698_As love matures (Song of Songs 8:5-7)
Song of Songs 8:5-7 Who is that coming up from the wilderness,
leaning on her beloved?
Under the apple tree I awakened you.
There your mother was in labor with you;
there she who bore you was in labor.
6 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 flame of the Lord.
7 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.
An elderly couple were asked the secret behind their sixty years of marriage. The husband smiled gently and said, “In our generation, when something was broken, we fixed it instead of throwing it away.” But in a world that celebrates excitement but struggles with commitment, enduring love has become rare. Much of what the world calls love today is built upon feelings, appearance, convenience, or personal fulfillment.
Not so true love. It becomes richer through suffering, steadier through trials, and stronger through commitment. This great theme emerges in the closing chapters of the Song of Songs.
In these chapters we observe a change in the relationship between Solomon and the Shulammite. Intense attraction has matured into settled assurance. Their love has grown roots.
The Shulammite who once said, “Do not gaze at me because I am dark” now rests quietly in the confidence of being loved. The woman who once searched anxiously through dreams and city streets for her beloved now speaks with calm assurance: “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me” (Song of Songs 7:10).
What a remarkable statement that is. In the earlier part of the Song, her longing for him was emphasized. Now, as love matures, she rests not in her love for Solomon but in his love for her. Mature love leads, not to anxiety, but to security.
This is also the journey of the Christian life. We often begin to walk with Christ with great excitement and zeal, but also with insecurity. We wonder if we are truly accepted. Like the Shulammite, we are painfully aware of our failures and inconsistencies.
Eventually, despite being and feeling like an outsider to the refinement and culture of the court, Solomon’s love led the Shulamite to an unshakable confidence in his affection, rather than a gloomy introspective gaze upon her own perceived failings. As the people of God, we know we are very imperfect people being prepared for a perfect and glorious kingdom. Yet we need not fear, for Christ has set His love upon us.
Our walk with the Lord through years of joys and sorrows, victories and failures, leads us to the calm assurance that His love for us rests not on our worthiness but on His own nature.
The covenant love of God is one of the most comforting truths in Scripture. Zephaniah 3:17 tenderly describes God’s heart toward His people: “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”
Romans 8 asks, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” The triumphant answer is: neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And so the beautiful poem begins: “Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved?” (Song of Songs 8:5). The Shulamite is leaning on her beloved, not striding out alone. Instead of the earlier searching, longing, and dreaming, now there is confidence and dependence, the joy of one who realizes she is loved.
This is the mark of spiritual maturity. It is not independence from Christ; it is deeper dependence upon Him. The longer we walk with the Lord, the more we realize how desperately we need Him every day.
After years of ministry, suffering, and revelation, the apostle Paul did not say, “I have become strong.” Instead he said, “I rejoice in weakness… for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). We are glad and proud and ready to lean harder on him each day, for his love is our strong security.
The poem continues in Song of Songs 8:6: “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death.” A seal represents identity, authenticity, permanence. For lovers, each longs to be imprinted forever on the affections of the beloved. Here we hear echoes of Christ’s covenant love and longings for the love of His people.
The verse continues: “Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it” (8:7). Trials cannot extinguish covenant love, nor can suffering drown it. Time cannot weaken it.
Human love may sometimes fluctuate or fail, but Christ’s love remains eternally steadfast. It carried Him to the cross. It endured rejection, suffering, and death for the joy of redeeming his beloved. Truly, love proved “strong as death.” And this is what our Lord asks for from his bride: to be the seal on our hearts and on our arms, the One who owns our heart’s love and our public profession and actions.
Yet our love for the Lord often feels inadequate. And sometimes we feel overwhelmed by failure, disappointment, or hardship. Let us take to heart the precious truth that our salvation is founded not on our love for God but his love for us, whereby he sent his Son to be our Savior. Our security is built, not on the perfection of our love for Christ, but the steadfastness of his love for us.
The Song of Songs also speaks honestly and beautifully about marriage intimacy. For in scripture, this is never treated as something shameful or merely tolerated. In the beginning, before sin entered his perfect world, God created man and woman in His image and commanded them to “be fruitful and multiply”. Complete intimacy within marriage is part of God’s good design.
True, the world has distorted the sexuality that God designed for joy and faithfulness within the covenant. What was meant to unite hearts has often become a source of exploitation, addiction, and brokenness. The apostle Paul, writing to the Corinthians in a culture saturated with immorality, warned husbands and wives not to neglect one another, understanding the dangers of temptation in such a world.
Yet the scriptural design still holds good. Hebrews 13:4 says, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled.”
God’s commands are not designed to rob us of joy but to protect our joy. Faithfulness within marriage reflects human commitment, built in the image and likeness of God’s own covenant faithfulness.
In our own digital age, adultery and pornography are both easy and normalized. Yet scripture warns us all that sexual immorality damages the sinner most of all. It trains the heart to indulge desire unrestrained by commitment and responsibility – while raising the threshold for satisfaction higher each time. Like every sin, it enslaves the sinner, while promising freedom.
The Song ends not with cold duty but with longing. The Shulammite says, “Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices” (Song of Songs 8:14). This sounds very familiar to the closing words of the book of Revelation, as the Lord promises: “Surely I am coming soon.” and his people respond, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”Love always longs for more of its beloved.
Let the love of Christ become our greatest joy and confidence. This is enough to loosen the grip of the world on us. As we lean proudly on him, we forget our own weakness in his strength. We endure suffering gladly because his arm is our strong support through it. We hold earth lightly because we long for the day when our faith will become sight. Our hearts are fixed in thanksgiving, being set on our Bridegroom who loves us so constantly and so perseveringly.
First John 3:2 says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” As we learn to love him more, we stop pursuing merely emotional experiences, leaning instead on his transforming presence.
Let our hearts rest always in the covenant love of God expressed in Christ. Whether we are new believers or have been walking with God for years, what we need is to lean on our Beloved, to trust his affection and loyalty, to guard our hearts against unfaithfulness.
May we grow day by day in love for Christ, trusting his word and saying with settled assurance, “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me.” God bless.