Where is Jesus in Song of Songs 7:7-9?

I recently made the statement that virtually any topic or aspect of life can be connected to Christ and his saving work. In reply I was challenged to show Christ in Song of Songs 7:7-9. I do think adding imagery of Song of Songs 7:7-9 to this blog post would be a misstep, so I won’t add an image, but those two verses read:”Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit. Oh may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine.”

I accept the challenge.

The institution of marriage points to the marriage of Christ with his Church. The deep passion and love and longing to be with his bride that Solomon expressed points to the deep passion and love that Christ has for his bride, us. Though we are apart he longs to embrace us. Sexually? No. But as an object lesson, the sexual longing between a betrothed man and woman serves to show the deep desire we have, and likewise Christ has, to be reunited with us. Israel is called the Bride of God in the OT and the Church is called the Bride of Christ in the NT. That’s the route I would go to show Christ in Song of Songs 7:7-9.

Song of Songs 8:6 says, “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flames of fire, the very flame of the Lord.” Are we not beautiful to the Lord? Has he not placed his seal upon us, put his name upon us? Is he not a jealous God? And does not his love defeat the grave? And does his flame not destroy all that separates his Bride from him?

Song of Songs 8:7 says, “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.” Christ is our ark! The floods of baptism will not drown us. They drown the sinful man, but not the new creation. In Christ, we are wrapped up and protected, as a groom wraps up and protects his Bride. The two are one and if it be true love, all the money in the world could not buy it. So death cannot separate true love, and neither can money buy it. All the riches in the world that Satan laid before Christ’s feet did not take him away from us, and the death he died did not take him away from us, instead it united us to him and the union possible, for he bought us, not with money, but with his very life, his shed blood on the cross. Solomon of all people, with all the riches and lovers a man could ever have in this world, should know better than all people that the stairway to heaven cannot be bought. That store is closed.

Song of Songs demonstrates proper marital love, from which new physical life is born. Interpreting this book as a depiction of Christ and the Church, we see how new spiritual life is born.