Tremper Longman:
"The Song of Songs, in which many poems present the man and the woman in the Garden, enjoying one another's nakedness, makes one think of Eden and understand that the Song is about the redemption of sexuality. However, it is an already-not yet redemption because of the continuing problems acknowledged by some of the poems." (Note that Longman sees the Song as an anthology of love poems, twenty-three in his judgment.)
Many agree that the Song takes us back to Eden in some fashion, but why does it do this? What is being communicated? Is there divine authorial intention in this? Longman says that we have "an already-not yet redemption" of marriage. Well, there is perhaps something to this, but what are the warrants for saying this? And, more, what will the "not yet" of the redemption look like when there is no marriage in the new heavens and new earth? (At least not like now.) And since there is nothing like full redemption in this age, maybe "already-not yet" is not the way to speak of what the Song is doing as it takes married love back to the garden. So what is it doing?
Are there any gardens later in Scripture that might help us answer this question?
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