I have been working on a new SEAL for CTS for quite some time and today I decided to unveil it.

It is likely no secret to you when you read this that Song of Solomon places sexual intensity, desire and contentment under the authority of the “seal.” At the conclusion of this great love poem, the woman instructs the man to “put me like a seal” over your heart and on your arm. The heart signifies obedient resolution and the arm action that is connected as a cord of three strands in covenant devotion with the Lord at the core.

The word translated “seal” is the Hebrew hotham. In the ancient near east culture, it was a cylindrical piece of stone with a mark that left a raised impression showing ownership, allegiance, and authority of and into something or someone. It was a bit of a sign of commissioning or that you were representative of the one that the seal represented. It was an image of bearing.

The Hebrew word hotham is a loanword from Egyptian associated with magic. (Just for the record, I am generally against most ideas of “magic” in our culture, but perhaps that is also because our culture has taken something that was once beautiful before the Lord and turned it into something that is detestable.) At first this may not sit well with you but consider it with me for a moment. Many of us characterize the ever-growing relationship with a spouse before the Lord as simply magic, or at least that may be the goal! There is also an interesting “backward” play in the text mentioned on the man being owned by the woman. In the Davidic period that was not very acceptable to say the least. But this “backward or upside down” thinking would begin to pave the way for Jesus proclaiming victory through complete humility which would seem “backward” or counter cultural to His saving actions as a King or Savior.  In this verse the man will place his life in the hands of a woman as a foreshadow later of each of us placing our lives in complete allegiance assuming a lowly calling to the royal priesthood of the new covenant in devotion to an “all in” kingdom.

The woman of the text prayed something like, “Lord, help me to live as the obedient manager, putting his relationship with You ahead of my agendas.  Let me bring him to the place where he is used completely by You, and I will glory in my role in making him Yours.” This should also describe our relational thinking and mission as we are the bride of Christ in the new covenant.

The new CTS seal bears an abbreviated Hebrew phrase haʾUrim vəhaTummim (האורים והתומים) or in English, “Urim and Thummin.” Throughout the diaspora and later when the Old Testament was translated into Greek, the original meaning in Hebrew of “Urim and Thummin” was lost. We may not know specifically what the Urim and Thummin looked like or specifically how they were used, but we do know that the priests used them to “discern” the will of the Lord and believed that what transpired was from Him. The elements of the hoshen, the breastplate worn by the High Priest attached to the ephod were connected with cleromancy, which in other cultures is understood as divination by casting lots. However, in the Israelite or Hebrew context it was understood to have been proclaiming that you are completely given to the work of the Lord and as you lay your life down in humble devotion. The Lord would accept your complete sacrifice and answer by using your life, heart, and actions to accomplish innumerably more than you could imagine. Such a work by the rest of the world was not “possible” or seemed like magic. Today these words signify the calling and mission of CTS to cultivate a discipleship culture that is unmistakably through the power and presence of the Lord God almighty and not of our own accord, that we might be completely given to the kingdom of Jesus.