Theological Bites
The Three intertwined Loves
In the Bible there three interweaved loves. These are loves knotted together and where the quality of one tells the relationship it has with the other two. These loves are mentioned by God himself in the New Testament (Mathew 22:36-39) and these are:
- Love to God
- Love to Self
- Love to Another
True intimate love discussed in the Song of Song begins with Loving the true ‘GOD’, and then one can discover their true ‘SELF’, love it and be able to share that love with the ‘other’. It is by loving the one true God that you can love yourself properly, and you can only love your spouse as you love yourself. Intimate emotions within this triune code of love to God, Self and then the other lay on a divine bed (Hebrews 13:4). Intimacy in the context of Song of Songs is not a legal affair but a ‘three loves’ reality concurrence. It is faithful love, not judicial correctness where you can be in love with more than one person. There is only one GOD, one SELF and you can only intimately love one PERSON throughout life (Songs 2:16, 7:10).
This God wants these feelings to be intentionally ignited in the right time and the right time is for marriage purposes.
Do not Awaken Love
Throughout the eight chapters of Song of Songs the statement; “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem that you stir not up nor awaken love until it pleases” is repeated three times (2:7, 3:5, and 8:4). The wisdom of this statement is twofold: the first side suggests that love is inside us sleeping and can only be awoken. Secondly, if this sleeping beast is awoken, it has serious effects that go beyond a personal level to a public one.
Wisdom dictates that LOVE IS IN YOU. WISDOM will found you on your feet to love. Don’t search for love out there, it is in you to give, and wisdom will guide you to that individual ready for a transaction. There is love in you, regardless of how many times you have failed, disappointed, and regardless of all the frustrations. There is love in you, and it can only be appreciated by not the intelligent, clever, scientist, psychologists etc. It is only for the wise…until you are WISE you will keep FALLING in love and never STANDING IN LOVE. This love-wisdom however, can be accessed through the fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:7).
LOVE is an indwelling fire that should be started for only two reasons {or at least one of them}:
- To consume
- To Purify
Because of this truth, fire is not something to play with. Love is a consuming and purifying fire depending on the intentions. Love must burn-away and consume to nothingness all the grievous mistakes (past and present), of the loved. Love must heat-hard with blue-flames the beloved to purify him/her as a refined jewel. We don’t love better and neither are the loved the best, it is love that makes us better.
Love is a basic human emotion, but understanding how and why it happens is not something we should ask our counsellor when we have God its creator with us. Not awakening Love before it pleases reminds us that true Love is both timely and timeless. It is patient and it waits faithfully expecting us in our maturity and sobriety to be prepared for it when it comes.
To not awaken love before it pleases starts with yourself. The ‘self’ must try not to involve itself in exercising its indwelling love on someone and make them love us back before we are actually in love. It is not proof of love when someone has all the qualities (physical and psychological) that you like (4:7). While the physical and psychological attributes are indispensable factors in attracting each other, it is wisdom that will teach you that love seeks the real person behind these essential elements.
Financial stability is important but not love. Safety is wonderful but not love. Beauty is essential but it is not love (6:4-5). Though love is not sexless, love is not sex and sex is not love. The sexual overtones in the book of Song of Songs (3:4) warn us not to wake love unless it is the right time. In the Song of Song of Songs, the physical and Psychological features and attributes are used to help express the love each party has for the other. When he praises her beautiful hair, it is not the hair he is in love with but the person. In other words with or without the hair, I love you. Love only has one focus and one aim and that is to love.
The Jealousy Motif
Love in the book of Song of Songs is presented as strong as death and as Jealousy as the grave (8:6), the lovers in there are not just proprietors for each other but possessive (2:16, 7:10). The strength of love is as inevitable as that of death. And love can let go as the grave can let go. Isn’t that amazing? The Jealousy motif in the book is wisely implied and we learn that true love is jealousy.
In our liberal world, the term “jealousy” summons mostly negative connotations. The jealousy motif of love in the Song of Songs does not fit into our world that has things like open marriages and intimate relationships. The common worldview perceives jealous people as unreasonable, controlling, troubled, possessive, and dangerous. Psychologists and experts have concluded that jealousy people in romantic relationships suffer from low self-esteem and self-confidence, depression and they have insecure attachment styles. These need help and majority flock rehab centres to overcome love-jealousy.
Scientists have concluded thus because they resolved that ‘Jealousy’ is not as biological as it is adaptive. Well, to us the theologians, jealousy, be it biological or adaptive, still does not explain in a determinative sense its presence in each and every person in intimate relationships. The theological explanation is that since Love in man draws from the God who is love, it carries the genetic composition of the Love of God. The God from whom we draw love genes is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5) and whoever launches true love cannot escape its nature.
True love is jealous, and we are all jealous for those we love; the difference is in how we exhibit that jealous. It was St. Augustine who said: “He that is not jealous is not in love.” A proper understanding of love-jealousy is in understanding that jealousy is not a reaction and neither is it action but a state. God loves you and loves no one like you. His jealous love is provoked to wrath if you consider any other power as a deity and love it like you ought to have loved him. This exactly is what happens with us in our intimate relationships when the one you truly love thinks and acts with another in your way.
Jealousy is not wrong and neither is it sin, what might often be wrong and unlikely is how we exercise this natural state due to our post-fall propensities. Otherwise, true love is jealous.
God bless you I invoke TRUTH, REASON and FAITH (2Tim 2:7)
Priest Isaiah White (+256-793-822833/+256775- 822833 for further inquiries)
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)
@Think & Become
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 