I really can’t help but to think about and meditate on various verses of Solomon’s Song of Songs. It’s my delight all day. For hours I kept thinking “Why does my mind immediately think love is stronger than death when the text says “Love is strong as death.”
In order for my heart to be close to God’s my mind has to have truth in it and delight in those truths. So the further our idea of love is from the truth the harder or slower our progress closer to God will be.
Death is akin to sin in the heart. Love, true love in the heart has God first. It’s out of our love to God that we truly love our spouses, neighbors and friends. Love to God is opposite or contrary to sinful selfishness.
God said to Adam that in the day that you disobey me or eat the forbidden fruit, you will die. Adam’s body started to die but his soul died immediately. Not to the fullest extent but his soul went from having spiritual life, light and love to being dead, dark and full of hate with self on the throne and not God.
1 The heart can only serve one master/Master either Satan or God. 2 Contrary principles
1 The heart can only have one master. Here is the key. You can only have one master. Either the power of love or death is ruling as master. Death is a powerful master and so is love. Yet both can’t rule your heart at the same time. Both have the same power but only one can rule. Death has power to separate and love has power to unite so either you are living your life getting further from God or closer.
Since both have the same Eternal and irresistible strength to accomplish their purpose of either uniting or separating then only one can be dominant because both powers are directly contrary one to the other.
Given this is the only Biblical doctrine in the whole Song getting it right is very important. When thinking of love what is in our hearts and what is in Scripture needs to be the same in order for us to have the same mind as Christ. God the Holy Spirit inspired the text so we must think properly that love is strong as death. To think that the text means that love is stronger is not right. To think that love is shed abroad in the new heart in a way that death no longer dominates is true but not because love is a stronger principle than death.
Love is a power that is strong as death but only one of the powers can be dominant because both powers are directly contrary one to the other.
So if both are equally strong then how does love become dominant in a heart where death ruled?
I must admit that I was stumped for quite a while, weeks on this one. I would think of it for days and weeks and not come up with the answer. I suppose the problem lies in the fact that I haven’t been meditating on other Scriptures that deal with this issue to help bring clarity.
Ez. 36:26-27 says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.“
The heart under the power of death is the same as a heart of stone.
The answer lies in the fact that God gives the new believer a new heart. They are a new creation.
It’s not so much that one overpowers the other for they have the same power but that a new heart is given. The heart of stone is taken out! And you are given a heart of flesh that has God’s Spirit in it.
It’s not that you have the same heart that gets an addition of God’s indwelling Spirit, but that you get a new heart and God’s Spirit dwells in that one.
It’s like the stony heart that you always had disappears and is taken out and you get a new one and are considered a “new creation” “born of God.”
So it is not by one power competing against another but that one heart is taken out and a new one given.
Another reason love becomes dominant is that Satan’s influence on a heart under the power of death is mitigated by God’s Spirit or Jesus Christ who is more powerful than Satan.
Both yielding powers with the same strength but one being is a higher Authority than the other.
A servant may have the same power as a master but be less in authority. Or right to rule. Satan loses his right to rule the new heart.
But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
29 “Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house.”
Though God’s Spirit and Jesus are stronger than Satan. Satan loses both his power and authority over the person by the indwelling of a greater Authority. Who the will chooses to obey. The will of the heart gets a new bent on joyfully submitting to a Greater Authority.
The ultimate power and Authority of both is Jesus. He holds the keys to death and Hades. Rev. 1:18
There is also a change of fathers.
The father of the stony heart is the Devil, yet the Father of the new heart is God.
Strength is know by it’s effects. Immediate and long term, so in regards to duration of time the strength of love endures forever and is eternal.
Strength of love and death could also be measure by degree’s and since the effects of death upon the soul are infinite so is the strength. This is dreadful beyond words if you we really knew what that meant. The depth of the felt separation from the love and Grace of God is infinite.
The strength of love is infinite. The strength love has is not limited.
The strength of love is broad and general. It reaches as far as the east is to the west. It’s strength has an effect on all peoples, both Jew and Gentile. Its scope is boundless.
Categories
Uncategorized