Fiery Love (Song of songs 8)
by Ria Delves
Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs as it’s also called) belongs to the literary genre of poetry and as such is full of imagery, metaphors and other devices that characterise poetic works. It features a collection of poems that describes and celebrates the love and relationship between two characters – ‘the Shulamite’ and her ‘beloved’.
Poetic literature has many layers, and the relationship between ‘the Shulamite’ and her ‘beloved’ has often been seen as a depiction of the relationship between Christ and the Church with Christ portrayed as the Bridegroom (‘the beloved’) and the Church as the Bride (‘the Shulamite’). This fits within the bridegroom / bridal theme and the wider motif of marriage as representing God’s relationship with us (both corporately and individually) that runs throughout scripture.
“Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave; its flames are flames of fire, a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it. If a man would give for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly despised.”
— Song of Songs 8:6-7
Here the bridegroom is providing a response to the longing in the bride’s heart, and the opening gambit is an instruction to the bride to fasten Him to her heart. The heart is representative of the seat of one’s desires, intentions, motives, and is the cockpit of our lives from where we make decisions and choices and from where actions flow. As the bride, there should be a longing in our hearts for our bridegroom and then, the response as this verse suggests is to turn that longing towards our heavenly Bridegroom, Jesus, singling out and concentrating on Him fully and completely.
When the bride focuses on and allows the bridegroom to satisfy that longing in her heart, there is a strength, a power, an intensity that He brings, which cannot be overcome. That intensity is communicated variously as a seal of fire, a living, consuming flame, flashes of fire, a fierce, unrelenting fire, a raging / furious fire. This illustrates a love that is vibrant, full of life and bursting with passion, fervour and enthusiasm.
That fiery love emanates ‘from the burning heart of God’ and cannot be extinguished, quenched or conquered by death or the grave, the ultimate power from which an individual cannot be freed. The bride, whether the individual or the corporate, is bonded to the heart of God by chains of love so strong that it consumes everything in one’s life. Nothing can withstand the onslaught of fiery love streaming from the very heart of God. From His heart to ours. And the only response to that love is to yield. To let it burn unhindered and unconstrained in our hearts.
Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the fire and passion of God’s heart of love and emblazon that same fire upon your own heart.
This is our second passage in a series looking at Jesus as a passionate bridegroom, a sovereign king & a righteous judge - three descriptions that are emphasised together in various places in the Scriptures, not least by Jesus Himself in the context of His return (Mt 24-25).