Is Jesus the “Lily of the Valley”?

Yesterday I was looking through some tracts I received and one was about all the names of Jesus.  One of the names was “Lily of the Valley.”

This name comes from the Song of Songs (also known as Song of Solomon) and the idea that this poetic book refers to the Church and Christ.  In the Song of Songs the phrase refers to the woman in chapter 2, so if the Song is to be taken allegorically, wouldn’t that represent the Church instead of Christ?

The Song of Songs is nothing but a literal love sonnet about two real people.  It is not a figure of Christ and the Church.  My understanding of this figurative way of looking at it, is that it came from Roman Catholicism; but I have also read that Origen taught the allegorical approach and he was a pre-Romanist Christian scholar.   I’ve also read where it has been taken by Jews as an allegory of God’s love for Israel, so perhaps Origen was just making a Christian application of what the Jewish Rabbis already allegorized.

There is much in the Song of Songs which expresses sexual love.  No, I didn’t get this idea from Mark Driscoll and his crude application, rather I have read this from numerous commentators: Christian, Jewish, and secular.  While some commentators tend to see some sexuality, others see a whole lot, but whether you see just a little or a whole lot, the problem remains as to how to apply it to a relationship between Christ and the Church!  

I have read that the Song of Songs was so sexual that young Jewish boys were not permitted to read it until they reached a more mature age.  This prudishness is most likely what lead to the allegorical approach.  But I think that prudishness should not determine how we understand a biblical text - or any text for that matter.

I think we as the Church should drop the reference to Jesus as the “Lily of the Valley.”  I know the song has a nice melody, but the allegorical approach to Scripture doesn’t do it justice.  Besides, if the Church is the bride of Christ, then allegorically the Church should be the “Lily of the Valley.”