A Theology of the Body

View Sermon Transcript

Download .pdf

We are starting a new five-week series focused on the Song of Songs, and my guess is that's probably a first. Most people have probably not heard a sermon on the Song of Songs, but don't worry. I'll keep it mostly PG, for those who may be concerned about that.

So why study the Song of Songs? Well, this book belongs to what is referred to as the wisdom literature within the Bible. It's right up there with the Book of Job and the Book of Ecclesiastes. These books represent some of the most important writing in all of ancient literature. Regardless of your beliefs or doubts, these are books that you should know, because they've stood the test of time. Despite being written over 3,000-4,000 years ago, they continue to speak to us with clarity and power.

What makes these books so special? You could think of it like this: The Book of Job explores the riddle of suffering, the Book of Ecclesiastes explores the riddle of existence, and the Song of Songs explores the riddle of love. Suffering, existence, and love: What could be more important than that? So before we dive into the Song itself, let me share a few words of introduction in order to orient us.

Some refer to this book as the Song of Solomon. In fact, that's the way it may be printed in your pew Bible. But it's very unlikely that this book was actually written by Solomon. The opening title in verse 1 literally reads, “The song of songs pertaining to Solomon,” perhaps implying that the Song fits within the wisdom tradition for which Solomon, the son of King David, was famous. But it's very doubtful that Solomon himself was the author, especially since his form of love is actually directly criticized and cast in a negative light in chapter 8 of the Song of Songs.

Solomon, you may recall, married for political and economic reasons. It’s said that he had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Whereas this song, the Song of Songs, celebrates the passionate, exclusive, and mutual love between one man and one woman. So for those reasons, even very conservative commentators have agreed that this song was written by an unnamed anonymous author about an idealized man and woman.

In fact, we don't really know anything about this young couple except for what they think and how they feel about one another. And that lack of specificity is intentional. They could be anyone. They could be you. They could be me. And that's what makes the Song of Songs so universally accessible and so enduring.

And notice that it's called the Song of Songs. In Hebrew, that's a superlative description like saying the Holy of Holies, the King of Kings, or the Lord of Lords. It's a way of describing the greatest of its kind. And so this is the greatest of all love songs. It is unsurpassed, unmatched in its subject, in its artistry, and in its depth of meaning. So this is the song of all songs — the song to end all songs.

That means that we should remember as well that it is a song. And as a song, it includes all the typical elements we might expect to find in poetry. It uses repetition and cycles. It’s rich in images and metaphors — and yes, some suggestive language and double entendres. But as a song, it doesn't provide us with a straightforward plot or a storyline that follows a chronological order. So instead of forcing a narrative upon the Song of Songs, instead we should listen for the recurring themes that the author comes back to again and again in different voices and in different settings.

Here's how one of my favorite commentators describes the Song. He writes,

In our Song, the lovers are portrayed in various scenes of intimacy and longing. Some of them are hot and passionate, others more tranquil and calm. The consummation of their love is celebrated in the marriage cycle. But we all know that ‘the course of true love never did run smooth,’ and the lovers in our Song experience the agonies as well as the ecstasies of a growing relationship, the pain of separation, the fears of loss, the little misunderstandings which get magnified out of all proportion, the tensions of an insecure self-image, the lovers’ quarrels, all of which are part of the warp and woof of the fabric of relationships. But the showers and the tears are compensated for by the sunshine and the laughter, the hurts and withdrawals by the joyous relief of reconciliation. So we should look upon the Song as the joys and tensions of a young couple on their progress towards marriage.

Well, if all of this is true, then how should we read this song? I would suggest that we need to avoid two opposite errors: One is to secularize the Song, and the other is to overspiritualize it. See, some people secularize the Song by saying, “This is nothing more than a secular love song that actually doesn't refer to God at all.” And then the other temptation is to overspiritualize the Song. Some may be uncomfortable with the sensual language of the Song, and therefore they overspiritualize it by saying, “It's all an allegory to describe God's love for his people.” But these would both be mistakes that would lead us down wrong paths of sexual ethics on the one hand, or spiritual theology on the other.

Therefore, how should we read it rightly? Well, I would say that we have to read the Song of Songs first and foremost as a positive, joyful celebration of human love and sexuality within the context of marriage. That's the primary emphasis. But this primary emphasis does not exhaust the meaning of this song. The Song does operate with multiple layers of meaning. And so secondarily, the Song is also meant to provide us with a glimpse of God's love for his people.

But here's where we need to be careful, because God's love for us should never be cast in erotic terms. That would be a category mistake. And so rather than taking our human experience of love and projecting it onto God, what we need to do is take a top-down approach where we see that God's perfect, committed, covenantal love for us shapes and informs our human love for one another.

So let me provide you with a quick little outline of where we're going over these next five weeks. Based on the Song of Songs, we will explore: 1. a theology of the body, 2. a theology of desire, 3. a theology of identity, 4. a theology of marriage, and then finally 5. a theology of love. And so we will begin today by considering what the Song has to tell us about a theology of the human body by taking a look at the first six verses. As we turn to the opening six lines of this song, I'd like us to explore: 1) our present confusion, 2) our necessary clarity, and 3) our future confidence when it comes to the human body.

¹The Song of Songs, which pertains to Solomon.

Beloved

²Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
For your love is better than wine;

³ your anointing oils are fragrant;
your name is oil poured out;
therefore virgins love you.

⁴Draw me after you; let us run.
The king has brought me into his chambers.

Chorus

We will exult and rejoice in you;
we will extol your love more than wine;
rightly do they love you.

Beloved

⁵I am very dark, but lovely,
O daughters of Jerusalem,
like the tents of Kedar,
like the curtains of Solomon.

⁶Do not gaze at me because I am dark,
because the sun has looked upon me.
My mother's sons were angry with me;
they made me keeper of the vineyards,
but my own vineyard I have not kept!

Song of Songs 1:1-6

Our Present Confusion

Let's begin by discussing our present confusion. I would suggest that as a culture we're very confused about how to think about the human body, and here's what I mean by that. The novelist Walker Percy once said that we live either as if we are angels, like we have no bodies, or as if we are animals, as if the body is all there is. Or another way this was once put by the Australian pastor and professor John Kleig was that we seem to be of two minds about the body. We tend to swing between two distorted ways of regarding the human body: obsession on the one hand, and contempt on the other.

One dominant way we regard the body is through obsession. We believe that having an attractive, fit, youthful body is the key to flourishing. It's essential to our happiness. And as a result, we obsess over our bodies. We're preoccupied with our image, and we're willing to do almost anything in order to make ourselves look desirable or alluring. And this obsession thrives on constant comparison. That's why social media, I think, is so corrosive. Many people would suggest that they assess their value and their worth by comparing their bodies to the idealized images that we see online or perhaps in print.

But most of these images are not natural. They’re staged. These images are enhanced — perhaps with makeup, or maybe they're manipulated with digital tools. Both are used either to hide our flaws or to exaggerate whatever we consider to be our best features. And no real human body can ever live up to these idealized standards. Yet the fact of the matter is that we still continue to judge ourselves by them. And sometimes we judge ourselves quite harshly.

That's why, paradoxically, our obsession with the human body can also coexist with our contempt for our bodies. Many people report being so unhappy in their bodies that they would gladly trade in their body for an upgrade. And that dissatisfaction is so intense that some might be willing to attempt any self-improvement plan, any skincare regimen, any cosmetic treatment, perhaps any surgical procedure. And for some, that unhappiness turns tragic. Some people sadly and painfully feel trapped in their bodies and try to escape by disassociating themselves from their bodies. Others treat their bodies harshly, as if to punish themselves for perceived failures and shortcomings. And I think that this is wreaking havoc on us as a society.

Some of you may have read NYU Professor Jonathan Haidt's book “The Anxious Generation.” In it he argues that since the introduction of the smartphone, constant comparison with curated images or stage performances of many of our peers on social media has coincided with — or perhaps caused — a dramatic increase in rates of anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and self-harm, especially among adolescents. And so if you’re a young person, or if you’re the parent of a young person, or an aunt or an uncle, or a concerned adult in a young person's life, we really should be concerned about how social media is being used and the harmful effects it is already having.

But here's a slightly more humorous reason why we should pay attention to this. I read a week or two ago an article in the Wall Street Journal that reported that young partygoers are less likely to dance and move at clubs and concerts than they used to be. You know why? Because they're worried about being captured on video on a smartphone looking awkward or goofy, and then seeing that video posted online. And so instead, people are just hanging out in clubs nodding their heads, or perhaps flicking their hands. So even these moments of embodied joy are now being filtered through phone cameras and leading to performance anxiety — so much so that DJs are calling for people to have to check their phones at the door along with their coats!

So you see, obsession and contempt reveal that we both idolize and despise our bodies at one and the same time. We endlessly criticize our bodies, but yet rarely accept them. So how should we respond to this confusion? Well, my approach throughout this series is not going to be to harp on the negatives within our culture but rather to focus on the positives in Scripture. My aim is to present the Bible's beautiful, compelling, life-giving vision of embodied humanity.

Our Necessary Clarity

So let's turn from our present confusion to our necessary clarity. We need clarity, so where do we find it? Well, we're going to find the necessary clarity by tying together what we know from Genesis 1 and 2 with Genesis 3. In other words, we have to understand what it means for our bodies to be created good by God and yet distorted by the fall. So we could sum it up like this: Our bodies were created by God as good and a gracious gift, but as a result of humanity's fall into sin, our bodies have been wounded, though not destroyed.

So let's start by thinking about our creational goodness. And perhaps to really get the point across, I could say it like this. You know that God loves you. If you've been coming to church for any length of time, you know that God loves you. But what I want you to hear is that God not only loves you, God loves your body, because he made it. He designed it. The opening chapters of the Bible tell us that when God created human beings, when he created the human body, this was the climax of creation. This was the high point. Prior to this moment, he had declared everything that he had made good. But when he made human beings and human bodies, he declared it to be very good. He doesn't just love you; he loves your physical body.

And right away, we see in the opening lines of this song a positive affirmation of the human body as a gift from God. It's right in line with what we see in Psalm 139: “I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made by God. Now in this song, the author uses rather descriptive language to evoke all five physical senses, which again is pointing to the goodness of our bodies and our physicality. We see all five senses: touching, tasting, smelling, hearing, seeing.

The first voice we hear in the Song is the voice of the young woman, and that in itself is instructive. We hear her voice as much as if not more than the voice of the young man, which may call into question some stereotypes about male and female roles in relationships, at least within some Christian circles. Mutuality is emphasized throughout this song, but the woman speaks first, and she speaks of both touching and tasting as she expresses her deep longing in verse 2. “Oh, that he would kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. For your love is better than wine.” She doesn't want to just rub noses. She's not just looking for a peck on the cheek. She longs for a deep, passionate kiss that flows like wine.

And from taste and touch, she moves to scent. She delights in the fragrance of his cologne, and even the sound of his name is described like perfume poured out, which elicits hearing as well. But his name, of course, not only represents his person but his character, his integrity. And so it shows that her attraction is comprehensive. She's not only attracted to his looks, but she's attracted to his reputation. And it's no wonder then that in verse 3 we read that all the other maidens, all the other eligible young women, consider him a catch.

Now, we may be surprised to find this kind of evocative, sensual language in the Bible. But if this language surprises you, and if you feel like it shouldn't be here, like it doesn't fit in the Bible, well then that might suggest that rather than being influenced by the Scriptures, perhaps you have been overly influenced by the ancient Greeks. Because the ancient Greeks were dualists, meaning that they had a split-level view of the world. They elevated the spiritual over the physical. So the ancient Greeks believed that the soul was noble and dignifying, but the physical body was actually corrupt and degrading. And for an ancient Greek, ultimate salvation was for the soul to escape the confines of the body — to be set free from the prison of the body — because all that really matters, they believed, is the soul.

But against these negative views of the body or of the physical world, the Bible affirms the inherent goodness of the material world as a good gift of God. And unlike the Greeks, therefore, who created this false dichotomy between the soul and the body, the Bible sees us as a comprehensive whole — not body or soul, but body and soul. We can't separate the one from the other. And you know in your own experience that's true. How can we possibly separate who we are in terms of body and soul? We're one in the same. Everything we do, think, feel, sense, will, desire we do within our bodies. Our bodies are part and parcel of who we are.

So then, rather than trying to distinguish body and soul from one another, the way in which the Bible would encourage us to think is that we are ensouled bodies and embodied souls. We simply cannot separate the two from one another. So in light of our created goodness, this song praises not only the body but gender difference, erotic desire, sexual intimacy, mutual pleasure, and romantic love — all within the context of marriage. So your body, from the standpoint of the Bible, is not a problem to be solved. No, your body is a gift to be enjoyed within the limits that God has set.

So our bodies are good, and yet at the same time, though our bodies are good, not everything we do in our bodies is good. And that's why we need to hold the goodness of creation in tension with the effects of humanity's fall into sin. Because every aspect of our humanity — mind, emotion, will, body, desire, feelings — everything's been affected by sin. And we see the frailty of our bodies in the fact that we suffer. We suffer from disease and decay and death. We age, we wrinkle, we eventually die. But we also know, beyond just that physical decay, how love can be twisted into lust, how our desires can become disordered, and how self-giving can be turned into self gratification, leading oftentimes to feelings of deep guilt as well as shame.

This is why the Apostle Paul sums up in Romans 8 this tension that we experience as human beings, caught between the creational goodness of this world and the effects of the fall. And he captures it with one word: groaning. There's an inner tension within ourselves, and we groan. We groan inwardly as we await the redemption of our bodies.

We can see the effects of the fall here in the Song beginning in verse 5. We see that not everything is right in the home life of this young woman. There's no mention of her father ever. Has he died? Has he abandoned the family? We don't know. And notice that she does not refer to her “brothers”; rather, she calls them her mother's sons. Now, why might that be? Are they stepbrothers? Half-brothers? We don't know. What we do know is that they're not treating her very well. They're angry with her, and they force her to work in the vineyard. And as a result of that, she's self-conscious. Like us, she's self-conscious about her appearance, because she says that her skin is very dark.

Now it's important to see here that this is not a description of race or ethnicity. She's saying that her skin is dark, meaning that her skin is sunkissed. The irony here is that many people today work very hard on their tans. They want to show off their tan lines, because for many of us being bronzed is a sign of beauty. But that's not the way it was in this ancient culture, because in this ancient culture, higher class people avoided exposure to the sun as a sign of their status. So rich people would say, well, only commoners have suntans because they're the ones that have to work out in the field. And the paler you were, the more you could show off how high in society you had climbed. And all of it just goes to show how our cultural standards of beauty can change rather dramatically over time.

So this woman is self-conscious. She's self-conscious about what other people might think, and yet deep down she knows that she's beautiful. She says, I'm dark, but lovely. I'm sunkissed, but lovely. And then she offers this little play on words. Her stepbrothers made her keeper of the vineyards, but her own vineyard she has not kept, meaning that she has not been able to keep up her appearance in the way that she would have liked.

So these verses force us to confront our own self-image. How do you view yourself? When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see? Do you like the way you look? And can you accept yourself with all of your quirks, your idiosyncrasies, and your flaws? You know, even supermodels have flaws. So can you accept yourself, or do you wish perhaps that you were someone else?

Earlier I said that God doesn't just love you; he loves your body. Another way to put it is that God doesn't just love you; God likes you. God really likes you. He likes you as you are — with all of your quirks and idiosyncrasies and what you perceive to be flaws — because he made you. He designed you, and he made you good. You're not an accident, you're not a mistake, and you're not a failure. You are God's design, his masterpiece. You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Our Future Confidence

We've considered our present confusion regarding the human body and the clarity we need, viewing our bodies in terms of both God's good creation and humanity's fall into sin. But very briefly we have to ask one final question: What is our future confidence? What hope do we have for our bodies? The fact of the matter is that sin can deface God's work in our lives, but it can never erase our God-given dignity.

Sin alienates us from God and from one another, but sin also alienates us from ourselves. Sin alienates us from our own bodies. We project our failure onto our bodies, or perhaps we disassociate our bodies from ourselves. We might hate our bodies because we feel guilty. Or we might be embarrassed of our bodies because we feel ashamed. But I would suggest that that's not a neurotic fancy, and this isn't a superficial problem. Rather, this sense of alienation has real, spiritual roots, and therefore it calls for a real, spiritual remedy. And that is what God provides.

Not unlike the young woman's longing, oh, that “he would kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,” the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:24 gives voice to our deepest ache. When we consider how we groan in these bodies that have been barred by sin, we groan inwardly for the redemption of our bodies. Paul says in Romans 7, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” And then immediately Paul goes on to answer his own question. He says, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!” You see, Jesus Christ has done everything necessary in order to redeem our bodies, and that is where our hope is found.

So consider very quickly what Jesus has accomplished for us through his incarnation, his reconciliation, and his new creation. Jesus became incarnate. He took on a human body. And the fact that God took on flesh imbues our bodies with the dignity that had been partially lost through the Fall. Jesus has experienced everything we have and more. Jesus not only knows what it's like to feel hungry or tired or thirsty, but Jesus knows what it's like to sweat and to sneeze. He's had to navigate life in a human body. He had to deal with both headaches and hormones. So there's no aspect of our human existence to which he doesn't relate.

Not only that, Jesus was willing to touch the untouchable in his human body. As a result, he was able to restore physical senses to those who had lost them. He gave those who were blind the ability to see, those who were deaf the ability to hear, those who were mute the ability to speak. He gave those who were paralyzed the ability to feel their toes and to wiggle them again. And his miracles were not just magic stunts. They weren't performative acts. They weren't arbitrary. They fulfilled a purpose, which was to provide us with a glimpse of what the world will be like when God makes everything new. So what is the future that God has promised based on the miracles of Jesus? Restored bodies.

Jesus didn't just live in a human body; he died in a human body in order to reconcile us back in relationship to God. The message of the cross is that Jesus became sin with our sin in a body so that we might become righteous with his righteousness in our bodies. In Romans 8:3, Paul says that God sent Jesus in human flesh so that he might condemn sin in the flesh — not to condemn you and me, but to condemn sin in the flesh. And likewise, 1 Peter 2 tells us that he “bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed.” Jesus’ body was wounded so that our bodies might be healed.

But we have hope not only because of the incarnation and the reconciliation that he brings, but also because of the promise of new creation. Have you ever stopped to consider that when Jesus was resurrected, he didn't appear to his followers as an ephemeral spirit or as a ghost, but as a resurrected physical body who continued to bear the marks of his wounds? Jesus was raised with a physical body, he ascended with a physical body, and he'll return with a physical body. Jesus forever now has a physical body.

And God has promised to do for us at the end of history what he did for Jesus in the middle of history — to raise us up with new physical bodies, to enjoy life with him in a new physical world, all of which shows that your body is not a mistake, your struggles in your body are not meaningless, and the experiences of guilt and shame are not permanent. Jesus lived in a human body, he died in a human body, and he rose again and will return in a human body. This is the comfort and encouragement that we have: knowing that one day, all these inner tensions that we experience now in our bodies will be resolved.

So as we come to this table where we celebrate the fact that Jesus gave up his body for us, let's learn how to receive our bodies as good gifts from God, and then how to offer them back as living sacrifices, knowing that one day our wounds will lead to wholeness, our confusion will lead to clarity, and our groaning will lead to glory.

Let's pray together.

Father God, we thank you for the good gift of the bodies that you have given us. And though we know that they have been marred by the effects of the Fall into sin, we cling to the hope that you provide: that you will make all things new, that you will redeem and restore our bodies so that all those inner tensions that we experience now will be resolved. And we pray that in the meantime you would help us, in response to your grace, to glorify you in the body that you have redeemed through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen.

Sermons

The Song of Songs: A Theology of the Body

Related Resources

Our Present Confusion

Our Necessary Clarity

Our Future Confidence