As I said earlier, we're continuing our series. The series is called Kingdom Sexuality, and it's exploring what is God's design? What is, what is the ethic that God gives us for sex and sexuality? We talked about the rationale for the series last week. Simply put, we recognize that sex is a topic our culture is obsessed with. And it's also a topic the church can sometimes be embarrassed by.
Worse yet, often when the church speaks about the topic, it does it with an unbalanced focus. If we're not careful, we can focus too much on the negative side of the equation, right? Obsessed with prohibitions and warnings, arguing for how the world has gotten it all wrong. Now, when something becomes an idol to the extent that sex has become in the world, you need to address the subject in those ways. It is important to address those and to push back and to speak prophetically out to the culture. And we have messages in this series that are dedicated to doing just that. But the Bible also says numerous positive things about sex, some passages that deal with it directly, but also as the scriptures develop, the unfolding of an entire worldview that paints a picture of the positive side of the way God has designed sex and sexuality. And so we're starting out the series with a two-part message, Sexuality by Design. We had the first part last week. We looked at Genesis 1 and 2, highlighting the beautiful way God created sex to function.
Now I realize we can feel uncomfortable discussing the subject matter. It might feel uncouth or inappropriate to address it from the pulpit. I also realize, and I'm aware of this, some pastors can overreact to those sorts of feelings and they can discuss sex in a crass way, in an immature way. Sometimes I think just trying to pretend like they're hip and cool and in step with what looks like it's attractional. That's not what we're trying to do. I want you to know that's not our motivation behind this series in any way.
I was helped in preparing today's message by the following quote from Dr. Albert Mohler. Dr. Mohler is the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Pull it down first, I'm going to give a little preview. Dr. Mohler is not the kind of guy who's going to look for cheap thrills, who's going to overly titillate you with language. He's just not out to entertain. If you know anything about Dr. Mohler, he's a guy that I think goes to bed in a three-piece suit. He's like, as Southern Baptist as they come. I mean, he's a straight shooter. He is conservative in every way, shape, and form. But I think that's what makes what he says so helpful for us. He's not a guy that's trying to be hip or immature or doesn't have a sense of gravitas with what he's talking about. This is what Dr. Mohler says: Christians have no right to be embarrassed when it comes to talking about sex and sexuality. An unhealthy reticence or embarrassment in dealing with these issues is a form of disrespect to God's creation. Whatever God made is good, and every good thing God made has an intended purpose that ultimately reveals his own glory. When conservative Christians respond to sex with ambivalence or embarrassment, we slander the goodness of God and hide God's glory, which is intended to be revealed in the right use of creation's gifts.
That's a helpful quote. I don't tend to think about being reticent to talk about sexual things or embarrassed by them to consider that being a slander of the goodness of God. But I think Dr. Mohler is right. That's why we're having this series.
Last week we looked at Genesis 1 and 2, God's design in sexuality, namely that sex was designed for marriage, that sex was designed for procreation, and that sex was designed for the context of faithfulness. This morning, we're going to look at a book that addresses sex very directly. We're going to look at the book of Song of Songs or Song of Solomon.
6 · Introduces Song of Songs as the day's primary text, acknowledging its complex poetic style and the reason for its fame (it's about sex), and demonstrates the book's immediate sensual directness with the opening verse
We're going to turn there. We're going to spend some time kind of laying the landscape a bit. I'm going to give some background in a second. I want to just tell you about the book first. Now, Song of Songs is a famous book. Many people know about Song of Songs. They know what's in Song of Songs. But as much as it's a famous book, it's also often a seldom read book. Sometimes it's avoided simply because it has a complex style. There's like the poetry of Psalms, which we can read and usually we get a pretty good grasp. And then there's the poetry of Song of Songs where this conversation is taking place between individuals and it's sometimes hard to track what's going on. It's filled with language and symbolism. Symbolism that's even beyond what a lot of the Psalms are filled with. That can make it hard for modern readers to figure out exactly what's going on. Why is it a compliment to describe a woman's neck like a tower. Huh. It's also stunningly beautiful. These rich metaphors might not be easy to read, but they're stirring. And if we're honest, it's a famous book because the book is about sex. Right? That's why people know about it. It dives headlong into the subjects of romance and love and marriage, even conflict. And intimacy. And it doesn't skirt around the issues. It talks about them in direct ways. Sometimes that make us a little uncomfortable. This morning we're going to drop down into several places in Song of Songs to fill out that picture of God's perspective, God's design on romance and sex within the context of marriage. Now the book is called Song of Songs or Song of Solomon because it was either written by David's son Solomon or it was dedicated to him. We're not quite sure. Scholars have two opinions on the matter. We do know it's a poem celebrating a relationship between a man and a woman, and it's not G-rated, nor should it be. It's celebrating their marital intimacy. In the opening verses in Song of Songs 1:2, The woman says, 'Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth, for Your love is better than wine.' Boy, we're talking about alcohol and sex this morning. Double-edged sword. It doesn't waste any time getting our attention, does it? Let Him kiss me. It's better than wine. It's sweet. It's rich.
7 · Unpacks the dual meaning of 'sensual' in Song of Songs: both sexual desire and engagement of the physical senses, establishing that the book treats the body as part of God's good creation rather than something shameful
We see very quickly that this book is very sensual. It's sensual in both senses of the word. It doesn't shy away from describing the sexual desire the woman and the man have for each other. And not just their sexual desire once they get married, the desire they have for each other before marriage. But then it also shows us how they wrestle with and strive for restraint waiting for marriage. And it uses sensual language and the imagery of physical senses. Showing us how sex is tied to the human body, and the human body is a part of God's good creation. We were created as embodied persons.
8 · Asserts Christianity's distinctiveness in affirming the goodness and eternal significance of the physical body, grounding this in the doctrine of bodily resurrection
Christianity is unique among most of the world's religions in that it has a high view of the human body, of the human form. The flesh isn't inherently evil. Your body isn't inherently bad. When you die, when you go to heaven, when Christ returns, you're not going to cease to have a body. You're going to have a new resurrected body because the body, the physical, is good. God created it for us to glorify him.
9 · Traces the narrative arc of Song of Songs from initial attraction (ch
And so Song of Songs shows us through sensual language how these things are connected, how sex and the body, the senses, are inextricably intertwined. In chapter 1, we read about the initial attraction. Chapter 1, man and the woman are seeing each other and describing the attraction that they see in the other person. In chapters 2 and 3, that attraction progresses to a pursuit and to a building relationship, and that relationship continues to go deeper and deeper and deeper, where they're viewing each other from afar and then sort of dating in public to more intimate encounters. They aren't a married couple yet. They desire each other. They desire to get acquainted and they're growing closer. Finally then, the end of chapter 3, we see the marriage ceremony. The man and the woman are joined together publicly. They proclaim their vows, which leads us to today's chapter, to chapter 4. We're going to read the whole thing. Hear God's holy and authoritative Word. Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are like the flock of shorn ewes having come up from the washing, all of which bear twins and not one of them has lost its young. Your lips are like a scarlet thread and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. Your neck is like the Tower of David built in rows of stone. On it hang 1,000 shields, all of them shields of warriors. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle that graze among the lilies until the day breathes and the shadows flee. I will go away to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. You are altogether beautiful, my love. There is no flaw in you. Come with me from Lebanon, my bride. Come with me from Lebanon. Depart from the peak of Amana and the peak of Senir and Hermon and the dens, from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of leopards. You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride. You have captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride. How much better is your love than wine and the fragrance of your oils than any spice. Your lips drip nectar, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. A garden locked is my sister, my bride; a spring locked, a fountain sealed. Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with all choicest fruits: henna and nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, with all choice spices. A garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon. Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind, blow upon my garden, let its spices flow. The word of the Lord, may He write its truth upon our hearts.
10 · States the sermon's first major claim: that Song of Songs 4 adds 'pleasure' to the tripartite thesis established in Part 1 (marriage, procreation, faithfulness)
The first point we see this morning from Song of Songs chapter 4 is that sex is designed for marriage and procreation and faithfulness, and sex is also designed for pleasure. We see that in Song of Songs chapter 4.
11 · Interprets the wedding night passage as evidence that God designed sex to be both unifying (one flesh) and pleasurable, noting the undeniable presence of joy and sexual delight in the text
In case it wasn't obvious, it's a chapter celebrating their wedding night. The ceremony is over now. They've gone together to the wedding night. The poem is about a couple consummating their marriage, about a man and a woman becoming one flesh. And it shows us, namely, that sex, by God's design, was intended to bring them together in one flesh and to do so in a way that they found pleasurable. There's no escaping the reality that the bride and groom are finding immense joy in one another sexually. You can't read that and not see it and sense it. They're almost overwhelmed by the sight of each other's bodies.
12 · Unpacks the culturally alien metaphors of Song of Songs 4 to help modern readers understand what the groom is actually celebrating—beauty, wholeness, flowing hair—and the intoxicating effect of his bride
Now the descriptions are strange to us, right? 'Teeth like a flock of shorn ewes.' Your teeth look like sheep. Oh, and they're all paired perfectly. She's got all of her teeth. Wow! What a beautiful woman. But shorn ewes. They're white. All of her teeth and there's no nasty looking ones. 'Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes.' What he's saying is your hair flows. It's like goats running down the mountain. It's flowing. It's beautiful hair. I look at my bride and I'm intoxicated by her beauty. I long for her. It's incredible.
13 · Interprets verse 12's locked garden imagery as affirming their pre-marital chastity, establishing that the pleasure they experience is legitimate precisely because they waited for God's appointed boundary
And at last, when they appropriately allow their desire to culminate on the wedding night, there's no hint of disappointment. We've been waiting for this. Verse 12 tells us, 'A garden locked is my sister, my bride; a spring locked, a fountain sealed up sealed. In other words, we haven't gone past the boundary God set. She's been all these beautiful things, but she's been chaste up until this moment. Now I'm about to experience her. To join with her.
14 · Exposes the medieval church's distortion of sexuality—treating sex as inherently sinful even within marriage, elevating celibacy, and viewing marital passion as dangerous—to set up the Reformers' corrective
Now, in the Middle Ages, the church got way off track regarding this point. The design for sex was exclusively procreation. The church held a view that sex was considered a base, unholy thing. It was definitely not something to be celebrated. Quite the opposite, in fact. Church fathers going back to Jerome and Tertullian and Ambrose even taught that within sex, within the context of sex, of marriage, sorry, sex was inherently sin at some level within the context of marriage. For 10 centuries, that teaching and attitude held significant sway. And so it fostered ideas that marriage was inferior to celibacy. Sure, lots of people got married, but because they were a subclass of Christians who couldn't attain to the ideal of remaining celibate all their lives. That pursuing procreation, this necessary obedience to God's command in Genesis 1 and 2, Be fruitful and multiply, procreate, right? The pursuit of procreation meant sex was a necessary evil. The thing that had to be done to fulfill God's command. Passion in the marriage bed was considered dangerous. Not just dangerous, inherently sinful. That was the view.
15 · Contrasts the Reformers' correction of medieval error by returning to grammatical-historical exegesis, rejecting allegorical readings of Song of Songs, and affirming the biblical celebration of marital sexuality
The Reformers, though, flatly rejected this view. They went completely the other direction. Luther and Zwingli and Calvin and their contemporaries, they promoted, they pushed back against this centuries-long idea that sex was somehow dirty and base, and they pushed forward a biblical understanding of the health and beauty of sexual intimacy in marriage. Part of it was dealing with interpretive ideas. In the early church, in the Middle Ages, there was a predominance of allegorical interpretation of Scripture. So they came to Song of Songs and they said, this actually has nothing to do with sex. This is a love that's describing God's love for Israel. But that's not what it's describing. And the Reformers, going back to the plain meaning of the text, said, no, this is a celebration of what God has designed.
16 · Debunks the cultural myth that Puritans were sexually repressive by showing that they actually celebrated marital sex as essential, delightful, and something to be pursued cheerfully—correcting the caricature created by works like The Scarlet Letter
So that begs the question then, where does our dour, overly chaste attitude about sex within marriage redevelop? If you ask some people, they would say it's the Puritans. It's the Puritans' fault. That's where these ideas come about. Puritans are always to blame, aren't they? If you listen to our culture, you would see that. If someone's a prude, they're oftentimes called puritanical, right? Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, that required reading for high school sophomores or juniors, certainly gives the impression that the Puritans were trying, obviously unsuccessfully, thanks to Hester Prynne, to repress sexual pleasure. But the book, written centuries after the Puritans, is a caricature that's risen to the place of history. In reality, the Puritans celebrated the gift of sex in marriage. They actually wrote a lot about it. It's interesting. It's fascinating. The Puritans viewed it as something that was essential to a healthy marriage. There's no marital health if you're not experiencing the pleasure that God has designed for this. They taught that it could and should be enjoyable. This is the language the Puritans used to describe sex within marriage. They called it a delight. They said it should be done cheerfully. It should be done willingly. Perkins, one of the Puritans, called husbands and wives to cherish each other sexually, to pursue each other romantically, even describing how they should be kissing each other. It's exactly what Solomon celebrates.
17 · Returns to Song of Songs 4:3-6 to demonstrate the extended duration and unashamed pleasure of the wedding night—'until the day breathes and the shadows flee'—as evidence of God's design for sexual enjoyment within marriage
Look again at 4:3. 'Your lips are like a scarlet thread. Your mouth is lovely.' Lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. Your neck is like the Tower of David built in rows of stone. On it hang 1,000 shields. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. They graze among the lilies until the day breathes and the shadows flee. I will go away to the mountains of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. Again, remind your husband that that's not the way we write the the love notes today. We use our own culturally bound descriptions that your wife will actually find flattering. So don't get too literal with how you apply Song of Songs. But the verse, especially if you look at verse 6, describes— this is describing them coming together, and verse 6 specifically describes them enjoying each other until the day breathes and the shadows flee. What's he saying? In other words, they've enjoyed the pleasure of each other sexually on their wedding night all night long until the day breathes. The dawn is finally coming. The shadows are finally fleeing. We've been enjoying the pleasure that God has given us as husband and wife all night, and it's been beautiful. It's been wonderful.
18 · Argues that the proper response to sexual temptation is not denial of pleasure but recognition that true satisfaction only comes within God's ordained boundaries—pleasure outside those boundaries is illusory
Sex. Outside the boundaries that God has created for it, sex outside the context of marriage, it is tempting. You know why it's tempting? It's tempting in large part because sex is pleasurable. The solution to that temptation isn't to pretend that sex isn't pleasurable. That's not fooling anyone. It's not to pretend that it wasn't meant to be pleasurable, that you're somehow sinning if there's pleasure. It's to recognize that it's only truly pleasurable in the sense of something that satisfies our longings at the most fundamental levels when it happens within the context God ordained for it to function.
19 · Uses Titus 1:15 and C
Paul shows us just how easily we can turn and defile good things. In Titus 1:15, he says, 'To the pure, all things are pure.' But to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their minds and their conscience are defiled. To the pure, to the husband, the man and woman, the husband and wife in Song of Songs, the intimacy, the pleasure, the coming together they know in sex is a beautiful thing. But to the impure, to those who practice it outside the bounds God has created for it, It becomes broken and defiled. C.S. Lewis is exactly correct when he describes the empty seduction of worldly pleasure. He says worldly pleasure is an ever-increasing craving for an ever-diminishing pleasure. It's an ever-increasing craving. I want more of it and more of it for an ever-diminishing pleasure. I want more of it and more of it, and I'm getting less and less from it. It's true about so many things. It's especially true about the way sex leads us astray outside of the bounds God designed for us.
20 · Reframes marital sexual pleasure as a theological category—not merely a neutral biological fact but a testament to God's goodness and loving design
But again, that doesn't mean sex wasn't designed to be pleasurable for a husband and wife. Sex is good because God is good. Sex is good because God is good and because he designed it to be good. That is, he designed it to be pleasurable. And the fact that it's so enjoyable is actually a massive testament to God's goodness. You ever thought that? The fact that sex within marriage is enjoyable is a testament to God's goodness.
21 · Uses an extended analogy comparing sex to working out to illustrate the absurdity of God commanding an inherently unpleasant thing—if sex weren't pleasurable, it would be like obligatory exercise requiring motivational posters
Think about it. Sex within marriage is something that we're commanded to do. It's the first command Adam and Eve get. We talked about that last week. Both to seal the one-flesh union of marriage and to fulfill the mandate to fill the earth and to have dominion. They're commanded to come together and to be fruitful, to know each other sexually. Could you imagine if sex wasn't pleasurable? You're commanded to do it and it's not enjoyable. What if sex was like toil and drudgery? What if sex was like having to work out in order to stay in shape? Sure, the byproduct can be enjoyable. It's nice to be fit. But man, it's a lot of work to get there. The dividends afterwards are nice, but running 5 miles, it's not something I'm just excited to do. Training for a triathlon isn't easy. Disciplining your body in the way Paul talks about athletes doing is hard work. It's only effective working out when it's uncomfortable, right? If you go work out and it's just easy, it's like, I love working out, I never even break a sweat, you're not doing it right. That's not working, right? It's supposed to hurt. Now imagine this, if we applied the motivational posters of our gym to sex. The only easy day was yesterday. It's going to be hard. Got to bear up. Pain is weakness leaving the body. Quitters never win and winners never quit. That's the mentality you get if it's not enjoyable. We have to do this. We need to do this. The human race will die out if we don't do this. But man, it just like looms on my to-do list. I gotta run 5 miles. Ugh, gotta have sex with my wife. That's the context we see if it's not enjoyable. We need motivational quotes at the gym because it's not inherently pleasurable. You have to be motivated to do it. The idea of pleasureless sex is not pleasant.
22 · Connects God's anatomical design of sexual pleasure to His grace and goodness, comparing it to the pleasure of eating, and establishes that God is glorified when we receive His gifts with gratitude
But God, as a sign of his goodness and loving kindness, designed it, literally anatomically designed those parts of our body to be highly sensitive and capable of immense gratification. God designed sex to be enjoyable. In addition to indispensable for a healthy marriage. That's grace. That's an unmerited gift. Oh, you have to eat to survive, and isn't it pleasing to eat good food? Oh, you have to have sex with your husband or your wife to be faithful in marriage, to procreate, to come together as one flesh, and isn't it enjoyable? Isn't God good? It brings God pleasure and glory to see us embracing his gift with grateful, joyful hearts.
23 · Asserts that the celebration of marital sexual pleasure is the central thesis of Song of Songs and that its canonical inclusion is divinely intentional, not accidental—God wants us to see sex as beautiful and shame-free
The inherent beauty and satisfaction of healthy sensual sex practiced the way God intended it to be enjoyed is the central theme of Song of Songs. That's what the author is celebrating. It's not accidentally in the Bible. The chapter didn't slip in by the editors. They didn't fire the guy who was editing through the Song of Songs section because, oh man, chapter 4 got in there. I thought we told him to get that out. Song of Songs is there so we'd see how beautiful and shame-free sex is meant to be. Sex is meant to be celebrated. It describes intimacy and rejoices in the goodness of God's gift. Sex is designed for pleasure.
24 · Signals the move from the first major point (pleasure) to the second major point (intimacy)
And we see in Song of Songs that sex is designed for intimacy.
25 · Introduces chapter 5 as the post-wedding-night reality check, where marital conflict enters the narrative after the idealized chapter 4
Chapter 5 introduces us. We see the bliss of the wedding night in chapter 4, and sometime after chapter 4, chapter 5 shows us marriage in real life. Conflict starts arising.
26 · Exposes Song of Songs 5:6 as depicting communication breakdown and relational distance, demonstrating that the book portrays realistic marriage struggles, not idealized fantasy
In Song of Songs 5:6, we read, 'I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and gone.' I wanted to go to them, but they didn't reciprocate. 'My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought him but found him not. I called him, but he gave no answer. There's a communication breakdown. There's a breakdown of intimacy. They're out of step with each other. This isn't a pie-in-the-sky marriage. The author gets it. Things get tough sometimes. They search for each other. They can't seem to find each other. The relationship experiences strain.
27 · Establishes that Solomon's inclusion of marital conflict serves to demonstrate sex's deeper purpose beyond pleasure—it is a means of maintaining and increasing intimacy
Part of what Solomon is doing is showing us that sex isn't exclusively for pleasure. It's also an expression, an expression of the closeness of the husband and wife. Sex is a means of increasing their intimacy.
28 · Broadens the definition of intimacy beyond the physical act to include emotional, spiritual, and relational union—the fuller meaning celebrated in Song of Songs
Now, when I say intimacy, most of our minds race to the physical act, right? That's certainly a part of it, but intimacy is more than just physical. It's an emotional, spiritual, and relational tying together of two hearts. That's the kind of intimacy that's being celebrated in the book. A spiritual intimacy, an emotional intimacy.
29 · Returns to Genesis 2 to establish that Adam's need for Eve was not merely sexual but for full-spectrum relational intimacy—conversation, companionship, shared worship
Adam's longing in the garden for a relationship isn't just a physical urge, although that's included. He's longing for a relationship that runs the full spectrum. He can't talk to the other beasts. The dog isn't man's best friend. This dog is a terrible conversation partner. Whatever I do, he just wags his tail. No, He wants someone He can converse with, someone He can joke with, someone He can share with. He wants someone He can enjoy intimacy with God with. He wants full relational intimacy.
30 · Defines the ultimate aim of marital intimacy as covenantal companionship—faithful love through all circumstances—and connects it to Proverbs 17:17's definition of friendship
The great goal of intimacy is not merely physical. It's for loyal, faithful through good times and bad companionship. The fulfillment of Proverbs 17:17, 'The friend who loves at all times.'
31 · Demonstrates that Song of Songs is structured as a dialogue, showing that intimacy includes verbal exchange—encouragement, desire, forgiveness—not merely sensual description
The breadth of this intimacy is on display in Song of Songs. It's not just a celebration of all this sensual stuff. The entire book, the poem, is a conversation. The women are nodding, 'Yeah!' It's a conversation. The whole thing is a conversation. They, they talk to each other, they encourage each other, they compliment each other, they express their desire for each other, they forgive each other. All those things happen in the context of the book.
32 · Establishes the structural progression of Song of Songs as demonstrating that physical intimacy is the culmination—not the foundation—of relational, emotional, and spiritual intimacy built over time
Solomon shows us that while sex is the zenith of physical intimacy, it's built upon the exchange of thoughts and emotions and hearts. The book builds to their physical intimacy. There's the initial attraction and then there's the pursuit, and as that's happening, their relational and emotional and spiritual intimacy is going deeper and deeper until the point where it's appropriate for them in the context of marriage to experience the fulfillment of it in physical intimacy. Sex is designed to be the culmination of all those types of intimacy.
33 · Interprets Song of Songs 6:3 as the theological center of marital intimacy—total mutual belonging—and argues that sex is meant to be reciprocal, not one-sided or driven by obligation
We see it put beautifully in that famous verse, 6:3, 'I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.' I and everything that I am is my beloved's. And my beloved and everything that he or she is is mine. Sex is more than just physical intimacy. It's not meant to be inherently selfish. It's not inherently about an individual pleasure. Sex within marriage isn't meant to be one-sided. One party's into it, the other party isn't. It shouldn't represent a husband desiring his wife and her feeling a sense of Christian duty to oblige his physical needs.
34 · Demonstrates that Song of Songs depicts reciprocal desire—the woman initiates and expresses desire as much as the man—showing that God's design is for mutual pursuit and two-way intimacy
You notice in the book, in Song of Songs, as it goes on, it's not just the guy who's got all the flowery words and doing the pursuing. She's reciprocating. She's writing to him. She's communicating to him. She's telling him not just of how she loves him, not how she's attracted, not how she respects his character. She's telling him of her desire for him. It goes both ways, and it's designed to go both ways. Displayed powerfully, it's a love story that takes us from initial attraction and desire to marriage and sexual intimacy. It's beautiful, and it's explicit in the way it describes the flourishing sexual relationship of a husband and wife. It's a two-way conversation. These people are deeply in love with each other. They long for relational intimacy and they ultimately express that sexually. They desire each other. They reciprocate their love and they come together.
35 · Traces the arc from conflict (ch
Song of Songs 7:10-12. You have the conflict, the communication breakdown, whatever it is in chapter 5, and then chapters 6 through 7 describes the reconciliation. And we read again, 'I am my beloved's,' in verses 10 to 12, 'and his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go early to the vineyards; there I will give you my love.' It's a beautiful description of consummated love, not just the physical act, but the fulfillment and crowning moment of their ongoing pursuit of each other.
36 · Argues that Song of Songs' structure demonstrates that marital romance and desire are meant to continue and deepen over time, not peak at the wedding night and decline
The romance Song of Songs is saying doesn't stop after chapter 4 and the wedding night. Chapter 5 shows us that there's hiccups and there's bumps in the road, but the romance doesn't stop, the desire doesn't stop. In fact, we get more descriptions, deeply beautiful, in some ways even more beautiful descriptions of their intimacy together the longer they're together. Isn't that interesting? It's not just the wedding night where they're astounded by each other. That goes on and it grows.
37 · Draws a biblical-theological connection between being made in God's image and the command for marital one-flesh union, arguing that sexual intimacy mysteriously mirrors the relational intimacy within the Trinity
There's a God-designed need for intimacy in marriage. When God creates man in His image and likeness and then commands Adam and Eve right off the bat to be sexually intimate, we're learning something about ourselves and we're learning something about God. And we can take this too far. The triune God doesn't practice sexual intimacy like humans. We can't ignore the fact that God calls us to reflect his image, right? And then he calls husbands and wives to cleave to one another through one flesh union. Says, you are made in my image and likeness. Immediately after, go and cleave to each other. This means there is something mysterious about the way a husband and wife's sexual intimacy mirror the relational intimacy of the Godhead. Not in a physical way, but in a spiritual and emotional way.
38 · Connects Song of Songs' positive portrayal of ongoing intimacy to Paul's command in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 not to withhold sexual intimacy, showing that mutual belonging requires continued sexual faithfulness
Which explains why Paul commands husbands and wives not to withhold their sexual intimacy from each other. The positive side of this equation is Song of Songs 6 and 7. Oh, the wedding night, chapter 4. Oh, real life, chapter 5. And then the book ends. And never again are they intimate. No, you see the positive side of 6 and 7. There's reconciliation. There's forgiveness. And they come back together. That's the positive example. The negative prohibition is Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:3. The husband shall give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. Conjugal rights is a way of saying they'll be together sexually. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. My beloved is mine and I am my beloved's. Right? Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time. Do not deprive one another. You're called to continue this.
39 · Uses the Puritans' practice of church discipline for marital sexual neglect as a historical example demonstrating how seriously they took Paul's command—countering their repressive reputation
The Puritans, you know, the ones that get the bad rap about being sexually repressive, they took this so seriously they would put people under church discipline for failing to fulfill their marital obligations. Now how they figured that out, I don't necessarily know. But that's a pretty serious understanding of what's called, of what we're commanded to do.
40 · Applies Paul's warning that withholding sexual intimacy creates vulnerability to temptation—adultery, pornography, perversion—while affirming personal responsibility for sexual sin
Failure of marital intimacy, failure to renew the sexual union is a big deal. Paul says one of the reasons you can't fail to do it is it prevents temptation. You can't— there's always your own heart to blame for sexual sin, right? But it stirs up temptation that leaves people prone to adultery and infidelity, to pornography and other perversions when husbands and wives fail to care for each other and pursue each other faithfully in this regard.
41 · Applies the principle that ongoing marital intimacy models healthy sexuality for children, using a personal anecdote about a friend whose parents' visible affection demonstrated their continued love
It models for children what healthy sexuality looks like. Kids pick up on way more than we think they do. They figure out really quickly if mom and dad are still in love. I had a friend— I'll leave his name out in case he or his parents ever hear the message. I just remember we'd go over to their house and his mom and dad were always kissing in front of us. It was like there was no question. Johnny's mom and dad still loved each other. Let's not go over to Johnny's house anymore. It's a little uncomfortable. It was beautiful. You knew they loved each other.
42 · Applies the principle that children's observations of their parents' marital intimacy shape their future desires for or resistance to marriage—coldness breeds cynicism, visible love breeds longing
Don't think for a second there's not a connection between young men or even older men today resisting marriage because they've gotten this impression that to get married is actually live in a sexually repressive environment. They see that modeled sometimes from an early age. Mothers and fathers who are cold and distant and don't show physical affection. But the potential for the opposite is also true. When they see that, it's beautiful and it's wonderful and it stirs up in them a desire I wanna have that someday. I can't wait to love someone like my dad loves my mom. I can't wait to be close to someone like that. I can't wait to know someone like that.
43 · Applies the principle that ongoing sexual intimacy functions as a diagnostic indicator of marital health, distinguishing between legitimate physical limitations and relational breakdown
It's important, and it's a barometer of marital health. Where there's a complete lack of physical intimacy there's something going on in the marriage. Now, there are times when there are physical reasons, and they're sad, they're heartbreaking, but they're also understandable. That's not what I'm talking about here. When a husband and wife are failing to come together in marital sexual intimacy, it speaks volumes about where they're at in their relationship with one another.
44 · Concludes the intimacy section and signals the move to the third and final major point: sex is designed for God's glory
Sex was designed for intimacy. Finally, sex is designed for God's glory.
45 · Asserts that sex, like all created goods, cannot satisfy ultimate longings and is designed instead to direct us toward worship of the Creator
We've been hinting at this for the last 2 weeks. Sex alone will not fill us. Our culture says the opposite, but sex alone will not fill you. Its design, like everything in creation, is to stir up worship and to stir up gratitude for the giver of the gifts, God the Creator.
46 · Addresses the elephant in the room—Solomon's polygamy and apostasy—by arguing that his personal failure with sexual idolatry uniquely qualifies him to teach that sex cannot be ultimate
If anybody knows this, it's Solomon, right? It's gone unsaid up to this point, but how can Solomon, the man of countless wives and concubines, How can that guy who had all these relationships with these women, these relationships that led him into the worship of false gods that created all sorts of discord, the division of Israel into a northern and southern kingdom, how can Solomon teach us on healthy sex within marriage? Well, in some ways he can speak to it, I think, because he's tasted firsthand the dangers of making sex the ultimate thing. He knows. He has drunk as deeply as he could and he still felt empty.
47 · Uses Augustine's pre-conversion hedonism and eventual recognition that sex is not the ultimate good as a parallel to Solomon, establishing the pattern of seeking fulfillment in sex and finding it empty
He's similar to Augustine in this way. Augustine lived in an incredibly hedonistic world. In his youth, he was incredibly hedonistic. Before he was converted, He embraced a lifestyle of trivial, casual sex. He's slow to convert in part because he's not sure he can do without the temptation of illicit sex. He's not sure he can actually embrace a biblical worldview of sex. In the end though, Augustine discovered that while sex was a gift from God, sex was not our ultimate good. Sex, like all the gifts of creation, is intended by God ultimately to lead us to him. In our fallen confusion, we obsess over the gifts and we forget the giver.
48 · Quotes Augustine's confession identifying the root of idolatry—seeking fulfillment in created things rather than in God—as the diagnosis of sexual brokenness
Augustine sums up how we lose sight of glory, the glory sex was intended to point to, beautifully. He says, all these things are the gift of my God. I did not give them to myself. These things are good, and they all made up my being. Therefore, he who made me is good, and he is my good. But in this was my sin, that not in him but in his creatures, in myself and others, did I seek pleasure and honor and truths. I sought fulfillment in the things that God had given and not in God himself.
49 · Uses The Rolling Stones' 'I Can't Get No Satisfaction' as cultural witness to the truth that seeking ultimate satisfaction in created things—especially sex—always fails
The result of seeking our highest pleasure in creation doesn't result in satisfaction. The Rolling Stones unknowingly articulate this very truth. I can't get no satisfaction. They're right. You can't. There's a restlessness, not a peace, in making an idol out of sex. No matter how hard we try, and the world has been trying hard for thousands of years, sex fails us when we make it the ground for our meaning and our identity and our happiness.
50 · Quotes Bruce Marshall's provocative claim that sexual sin is ultimately a misdirected search for God, establishing that even the most broken sexual pursuits reveal a God-shaped longing
Bruce Marshall, in a novel, well, a novel, has this poignant line. He says, the young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. The unman who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. He's seeking to fill his soul with something.
51 · Establishes that the power of sex lies in its design as a foretaste of ultimate intimacy with God, evoking self-giving love that mirrors the inner life of the Trinity
That underscores something about our culture, something our culture has lost and Christians are sometimes nervous to acknowledge. There is an inherent and profound connection between God and sex. Part of God's design in sex is to give us a heavenly foretaste, an earthly foretaste of heavenly deep intimacy. Sex is powerful because it stirs up something deep within us, something we long to experience. Sex is a holy thing that the Lord intended to evoke a posture of self-giving. It satisfies our desire to know and be known that every human experiences, all the way back to Adam sitting alone in the garden. And it brings us into the experience of God in a unique way. It reveals what it is to be self-forgetting and self-transcending and self-giving. That's the inner life of the Trinity.
52 · Clarifies that sex is a pointer to God, not a substitute, and that the world's error is both idolizing sex and removing the guardrails that enable it to function as intended
Of course, the point of this is that sex is created to be a pointer to God, not a substitute. The world perverts it by making sex an ultimate thing. While at the same time stripping sex of all the guardrails that God designed to keep it pure and satisfying. The joy that Adam experiences in the garden— remember last week, he sees Eve and, 'We fit! We fit!' The joy he experiences in the garden is satisfying at the deepest levels of his personhood. And it's satisfying because it's experienced not as the be-all end-all, but as a precious gift that points back to God.
53 · Quotes Paul Tripp to encapsulate the functional purpose of created pleasure—to drive us toward the Creator rather than terminate in the creation
Paul Tripp, in his book Sex and Money, says creation is not meant to satisfy you. It's meant to be pleasurable so that you'd run after the ultimate pleasure who will satisfy your heart, your creator.
54 · Returns to Solomon's brokenness to establish that Song of Songs functions not as an unattainable ideal but as a pointer creating longing for Christ, the true bridegroom
Solomon's love poem is beautiful, but his love life itself was broken, right? Solomon needs rescue as much as any other character in Scripture, as much as any other hedonistically self-obsessed, sex-obsessed modern person. The good news of the Song of Songs is that it's meant to make us yearn for something more. It's meant to make us yearn for Christ.
55 · Acknowledges the universal experience of falling short of Song of Songs' ideal while recognizing the deep longing it creates for intimacy—being known and knowing another
When we read the book, We all sense how far short we fall from it, right? You read it and it's like, man, there's been some cool points in my marriage when it looks like this. If you're a single person, you read it and think, I hope I have that someday. But you sense at the same time, I'm not there. And yet you know a longing for what it describes as being known. And knowing someone.
56 · Establishes the eschatological trajectory: no sex or marriage in heaven because the earthly types are fulfilled in Christ gathering His bride, the church, for the ultimate wedding feast
There's no sex in heaven. We know that because there's no marriage, right? It's just the Bridegroom and the bride, His church. That doesn't mean there's no intimacy. When Christ returns, He's going to gather His bride, the church, from the corners of the earth. He's going to bring us to the wedding feast. Song of Songs is pointing forward to a greater wedding feast.
57 · Quotes Revelation 19:9 to establish that Song of Songs ultimately stokes yearning for Christ's return and the marriage supper, where all human relationships are fulfilled in Christ's perfect love
Christ is going to gather us for that wedding feast. Revelation 19:9 tells us, blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb. Song of Songs, along with all scripture, is meant to stoke a yearning for that return, for Christ coming as the bridegroom and gathering us up. It's meant to stir in us a desire for that day when every relationship—married and single, the whole spectrum—falls under the yoke of Christ's perfect love.
58 · Establishes the typological fulfillment: marital intimacy in Song of Songs prefigures the deeper, face-to-face intimacy with Christ—knowing and being known by the Creator who chose us despite our blemishes
Song of Songs and the marital sex it describes is beautiful because it points forward to the intimacy we can find in Jesus the Bridegroom. Not sexual intimacy, but intimacy on a far deeper level. Intimacy of seeing face to face, of knowing and being known by your Creator, the one who designed you and knows you. The one who saw every blemish and still chose you. The one who shed his blood for you so he could present you pure and spotless.
59 · Concludes by lifting the congregation's gaze to the eschatological fulfillment promised in Revelation 19-22—a day when all desires are satisfied in unbroken intimacy with Christ
Revelation 19-22 promises a day when no desires will be left unsatisfied. Of a day when we'll experience ultimate joy and purpose, unbroken face-to-face fellowship and intimacy with the true bridegroom, Jesus Christ.
60 · Closing prayer asking God to help the congregation pursue the biblical sexual ethic, lead them to repentance, and ultimately stir yearning for the marriage feast of the Lamb
Lord, I ask that you would help us to pursue the sexual ethic of your word. Lord, help us to pursue the beauty of sex within the bounds of marriage, to embrace your design for it in procreation and faithfulness and pleasure and intimacy. But Lord, we pray that you would help us to glorify you by the things we think and say and practice regarding sexuality. Lord, I pray that you would lead us to repentance. Lead us to confession and repentance where we have gone outside of the boundaries. Lord, I pray that for those who have gone outside the boundaries, You would reveal to them, give them an unshakable sense of the emptiness that happens there. Most of all, Lord, we pray that You would stir in us a yearning for the marriage feast of the Lamb. That everything we do in preparation for earthly marriage, in desiring earthly marriage, in living out earthly marriage, in practicing sex within the context of early marriage would be done with gratitude and thanksgiving, with joy and with a longing to the intimacy we'll have with Jesus when he returns. We pray this in his name. Amen.