The Name and Significance of the Song of Songs
The twenty-second book in our Bibles is sometimes, especially in older works, called Canticles or the Canticle of Canticles. This comes from the title of the book in the Latin Vulgate translation for a canticle is a song. This book is named the Song of Songs from its first four words in English (1:1). It is also called the Song of Solomon, from the first three words and the last word of the book’s first verse, indicating its human penman. But all these four names refer to the same thing: Canticles, the Canticle of Canticles, the Song of Songs and the Song of Solomon.
Where in our Bibles does the Song of Songs appear? It is found in the Old Testament wisdom literature or poetic literature or poetic-wisdom literature, occurring as the last of the five inspired books in this section, which also includes Job, Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. These five books of wisdom poetry are in the middle of the Old Testament. They are preceded by the 17 books of Old Testament history from Genesis to Esther and succeeded by the 17 books of Old Testament prophecy from Isaiah to Malachi. As the twenty-second book out of the 66 scriptural books, the Song of Songs appears at the very end of the first third of the Bible.
What role has this piece of wisdom literature had in church history? There are two famous instances of the Song of Solomon being wrongly interpreted as a merely human love song and thus identified as non-canonical. One of these occurred during the great sixteenth-century Reformation and involved John Calvin. Sebastian Castellio, who had taught Latin in Geneva, claimed that the Song of Songs was an uninspired romantic poem and was firmly opposed by the French Reformer. The second instance takes us from Switzerland to Turkey and back in time to a millennium before Castellio. I am referring to the condemnation of Theodore of Mopsuestia (c.350-c.428) at the Second Council of Constantinople (the Fifth Ecumenical Council) in 553. However, the overwhelming historical use of the Song of Solomon in the church is not that of heresy and controversy, but that of spiritual and religious devotion to God in Jesus Christ.
What about us in the here-and-now? You must have wondered about the Song of Songs. It is in the Bible, one of the 66 books of sacred Scripture. But what does it mean? How is it to be interpreted? How is one to understand it? This question is especially pressing for those who read the Word of God through each year. As the Christian goes through the eight chapters of Canticles, he or she is continually faced with this question: What is God saying to me and His church in this book?
Moreover, the minister or pastor is to teach the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27), including the rich doctrines of Scripture and the various parts of the Bible. The Christian minister is to provide the congregation with a varied diet, and there are distinctive and delicious morsels in the Song of Solomon that are necessary for our spiritual health. The Song of Songs speaks wisely and powerfully of love, our marital union with Christ and our communion with God through the Lord Jesus, our king-husband and the sovereign who loves us and gave Himself for us! Rev. Stewart
What Does God’s Incomprehensibility Mean?
Here is another issue posed by a reader: “I’m reading someone who says that Christianity will always contain real mysteries and problems we cannot fully ‘figure out.’ He quotes the Westminster Larger Catechism, which calls God ‘incomprehensible’ (we can never comprehend or fully get our heads around Him). The doctrine of the Trinity is cited as an example, along with other teachings, such as God’s decreeing all things, yet our choices are real; the elect are certainly saved, yet warnings are still serious; and the reprobate are certainly lost, yet the gospel call is still real. According to this writer, whenever we meet biblical propositions that are ‘apparently contradictory’ or ‘paradoxical,’ we should be humble and believe them, even when we cannot make them fit neatly in our minds. He argues that trying to ‘make everything make sense,’ or to remove every paradox from Scripture, is really an attack on God Himself—it practically denies His incomprehensibility and shrinks Him down to something our brains can fully manage, as if we can solve everything by ‘fallible’ human logic. He also suggests that this kind of insistence on clarity makes it sound as though the unregenerate do not need the Holy Spirit to understand the Bible. Also he uses this appeal to ‘mystery’ to smuggle in dubious theories, such as common grace and the well-meant offer: ‘Don’t question them; just believe—or you’re putting God into a box.’”
This issue can be addressed in a few words. Incomprehensible does not mean illogical, paradoxical, nonsensical, contradictory or anything like that. Incomprehensible means that the knowledge of God is infinite and beyond our ability to grasp fully. Mystery in Scripture does not mean apparently contradictory or paradoxical, for it is used to describe something that is hidden from unbelief but revealed to God’s people (Mark 4:11; I Cor. 2:6-10). Making God’s incomprehensibility and mystery synonymous with paradoxical and contradictory is a ploy used by the defenders of unbiblical doctrines. They promote teachings such as two contradictory wills or loves in God, that is, God wills to love and save all men absolutely, and He also wills to love and save only the elect. They teach a well-meaning offer of salvation to all or a grace of God for all, including those whom God has not elected and has no intention of saving. That is unintelligible and nonsensical and paradoxical.
Isaiah 55:8-9 describes God’s incomprehensibility: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” “Higher” because He is God. “Higher” but not unintelligible. Psalm 61:1-2 show how important this truth is to us: “Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I [i.e., too high for me].” Because He is the “rock” that is too high for us (incomprehensible), we are able to find shelter and strength in Him.
We know Him and know that His love is unchangeable, His mercy never fails and His grace is always sufficient, but we do not know all there is to know of Him. We know that He sent our Lord Jesus Christ into the world to save us, that Jesus had to be both God and man, that He had to die our death and suffer our punishment, but that does not mean we know all there is to know about God’s way of reconciliation.
The union of two natures in Christ is a good example. That Christ is God and man in one Person is beyond our experience and ability to explain fully, but it is not contradictory. Indeed, it makes perfect sense in that there can only be one Christ who must be both God and man, man to die for man’s sins and God to give to us righteousness and eternal life, though we may not fully understand or be able to explain the depths of this wonderful truth. It would be paradoxical, illogical and nonsensical to say that Christ is both God and not God at all, something even a child can recognize as mere babbling nonsense.
The Trinity is another example. It would be paradoxical to explain the Trinity by saying that there is one God and three Gods. That would be nonsense. It is not contradictory or illogical to say that God is three Persons in one Being. This is beyond our experience and ability to explain fully, but it is not even apparently contradictory. Even from our limited viewpoint, there is no contradiction or paradox, but perfect sense: God is a family in Himself; God has perfect fellowship in Himself. He is in Himself a Father to love us, a Son to save us and a Spirit to abide in us.
Indeed, it is impossible to believe nonsense. Those who promote paradox and contradiction in theology are like the White Queen in Through the Looking-Glass who believed six impossible things before breakfast. Paradox, contradiction and nonsense are impossible. What is incomprehensible, however, is not impossible. To say that God is incomprehensible is only to say that He is greater than we are and that our ability to understand Him is limited.
It is impossible that God loves and does not love the same people. It is impossible that He well-meaningly offers salvation to some without providing salvation for them, without wanting them to have that salvation and without giving it to them. It is nonsense and a denial of Christ’s saving work to say that He died for all including some who go to hell. It is indeed an impossible paradox to say that God wills or desires the salvation of all and at the same time the salvation of some only.
That all things are possible with God does not mean He can deny Himself or be what He is not (Gen. 18:25; Hab. 1:13; II Tim. 2:13). God’s simplicity or perfection means that He is one in His Being, and in all His works and ways. He cannot be of two minds, as we so often are. He is not divided in His love and mercy. He does not want and not want the same thing.
What is true of God Himself is also true of His Word. One of the characteristics of Scripture is its perspicuity, which means that it is clear and understandable (Ps. 119:105, 130; Prov. 6:23). All the talk of apparent contradiction and paradox is a denial of Psalm 19:7-8: “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.”
We do not deny that some passages and teachings of Scripture are difficult (II Pet. 3:15-16), but difficult is not the same as unintelligible or contradictory. Those who speak of contradiction and paradox are taking the Scriptures away from God’s people—telling them that they cannot understand the Word, denying Deuteronomy 30:11-14: “For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.”
Logic does not put God into a box. He is the source of logic and understanding (Job 12:13; 32:8; Prov. 2:6; I Cor. 4:7). Indeed, the word “logic” comes from one of the names of Christ our Lord. He is the Logos, the Word, of John 1:1. God in Christ is not a God of confusion, of misunderstanding and of nonsense, nor is His Word paradoxical and confusing. He is a God who reveals Himself clearly.
In some correspondence I had with an evangelical leader over these matters, he made it clear that he accepted all the current notions about paradox and contradiction, only he wanted to use the word “antinomy.” I found it amusing that he mixed up that word with the word “antimony,” for an “antinomy” is indeed a paradox or contradiction but “antimony” is a very poisonous chemical. His confounding the two words is theologically accurate because teaching a doctrinal antinomy or paradox or contradiction, is very poisonous, like antimony, destroying all hope of clarity or understanding and undermining people’s faith.
But what about “apparent contradiction”? Are there some things in Scripture which we cannot understand and simply have to accept without understanding them, things which make no sense to us and of which Scripture itself makes no sense? The answer is “No.” Paul told Timothy, “from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus” (II Tim. 3:15). Not much wiggle room in that for the idea of apparent contradiction.
God speaks clearly. His Word is a light. Let us not say, then, that there is darkness in Him or that His Word is obscure and unintelligible! Rev. Ron Hanko
