The Bible is God’s written Love Story to mankind! It expresses the deep and constant “love” and interest of a perfect Being towards unworthy objects, producing and fostering a reverential love in them towards the Giver. Jesus’ words in Revelation 2: 4 to the church at Ephesus was “You have forsaken your first love.” Surely, this message is a warning to the visible church today where only 10% of Christians read the Bible. We have compromised with the world and embraced Satan’s counterfeit love. The Greek god Eros from which we get the word erotic and the Roman counterpart Cupid with its symbols of the bow and arrows have invaded St. Valentine’s Day and God’s sacred love. Need we say more?
God’s Love Story is woven throughout the Old and New Testaments. The first mention of the word “love” is in Genesis 29:20 that deals with love between man and wife. “So Jacob worked for Rachel seven years, yet in his eyes it was like a few days because of his love for her.” Hosea 3:1 is a reference to sexual love: “Then the LORD said to me: “Go again! Love a woman who is loved by a companion and committing adultery—just as the LORD has loved Israel, while they were turning to other gods and loving raisin cakes.” I Samuel 18:3 addresses love between friends: “Then Jonathan cut a covenant with David, because he loved him as himself” and Leviticus 19: 18 “You are not to take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” Deuteronomy 7:8 speaks of God’s redeeming love for Israel: “Rather, because of His love for you and his keeping the oath He swore to your father, the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.” God desires the love of His people: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These words, which I am commanding you today, are to be on your heart. You are to teach them diligently to your children and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.” (Deut. 6: 5-7)
John 3: 16 is a familiar verse to us that reveals the depth of God’s love as He was willing to send His Son into the world so that we would not perish but have eternal life. 1 John 3:1 says: “See how glorious a love the Father has given us, that we should be called God’s children—and so we are!” It is all about love: “Loved ones, let us love one another, for love is from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. The love of God was revealed among us by this—that God sent His one and only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. This is love—not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atonement for our sins. Loved ones, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (I Jn. 4:7-12)
Let’s look at God’s Love Song in the scriptures from the Song of Solomon. It’s about a bride and a groom, but its highest level is about God and us. God is the Bridegroom and us the Bride. In the Song of Solomon 1:3 the bride says to the bridegroom: “Your name is oil poured forth…” The bride is in love and says that her beloved’s name is like pouring oil, beautiful, flowing, and filled with sweet fragrance. Likewise, with us the Bride should be in love with the Bridegroom—so much so that just hearing His Name would give us joy, that to us His Name would be like pouring oil. The One who is called “the Christ” comes from the Hebrew word Christos when translated is Messiah. The name Messiah is linked to oil—it means the Anointed One, the One anointed with oil.
At Jesus’ baptism, Beloved is used of Christ in Mt. 3:17 “And behold, a voice from the heavens said, ‘This is My Beloved Son; with Him I am well pleased.” Likewise, as believers and Christ followers Paul called us Beloved in Romans 9: 25 “I will call those who were not My people, My people, and who was not loved, ‘Beloved’…they shall be called sons of the living God.”
Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus, understood the deep devotion of love and adoration expressed in the Song of Solomon when she offered the worship of a grateful heart to Jesus—the Beloved in John 12: 1-8. There were others before Mary that had come to the Lord’s feet to have their need met; she came to give Him His due. Mary took very costly ointment called spikenard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with her hair and the house was filled with the fragrant odor of the ointment. This would have been precious ointment stored in an alabaster box saved for her dowry when she would marry but she alone had comprehended His thrice-repeated announcement of His coming death and resurrection invested the anointing with the deeper meaning of the preparation of His body for burying. In essence, she was acknowledging Him as the Bridegroom and she the Bride and expressed her love—His Name like pouring oil. Likewise, if we are the Bride, He is to be our Beloved. We are to be so in love with Him that His Name becomes to us…as pouring oil. The Holy Spirit today is sanctifying and cleansing the Bride with the washing of water by the Word. That He might present it to Himself a glorious Bride not having spot or wrinkle—holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 4: 26-27)
Let us rejoice, for we are accepted in the “Beloved”. God the Father is seeing His Son when He looks at us. We have been lovingly adopted into His family and fully identified with His beloved Son. The question is: Do we truly love Jesus so that our lives are fragrant to Him and to others? May we like Mary sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from Him, meditating upon Christ the Written Word and delighting in the Name of Christ—our Beloved. Let it pour forth from our lips, our mind, and our heart prompting deep gratitude and a growing desire for relationship with God who is LOVE!