"Our final application is an application to all Christians, and it has to do with our desire for Christ: Just as your desire for intimacy with your spouse is a reliable indicator of your marital health, so too your desire for intimacy with Christ is a reliable indicator of your spiritual health.
"Here I’m not making a connection with Christ by means of allegory—that when the bride sings of kissing, it is the Church singing of its spiritual union with the King of kings or whatever. I’m merely making a thematic connection, which is done throughout Scripture when the topic of marriage is addressed. In Ephesians 5, for example, when Paul is talking about husbands and wives, he naturally moves from that theme to the theme of the relationship of Christ and the Church (v. 32). And he doesn’t even explain the shift. He just shifts, assuming his readers are saturated enough with the Bible to grasp the shift. The same happens in Hebrews 1:8, 9, where the author quotes Psalm 45:6, 7 a wedding poem—drawing reference to Jesus as the divine representation of the Davidic king. So, within the canon of Scripture, one should not think of marriage without thinking of Christ, and this is because marriage was always intended to point to him."
Read Solomon's Song of Love, by Douglas Sean O'Donnell at Bible Study Tools
1 "Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turned, That we may seek him with you?"
2 "My beloved has gone down to his garden, To the beds of balsam, To pasture his flock in the gardens And gather lilies.
3 "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine, He who pastures his flock among the lilies."
4 "You are as beautiful as Tirzah, my darling, As lovely as Jerusalem, As awesome as an army with banners.
5 "Turn your eyes away from me, For they have confused me; Your hair is like a flock of goats That have descended from Gilead.
6 "Your teeth are like a flock of ewes Which have come up from their washing, All of which bear twins, And not one among them has lost her young.
7 "Your temples are like a slice of a pomegranate Behind your veil.
8 "There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, And maidens without number;
9 But my dove, my perfect one, is unique: She is her mother's only daughter; She is the pure child of the one who bore her. The maidens saw her and called her blessed, The queens and the concubines also, and they praised her, saying,
10 'Who is this that grows like the dawn, As beautiful as the full moon, As pure as the sun, As awesome as an army with banners?'
11 "I went down to the orchard of nut trees To see the blossoms of the valley, To see whether the vine had budded Or the pomegranates had bloomed.
12 "Before I was aware, my soul set me Over the chariots of my noble people."
13 "Come back, come back, O Shulammite; Come back, come back, that we may gaze at you!" "Why should you gaze at the Shulammite, As at the dance of the two companies?
Song of Solomon 6
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