Hidden Gems & Gold Nuggets (Part 2)
September 24, 2025
The Tongue Is a Fire, a World of Iniquity, and It Is Set on Fire by Hell (James 3:6)
September 24, 2025Hidden Gems & Gold Nuggets (Part 2)
September 24, 2025The Tongue Is a Fire, a World of Iniquity, and It Is Set on Fire by Hell (James 3:6)
September 24, 2025INTIMACY: “One Flesh Marriage” & the Song of Solomon
God is Love. God is Good. God is Creator. Everything God creates is good and is created for a good purpose. We need to read the entire Bible and all the “Bible Stories” with this understanding! We must read the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation several times or many times to get the “Big Picture” and we must read individual “Bible Stories” several times or many times while asking this simple question, “What is God trying to teach me (teach us) about love in this Bible Story?”
The Creation Story in Genesis 1:27 relates that God created us in the divine image as male and female. The Creation Story in Genesis 2 reveals that the woman was “taken out” of the man, separated from him, so he is incomplete without her. As God says in Genesis 2:18, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” She is then separated from man, so the two could be joined together again in “One Flesh Marriage.” (Genesis 2:24) * Why? To make love possible! No woman, no love. No woman, no baby. No woman, no family. No woman, and the man is always alone and lonely. The male alone is not the image of God, nor is the female alone the image of God, but male and female together are the divine image of God. Why? Because God is Creator, and we as God’s children are to become co-creators with Him, His partners in multiplying goodness in the form of having our own children. As parents loving our children, we understand more of the nature of God – nurturing our children as they grow physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and in “heart,” a concept of major importance throughout the Bible.
“The Springtime of Love” is depicted in the Song of Solomon 2:10-13, as Lover and Beloved meet in the apple orchards when the trees are blossoming, joyfully sharing the fruits of their love with one another (2:3) .. and in the vineyards when the grapes are ripening, making love all night long (2:17 & 4:6) .. and sharing “kisses sweeter than wine” (1:2 & 4:10). They revel in the exploration of every part of one another’s bodies (2:17 & 6:2). They delight in describing one another in poetic terms (4:1-7, 5:10-16 & 7:1-9) .. inhaling each other’s fragrance (1:3, 1:12, 4:10-11 & 16) .. tasting each other’s fruits (2:3 & 4:16 * Genesis 3:6).
Their love is fresh, new, unique, exclusive (2:16 & 6:3), and beyond compare, despite the “sixty queens and eighty concubines and virgins beyond number” to which Solomon admits in 6:8-9. And this, of course, is the problem, because we read in 1 Kings 11 that “Solomon’s Heart Turns from the Lord” when he allows his foreign wives to bring their idols into God’s Temple and when finally he himself bows down to those idols, which leads to the splitting of the United Kingdom into Israel in the north and Judah in the south. God is like a husband to Israel as wife, and He is faithful despite the infidelities of both kingdoms, as Hosea depicts. This exposes the limitation of the Song of Songs, for we are certain this brief springtime of love, sweet as it is, will not last, as King Solomon becomes besotted with countless women.
It’s delightful and easy to “fall in love,” but far more wonderful (though very difficult) to “stay in love” for a lifetime. Examples of lifetime marital fidelity are rare in the Bible.
God repeatedly equates idolatry as the violation of the love bond between God and we His children with adultery as a violation of the love bond between husband and wife. There are rules God establishes as a protective fence to secure the love bond between husband and wife, the first being the Seventh Commandment – “You shall not commit adultery.” (Exodus 20:14)
The sanctity of “One Flesh Marriage” is spelled out in Malachi 2:10-16, where God declares “Marriage is My Holy Institution!” .. “I hate divorce!” .. “Be faithful to the wife of your youth because [1] the Lord is a witness between you .. [2] She is your companion and [3] your wife by covenant .. and [4] I seek godly offspring.” Eve and Adam sinned, so they were not godly parents; and in Genesis 4, Cain kills Abel. David’s sin with Bathsheba and murder of her husband Uriah is depicted in 2 Samuel Chapters 11 & 12. Their first son dies because “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) Another example of sexual immorality followed by murder immediately appears in David’s household in 2 Samuel Chapter 13, as David’s son Amnon rapes his half-sister Tamar, whose brother Absalom (another of David’s many sons) kills Amnon to avenge his sister. This gives credence to Malachi 2:16 -- “The Lord God hates divorce because it covers one’s garment with violence” .. which emphasizes the close relationship between sexual immorality and violence.
Much practical advice concerning fidelity in “One Flesh Marriage” is contained in Proverbs 5:15-21. First comes a warning against promiscuity and prostitution in 5:15-17 -- “Drink water from your own cistern .. Let your waters be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.” Then come words resonant with Malachi 2 in Proverbs 5:18-19 -- “Rejoice in the wife of your youth! She is a loving doe, a graceful deer! May her breasts satisfy you always, and may you ever be intoxicated with her love.” Then another admonition against adultery and licentiousness in 5:20. Why? “For your ways are in full view of the Lord, and He examines all your paths.” (5:21)
Let’s return to the simplicity of the Genesis account, which concludes with 2:22-23 -- Adam is ecstatic and exclaims when God presents him with Eve, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” And in 2:24-25, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. They were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” * Everything God creates is good and is created for a good purpose. There is no sin and no evil God’s Original Creation in the Garden of Eden – no fear, no guilt, no shame. All these enter the human realm with the disobedience and sin of Eve and Adam in Genesis 3. Likewise, there is no sin and no evil, no fear, guilt, or shame in the New Creation depicted in Revelation 21 & 22, for all the results of the Fall have been destroyed in the “White Throne Judgment” of Revelation 20.
“One Flesh Marriage” is God’s Original Purpose of Creation – Joy through Relationships, beginning with one man and one woman, their children & grandchildren forever and ever, thus multiplying from a couple to a family to a world of goodness & godliness – “One World under God.” * What can we do to return to and actualize God’s Original Ideal?
1 Kings 16:34 – “In his days, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundation with Abiram his firstborn, and with his youngest son Segub he set up its gates, according to the Word of the Lord, which He had spoken through Joshua the son of Nun.”
