“You made it all, said, ‘Let there be,’ and there was all that we see…” – Chris Tomlin
Last time, I laid out an introduction to the Song of Solomon and hinted at how it demolishes a dualistic philosophy and worldview. In this post, we’ll conclude those thoughts.
Dualism is a system of thought that comes from certain strands of ancient Greek philosophy. It is the idea that physical matter is evil and only that which is immaterial and “spiritual” is good and holy. And although it originated in ancient Greece, it made its way into the Church. We first encounter it in its incipient form in Paul’s letter to the Colossians and John’s three letters to churches he’d founded. This was the belief known as Gnosticism. Eventually, this led to Docetism, which taught that since matter is evil, Jesus could not possibly have taken upon Himself a literal, human body. Rather, He only appeared to be human but was in fact only spirit. Needless to say, this heresy was roundly condemned by the early Church. It endured for several centuries and inspired the early Church leaders to clarify that Jesus truly was fully human. This happened in 451 A.D. at the council of Chalcedon.
We see dualism raise its ugly head time and again throughout Church history. Many of the early and medieval monasteries and convents operated on the assumption that “the body is the prison of the soul.” Others described the body/soul relationship as that of the soul chained to a dead corpse, dragging it around. People really believed that the goal of Christian spirituality was to free the soul from the “evil” body. Hence the reason Church history is so fraught with accounts of monks and the truly “spiritual” being extremely ascetic. This is why they would torture themselves with prolonged fasting, meager diets, self-flagellation, etc. They believed true Christian piety consisted of suppressing all things physical so that the soul and spirit could truly thrive.
“By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.” – 1 John 4:2-3
While the specific brand of Gnosticism repudiated by the apostle John isn’t prevalent in the Church today, there exists a form of it which is prevalent, namely, that there is a divide between the sacred and the secular. It’s the view that God puts a high premium on “spiritual” things like Bible study, prayer, fasting, etc.—and indeed He does—but that He doesn’t really care about culture, good art and music, good food and drink, and on and on; or even worse, that those things are inherently suspect.
And this is where the Song of Solomon crushes dualism: the book speaks very positively of sex and intimacy between husband and wife, the blessing of good food and drink, and God’s approval of it all. One of the many beautiful aspects of this book is its claim that God calls the physical creation “good,” continuing that theological theme which began in Genesis 1 and culminated in the Incarnation (more on that in a bit). By celebrating romance, marriage, intimacy, and sex between a husband and wife in His Word, God is placing His stamp of approval on the physical realm. Genesis 1 and 2, the Song of Solomon, and indeed all of God’s Word leave no room for dualism in the life of a Christian!
Nowhere in God’s Word is the physical divorced from the spiritual. When God created humans, He made us body, soul, and spirit, and He said that we were good. We need to recapture a holistic vision of God’s creative activity and the part we share in it.
And ultimately, as mentioned above, the Incarnation is the final nail in the coffin of dualism. God the Son, Jesus the Christ, became human. He always was and is fully God, and He became fully Man. And it is in the Incarnation that God completely destroyed any validity we might give to dualism. The declaration which God made in Genesis 1, confirmed in the Levitical priesthood through physical sacrifice, and seen in Song of Solomon finds it telos, its completion, in Christ’s incarnation. And this truth will be enjoyed by all of God’s redeemed throughout eternity, when He ushers in the new creation and His elect dwell with Him forever on a new Earth.
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God himself will be with them as their God’.” – Revelation 21:3
Check out the Bible Project’s video on the Song of Solomon!