gods of Canaan. Psalm 106 .39

speaks the same way. It says, thus they were defiled with the works and played the whore in their deeds.

So why are all these things described as adultery? Because the people are supposed to be committed to the Lord. They're supposed to be committed in a relationship that very much resembles earthly marriage.

All right, so the next passage I want to look at is Jeremiah. Could we have someone read

Jeremiah 3, 1 through 10, and I will read Jeremiah 2, 1 through 3, because that's also relevant.

And the, by the way, trajectory for this lesson, we're going to go through a lot of these passages that talk about spiritual adultery, and then the other half of what we'll be looking at will be the

Song of Solomon. How should you understand the Song of Solomon? Okay.

Jeremiah 2, 1 through 3 says, the word of the Lord came to me saying, go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem.

Thus says the Lord, I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness in a land not sown.

Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest, all who ate of it incurred guilt, disaster came upon them, declares the

Lord. So he talks about their early days of faithfulness as a bride. And then in chapter 3, he speaks about marriage.

Who would like to read that? Albert? 1 to 10. Yeah. And I thought after she had done all this, she will return, but she did not.

She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce.

Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, for she too went and played the whole. Because she took her hoard of lightning, she polluted the land committing adultery of stone and tree.

Yet for all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the

Lord. All right. Thanks. I think it even continues on from there for some time. But that is the brunt of it.

You know, it talks about faithless Israel returned to me, faithless Israel, etc. So a few things there.

First of all, who wants to explain why it talks about Israel and Judah separately?

What's the difference between Israel and Judah? Gemma? Yeah, that's right.

At this point in their history, Judah has broken off and is its own country. That's right.

And so Israel refers to the northern kingdom, the northern ten tribes,

I think. And yeah, the southern kingdom is Judah. And yeah, depending, you know, the way you count the tribes is kind of different each time because does

Levi count as a tribe? That kind of thing. But anyway, yeah, so this is talking about the nation that's been civilly broken apart.

So it's spoken of as two different wives. It's spoken of as Israel and Judah.

And then why does it talk about every hill, every green tree? Why does it talk about hills and trees?

What are the significance of hills in the Bible? You know, David says, I look to the hills. Where does my help come from?

Why does he look to the hills? Yes.

Okay, where you see the sunrise. I think that might have something to do with it. Yeah. Okay, up to toward the heavens, right?

Yeah, the idea is that the gods, whether they be the true God or the false God, that the closest you could get to them was on the hills.

And so this is where people would build their shrines. They would build their shrines to these different gods on the hills, and that's where they'd be worshiped.

So you read these Old Testament prophecies, and it talks about the hills and the mountains and things. This is usually what it's alluding to.

It's usually alluding to false worship. And so where does David's help come from when he looks to the hills? It comes from Zion, right?

It comes from the one hill that the true God lives on in the

Old Testament where you have him physically represented by a temple.

Now that the temple's been destroyed, as Jesus said, those who worship him worship him in spirit and truth, neither on this mountain nor that mountain.

Remember when he spoke to the woman at the well? She asked him about that. She said, your people worship him on this mountain.

We worship him on that mountain. What do you say about that? And then he responds that there's coming a time very soon where he will not be worshiped on any particular mountain.

Let's read a few passages in Ezekiel. So Ezekiel is pretty well known for this. It has two very long chapters on this topic,

Ezekiel 16 and Ezekiel 23. I just want to read a few verses from each of these.

If this is a topic you want to study, you can definitely check those out later. They're fairly graphic, too.

It's very surprising. You know, if you're not used to reading Bible and you come across this for the first time, you'd be surprised at some of the things it says in there describing the unfaithfulness of Israel.

I'm not skipping any of that just to avoid it. I'm skipping it just in the interest of time.

But Ezekiel 16, 8 says, Okay, so it's describing a marriage between God and his people.

And then later on in verse 59, it says,

So it's interesting. God is saying that he's going to treat them according to what they've done. Basically, he's going to break the covenant, but he's also going to remember it, and then he's going to establish an everlasting covenant.

So the sisters becoming daughters, basically, you know, the halves of the kingdom becoming united under Zion, God marrying himself to his people.

So what is the covenant that is broken? What's the eternal covenant that ends up being made? Does anybody know from a

New Testament perspective what this is talking about? Christ?

Yeah, what would you call these covenants, though? This covenant that's going to be broken, the covenant that's going to be established?

Yeah, the old covenant and the new covenant, right? And so Jeremiah 31 prophesies this, too.

Talks about the new covenant that is coming because the old covenant wasn't sufficient. So he's going to divorce his people, but he's going to, in a sense, remarry them.

That's what it's saying. So what we see in the New Testament is when Jesus comes to the people of God who are obligated to him, you know, to worship him rightly, and they reject

Jesus, what happens is God removes himself from them, and allowing the temple to be destroyed in 70

AD, and the gospel goes out to all the nations.

And so there's a new covenant that's established with an even larger people, and yet those of Israel are welcome into it because those who have the faith of Abraham are the true children of Abraham, not those who simply are of his physical descendants, right?

The true sons of Abraham are those of faith, as it says in Galatians 3 .7. Sure, yeah.

The difference is that in the old covenant, people followed the law, and in the new covenant...

Right, yeah, I don't... So the old covenant definitely had sacrifices and things like that, so it's not just a law, law, law covenant.

I mean, there's grace, there's forgiveness, but these things are all happening on a temporal plane, right?

The blessings and curses of it had to do with living in the land. It had to do with the land of Canaan.

If you disobeyed, you would not live long in the land of Canaan. You would be removed. If the people obeyed

God, they would be allowed to continue in the land, and the reason why they get kicked out of the land is because they did not follow after him.

So, but yes, you're right that the new covenant, what Hebrews 8 describes, is it actually changes hearts so that people are willing to follow

God's law, whereas the old covenant, you have all these laws, but not the capacity to obey it.

So Hebrews 8 says, for if the first covenant...

This is Hebrews 8 .7. For if the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

For he finds fault with them when he says... So that's interesting. He mentions that the first covenant was not faultless, but then he describes the fault, and the fault was with the people, not actually the covenant, but the people.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

There you see those nations being talked about distinctly again. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when

I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the

Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the

Lord. I'll put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their

God, and they shall be my people. So this is the difference. The difference with the new covenant is he puts his laws onto their minds and their hearts, so that they are truly his people, and he's truly their

God. And they shall not teach each one his neighbor, and each one his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, for I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

So yeah, there's a perfect forgiveness in the new covenant, and not only does this come with a perfect forgiveness, but this is a full forgiveness of all sins.

This is not just in terms of that temporal covenant to make sure that people can continue living in the land.

This is so that they can live eternally forever in the promised land God has for all, for all his people.

All right, yeah, I'll also add there, Presbyterians tend to interpret this as referring to something that hasn't yet been fulfilled, because they see all, even their children as new covenant members, but they understand that their children may not actually be saved, right?

And so they would say, okay, well, this will happen eventually with the covenant, and I would say if I ever held a debate on baptism, it would be on this passage, because I think this is really, this is really where it comes down to, between Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists anyway, is what, yeah, does new covenant membership guarantee forgiveness, you know?

Is that what this passage is saying or not? And if it does, well then, yeah, a child who may not be saved, who may, you know, who may reveal that they're not truly the

Lord's child, is not, cannot be regarded as a new covenant member, right?

Yes. Yeah, he says,

I will remember your sins no more. Is that an essential part of the new covenant, or is that just something that will happen in the new covenant later, right?

Can someone be a member of the new covenant and then not have their sins forgiven? Yeah, so they would, they would have different categories, a way of distinguishing different kinds of members of the new covenant, but they would consider the children members of the new covenant.

Very few of them. That's, that's a pretty rare position, because they would, they would look at First Corinthians 11 and say, well, you're supposed to examine yourself when you take communion, a child can't examine himself.

So they have, they have a later stage where they have like a commune, where you become a communed member, you know, it's like confirmation.

I think they even call it that. But yeah, he does.

He's a, but he's kind of a bizarre Presbyterian. Yeah, he's, he's just not a, not a typical one.

Yeah. Right. Yeah, so paedo -communion is not a, yeah, that's a minority position among Presbyterians.

Yeah, but then, you know, a statement that, that he understands that children are not, it's not a salvation thing.

Right, right. He's kind of, I see what you're saying.

Yeah. Right, right. Yeah, so yeah, and that's, but honestly, like, that's part of the problem is if you don't see it as a, as a salvation thing, then it's just, you know, because he would also call

Roman Catholics brothers and sisters in Christ, right? Because not, not that he thinks that they're saved, but that he's got this whole category for, well, if you do all the steps, right, if you do all the, then you're part of this covenant.

And that's, yeah, we don't, we don't see the covenant that way. Of course, what he's trying to establish is what he calls covenant objectivity, like the fact that you can look at someone and know that they're in the covenant.

Someone's a member, they're in the covenant. It's that simple, right? We wouldn't say that. We'd say they're church members who aren't actually truly in the new covenant.

And because, you know, maybe we have mis, mis, discerned their salvation, right? And there are those who are in the new covenant who haven't yet entered church membership.

Right, right. Yeah. And they use those terms too, but they have something slightly different in mind when they say that stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. And so we, our church membership approximates new covenant membership.

It does not actually, yeah, we don't claim to, for it to actually establish or, or, or truly in a one -to -one way represent new covenant membership.

All right. Let us continue on to that next passage in Ezekiel, Ezekiel 23.

Okay. So this is, so these, both of those chapters, Ezekiel 16, very long, Ezekiel 23 long are, are talking about this marriage relationship between God and his people and the obligation of Israel and Judah to obey him and not go after idols.

Okay. So I'm just going to read the first four verses of this one. Actually, would somebody else like to read the first four verses?

Thanks. Yes. All right.

Oh, what's, what's the significance of Samaria in Jerusalem? You all know something else.

So what's, what's Jerusalem? Jerusalem is the capital of Judah. Yeah.

Judah. So at this point, if the nations are split, Jerusalem is the capital of Judah. Samaria is the capital of, of Israel, the

Northern kingdom. Right. So once again, he's talking about these two, he's talking about these two nations and yeah.

And he describes them as, as sister wives. Now, like I said, a moment ago, this is actually, so while there was a lot of okay, we'll have a whole session on polygamy.

Eventually polygamy was never okay, but it was permitted by the law in the old

Testament. However, this particular form of polygamy was not Leviticus 18, 18 says, and you shall not take a wife as a rival to her sister to uncover her nakedness besides the other in her lifetime, in her lifetime.

But there, there is a reason why this is a fairly appropriate way of making the analogy.

Can anybody think of why? So there's a, there's actually pretty famous set of sister wives in the old

Testament in the history of Israel. Yes. Yeah.

So right. Leah and Rachel, right. Jacob's wives are our sisters. And so Jacob, whose name is

Israel, right? He is the one who starts the nation. He has two wives. And so in picturing the two halves of the nation of Israel this way, it makes perfect sense because Jacob is

Israel, right? And so that's, that's the appropriateness of the analogy. And that, that gives you a reason why, well, how come this isn't just fine?

I actually, I actually know a polygamist who uses this as justification for his uses.

Look, look, even God has multiple wives. This is something that is denounced in Leviticus.

The reason why this analogy is being made is not because this is an appropriate form of marriage. It's because it's the marriage that Jacob had with Leah and Rachel, and he is

Israel. So that's what makes it an appropriate analogy. All right.

Hosea. Let's, let's move on to Hosea. I know

Hosea is a little hard to find in your Bible. This is going to be on page 753.

Who wants to read Hosea 4, 12 through 14? Thanks.

Thanks. Yeah. And then several more passages from Hosea, Hosea 5, 3,

I know Ephraim and Israel is not hidden from me for now, Ephraim, you have played the whore. Israel is defiled.

Their deeds will not permit them to turn to their God for the spirit of prostitution is within them and they do not know

Jehovah. Hosea 9, 1, do not rejoice Israel for joy like the peoples for you have played the whore departing from your

God. You have loved a prostitute's wages on every grain floor. All right.

So, and then there is the whole analogy that's made in Hosea, and I realize

I didn't end up writing notes on this like I planned to, but yeah, what, does anybody know what happens in Hosea?

What is Hosea commanded to do? Yeah, he's commanded to marry a prostitute.

And what does this represent? Right. Yeah. It represents God's love for his people that, yeah, that he's, yeah, that he is kind to them in this way that despite their adultery, he is kind and forgiving.

Now, a few passages from Isaiah before we get into the Song of Solomon. Isaiah 51, 50 verse 1 says, thus says

Jehovah, where is your mother's certificate of divorce with which I have put her away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom

I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold and for your transgressions was your mother put away.

So once again, speaking of, speaking of a divorce between him and his people.

All right, who would like to read Isaiah 54, 1 through 6? Thanks. Yeah, go to verse 6.

So yeah, these, these pictures of divorce and remarriage, this, this particular passage is quoted in the

New Testament. Does anyone know where? In Galatians 4,

Galatians 4. Let me go ahead and read this. Galatians 4, 22 says, for it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman.

But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh while the son of the free woman was born through the, through promise.

This is talking about Isaac and Ishmael, of course. Now, this may be interpreted allegorically.

These women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. That's, that's the old covenant that we've been talking about.

She is Hagar. Now, Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. She corresponds to the present

Jerusalem for, that's the, that's right, same thing, for she is in slavery with her children.

But the Jerusalem above is free. She is our mother. So, yeah, this other, so this one represents this one mountain,

Sinai, where the law is given, where, where condemnation happens, right, on the basis of the old covenant. But the other, this heavenly

Jerusalem, there is an eternal forgiveness. But for the, for it is written, rejoice,

O barren one who does not bear, break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor, for the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband.

Now, you brothers, like Isaac, are children of the promise, right? Just before this, in the previous chapter, he had said, the true sons of Abraham are those of faith.

And this is, this book is a book written to Gentiles. So, what is the, so what is this saying?

What is this saying about this, this prophecy of God's, yeah, reestablishing a marriage with his people?

It happens in this new covenant. It happens in, essentially, what is the marriage between Christ and the church, right?

That that is how the people are restored, not through, not through maintaining that previous marriage, but through this remarriage.

Great. Isaiah 62, 1 through 5. For Zion's sake,

I will not hold my peace. And for Jerusalem's sake, I will not rest until her righteousness go forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burns.

And the nations will see your righteousness and all kings your glory. And you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of Jehovah will name.

You shall also be a crown of beauty in the hand of Jehovah, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no longer be termed forsaken, nor will your land any more be termed desolate, but you shall be called

Hephzibah, which means my delight is in her, and your land, meaning married.

Sorry, I should have read this from the ESV. They probably say these things. For Jehovah delights in you and your land will be married.

For as a young man marries a virgin, so will your sons marry you. As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so will your

God rejoice over you. Yeah, now a lot of mixed metaphors, you know, your son's marrying you.

The idea is Zion is this barren woman, right?

The city is this barren woman. And God is saying that you, even though you're barren, even though you have no husband, you will have thousands of children.

And then, you know, that will be your consolation. Okay, let's move on to the

Song of Solomon. All right, so how should you, how should you view the

Song of Solomon? What is the Song of Solomon? There's a, there's a lot of ways that people read this.

The, it's really common for people to see this as, as merely literal, right?

As being just about this couple that is getting married.

And they don't know what to do with that, except for maybe, you know, we'll, we'll find some applications for our marriage.

Oh, you should, you should love your wife this way. You should be excited about her like this. She should submit like this, etc.

You know, you'll, they come up with these different applications for earthly marriages. Another common way is a typical way.

They say, okay, that's what it's immediately about. But then it also has applications to Christ and the

Church, that it points forward to Christ and the Church. Another view is that it's historical and prophetical.

And so other, in other words, it's speaking of the relationship of Israel to God before and or after that time when

Solomon's writing it. And it's, it's just an allegory of that. And one is that it's purely allegorical,

Christologically of, of Christ and the Church. So, for example, what that would mean.

So like when Jesus tells a parable, right? And he says, all right, there's a man who throws a wedding party or whatever, right?

He's not, yes, there is a literal meaning to those words, but you're not supposed to take it as, as a historic narrative.

Right? And so the question is, are we even supposed to take Solomon's, this love song that does refer to Solomon, you know, it speaks of Solomon, are we even supposed to take it in a literal sense?

Is this even about one of his brides? Or is he referring to himself messianically, prophesying about Christ and the

Church, speaking in allegory about Christ and the Church? And the position of the

Reform for many years, until more recently, was that this is just allegory.

This is not even a picture of Solomon and his bride that we then at a second layer, you know, interpret as referring to Christ and the

Church. But this is actually primarily and immediately the purpose of this is to speak of Christ and the

Church. And so he speaks of himself in this messianic way as the son of David, you know, as the one who sits on the throne forever, that kind of thing.

Okay, so let me give you several reasons why we should see this as allegorical.

And if we see this as allegorical, it has a lot of implications for, you know, how you would read it, how you would, how you would preach it.

John Gill preached, guess, guess how many sermons he preached sequentially through this book?

Does anybody know? Anybody want to guess? John Gill. John Gill. Yeah, he's, okay, so if you're familiar with Keech, he's a pastor at the same church like 100 years after Keech.

And then if you're familiar with Spurgeon, he's a pastor at the same church 100 years before Spurgeon. So he's the guy like in between those two.

All right. And he has a, if you're ever trying to read the Bible and you want to understand it, he has a commentary on all of scripture.

It's one of the first places I go. So yeah, if you look up John Gill on any verse, you can find what he said about that verse.

Yeah, just, just a guess. How many? 16? Okay, more, more.

Another guess. 50, more. Another guess.

What? 100, more. No, it's just, it's 122. So 122 messages on these, what, eight chapters of the

Song of Solomon. Yeah, it's, so if you understand this as being immediately about Christ in the church, this, this is what it was supposed to be, you know, and that's not just a secondary meaning intended by the

Holy Spirit. Then really, you know, we should be deriving a lot of, a lot of truth from this about our relationship to him.

All right. Several things. First of all, who was, so who is in scripture, who's pictured as Solomon's chief bride?

Do you all, do you all remember? Like when

I say pictured as, I just mean that scripture doesn't tell us about all his, all his wives. Who is the one that, that's spoken of the most distinctly?

It's the daughter of Pharaoh, the daughter of Pharaoh. So first of all, this marriage is condemned in scripture in 1

Kings 11. In fact, that's kind of like the whole purpose of 1 Kings 11 is to, to condemn that, that marriage.

And so to have that so highlighted as a, in scripture as in that be its primary meaning, doesn't quite line up.

And then secondly, given that scripture is scripture, you know, and it has these purposes of, of edifying the soul, what even would be the point of including such a large, you know, love poem in this, if it were not primary, if it didn't primarily have as its meaning, something spiritual in nature, right?

And then the other thing is that it cannot be made to apply to these two parties very well, either, either

Solomon and the daughter of Pharaoh or, or really any of the daughters. A lot of the, a lot of the details don't line up.

One of those details being the fact that the Song of Solomon 7 .4

speaks of the Tower of Lebanon. And yet scripture, from my reading of scripture, it seems to indicate that Solomon built the house of the, sorry, his, his marriage to the, the daughter of Pharaoh comes after, or sorry, sorry, he marries her some 20 years before that's finally built, right?

And so some of the things he's even referring to do not happen until many, you know, decades after the, the wedding.

So this isn't, this isn't exactly a love poem that would be read on the wedding night or anything like that.

This is, this is something that's being penned much later. Yeah, so 7 .4

talks about the Tower of Lebanon, and this is, yeah, and the house of the forest of Lebanon, right? The Solomon's palace.

That's something that's built after the temple is built. And, you know, all this takes a total of 20 years to build.

13 and 7 together. 13, I forget which one was 13 and which one was 7. I think it was 13 for the temple and 7 for the, yeah, just the

Pharaoh's daughter. Oh, 13 for Solomon's house.

Okay. Other way around. Yeah. Thank you. Right. And so this is, this is something being written much later.

And so sure, in making this allegory, you know, he might speak of his own, using language from his own experiences and of himself messianically, but this is, yeah,

I believe this is something that, that refers to directly to Christ in the church, not just indirectly as we would with other types, right?

Like Jonah being swallowed by the fish. Jesus says that this refers to him being in the belly of the earth for three days and three nights, or sorry,

Jonah's in the fish three days, three nights. He's in the belly of the earth for three days. But the, that's typology where you're taking this thing that's true historically, and then, you know, it's inspired by the

Holy Spirit and written down in a certain way to allude to truths about Christ. But in allegory, there's not, you know, there's not a historical reality that's, that's being so literally referred to there.

Okay. The other thing is that it's called the Song of Songs. Like this is the, this is the initial title of this thing.

The Song of Songs of Solomon. You know, this is the best song ever written in that sense.

Like this is the greatest song. It, a lot of these things that are spoken of are, are just too high if the immediate referent is human love.

Now, not only that, but you do have, I believe you have the New Testament interpreting this allegorically too.

And there's a number of passages that people think that are allusions to the Song of Solomon. I'm just going to go to one that seems very clear.

So in Song of Solomon 2 .1, he says,

I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. Right? This is him. I know that we usually think of women as flowers, but this is him talking about himself.

And then in Matthew 6 .28, Jesus speaks of Solomon and whether or not he was truly like a lily.

He says in Matthew 6 .28, So Solomon says he's a lily of the valley.

He compares himself to the lilies. And Jesus, speaking of Solomon, says he's not like the lilies.

You know, there's, he's, he's letting us know that, that what Solomon's referring to is something greater than himself.

Right? And that's what he says later that the Queen of the South came to, traveled from the ends of the earth to see the wisdom of Solomon and something greater than Solomon is here.

All right. So I believe Jesus is denying that it should be taken literally. And then on top of that, Psalm 45 is, many people recognize this as being an abridgement or a continuation of the

Song of Solomon. Because it's also a, it's about Solomon.

It speaks of Solomon and his marriage. But it says some pretty high things.

So Psalm 45, for example, in verse six says, Okay. So this is speaking to Solomon.

But it starts out, And so how, so Solomon here is being referred to as God, right?

And Hebrews 1 even interprets this as referring to Jesus Christ. And so even the

New Testament, if it's weren't already obvious there that when he refers to, or when, when the, yeah, one of the, was it one of the sons of Korah, when he writes about the

King in this way, speaking of him as God, you know, that something more messianic, something higher is intended than directly, directly meaning the literal referent of Solomon, right?

Not something to be read typologically, but to be read allegorically, understanding that this is not referring to an actual historical event.

And Hebrews 1 interprets it that way, too, saying that this is referring to Jesus, right?

Saying, and when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, Let all God's angels worship him.

Of the angels, he says, he makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire. But of the sun, he says, your throne,

O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. So, even the

New Testament is speaking of this as directly referring to the sun. All right.

There's also the agreement of many others in history. You can go through history and find, this really was a majority view for a long time.

It's only more recently that it hasn't been. The Westminster annotations on scripture on the

Song of Solomon say this. So, the Westminster assembly produced a lot of things other than just the

Westminster confession that our confession is based on. They wrote a commentary on scripture as well, or a bunch of notes on scripture.

And it says of Song of Solomon, look upon it as generally it is acknowledged, generally it is acknowledged this way.

In other words, they're appealing to a majority view. That it is not as history or prophecy, but as divine parable, wherein natural and visible things allegorize things supernatural.

And under the figures of Solomon and his love is shadowed the true Prince of Peace and his rich affections to his church and his people.

So, yeah, King Solomon penned over 1 ,005 songs according to 1 Kings 4 .32.

And this one is called the Song of Songs. This is the greatest of all those. So, yeah, maybe some encouragement as you're reading the

Bible. You're like, I don't even know what to do with this. So, you get to the Song of Songs. But, yeah, if you realize, oh, this is an allegory of Christ's love for his church,

Solomon speaking, using a picture of his own love, but to refer to the

Messiah, then we should be seeing in it a picture of the love the believers should have with Christ or the church should have corporately with Christ.

Any questions? This has been an overview of the Old Testament view of that divine marriage, right?

And so next, in the next world, look at the New Testament, what it says about our betrothal to Christ in the New Testament.

And then we'll, after that, we'll probably get into earthly marriages again.

Yes. Right. So, yeah,

I'm distinguishing between typology and allegory, and that typology has a historical literal thing that you should be considering.

And then secondarily out of that, you see what it's pointing to spiritually, referring to Christ.

And then allegory, there's no historical literal thing to be considered with.

There might be historical images used to describe things, like the Tower of Lebanon, that's something that really existed or whatever, but that it's not describing that, it's not meant to be taken as instruction.

And I would argue that if you really looked to Song of Solomon for instruction on your marriages beyond just like, oh, you should love, a lot of the situations in the book seem very unchaste for people prior to marriage, right?

Because a lot of it's pictured as prior to marriage, and this would not be good instruction to follow.

Yeah, that's like part of the issue is this is not something you would want to take as instruction for how couples should treat each other prior to marriage.

Any other questions? All right.

Well, next week, betrothal to Christ. Let me go ahead and close with some prayer. Dear Holy Father, we thank you for your instruction to us in how we ought to love you, and we pray that you would strengthen our marriages, that they would be a picture of Christ in the church, and moreover, that we would see in what you have given in marriage, a picture of how we ought to love you, and we pray that you would increase that love for us, that you would increase our sensibilities to your love for us, that we might more fully appreciate it.