Among New Testament commands we’re quick to qualify today (or just ignore altogether), Romans 16:16 may stand out:

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

Really? We might chuckle at the thought of everyone kissing each other before the Sunday service. At least not in our time and place, we think. Maybe other cultures; not ours.
And we might be reasonable to respond that way.

Then we find the apostle repeating the charge again at the end of three more letters (1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26), and Peter too (1 Peter 5:14). Even if Jesus might approve of our not doing exactly what his apostles said, but finding appropriate expressions for today, do we have a “theology of the kiss” to guide us?

Look across the breadth of Scripture, and we discover a surprising (and perhaps uncomfortable) amount of kissing — almost fifty instances. And the nature and kinds of these kisses show that this isn’t simply an ancient-world custom. Rather, this kissing is distinctive to the people of the one true God, and a mark of his glory. Their lips bring him honor. A kissing kingdom says something about its sovereign. Its kisses reflect a king who captures human hearts, not just minds and duty.

“A kissing kingdom says something about its sovereign.”

Here, we’ll survey a theology of kissing in the Old Testament, and identify one key takeaway for the church age. Then, in a future article, we’ll draw attention to two special instances of kissing in the New Testament, and further fill out the rich background against which the apostles enjoin the holy kiss.

What’s in a Biblical Kiss?

Before looking at several kinds of kissing in Scripture, let’s first ask about the nature of the act itself and its meaning. What makes a kiss significant?

First, to state the obvious, but necessarily so in increasingly digital and remote times, kissing requires bodily, physical proximity. It assumes nearness, even intimacy. No one blows kisses in the Bible. When Isaac was old and his eyes were dim, he said to Jacob (who he thought was Esau), “Come near and kiss me, my son” (Genesis 27:26). A filial kiss would bring him close enough to smell and touch, and confirm which son it was. So too, a generation later, when Jacob himself was old, eyes dim with age, he brought near Joseph’s sons that he might kiss and bless them (Genesis 48:10). Such nearness requires a willingness to touch and be touched, and that with a sensitive and sacred member: the lips.

Kissing, then, also requires trust — that is, neither party fears imminent physical harm from the other (which could be easily enacted at such close range). The notorious offender here is Joab who twice abuses such trust. In 2 Samuel 3, he drew near to Abner under the pretense of peace and stabbed him in the stomach to avenge a brother’s death in battle. In 2 Samuel 20, Joab drew near to Amasa and took him “by the beard with his right hand to kiss him.” Assuming friendship, Amasa did not anticipate a sword in Joab’s hand (2 Samuel 20:9). Kissing requires a level of trust, making it a mark of peculiar depravity to betray, and exploit, a seeming ally under the pretense of a kiss.

Given the requisite nearness and trust, the kiss, in its essence, shows affection. It is a “sign,” an outward expression of an inward posture of the heart. Early in the biblical story, the kiss is typically a demonstration of heartfelt affection at the reunion of long-estranged relatives, whether Jacob with Rachel (Genesis 29:11), or Laban with Jacob (Genesis 29:13), or Esau with Jacob (Genesis 33:4), Joseph with his brothers (Genesis 45:15), Jacob with his sons (Genesis 48:10), Moses with Aaron (Exodus 4:27), or Moses with his father-in-law (Exodus 18:7). These are family members reuniting, not enemies securing new peace. The kiss is an act of trust and love among those who already share in peace.

Kinds of Kissing

As we work through the many instances of kissing in Scripture, we find several distinct types. Far and away, the most common are the greeting kiss or farewell kiss. They demonstrate familial affection, expressing ongoing love within established relationships. Such kisses, as we might expect, often accompany an embrace (Genesis 29:13; 33:4; 48:10; also Luke 15:20). Biblical figures also kiss goodbye, often with tears: Laban kissing his grandchildren (Genesis 31:28, 55); Joseph, his dying father (Genesis 50:1); and Naomi, her daughters-in-law (Ruth 1:9, 14). David and Jonathan, in an unusual covenant of friendship, kiss each other and weep at their parting (1 Samuel 20:41).

A second type of kiss is the kind that we today (at least in the West) probably assume would be the majority, though it’s not: the marital kiss. We might think to flip first to the Song of Solomon, and there it is, at the very outset: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine” (Song of Solomon 1:2). While the couple is here not yet married, they are anticipating their covenant love. Their kisses, then, are no less familial, but now they are becoming familial in the most exclusive and intimate of senses. The foil to this kiss, of course, would be the adulterous kiss of Proverbs 7. The “forbidden woman . . . dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart” lies in wait for the fool. “She seizes him and kisses him” (Proverbs 7:5, 10, 13). This is an evil, unholy kiss, the literal prostituting of the lips.

If readers today are most familiar with romantic and marital kisses, we likely least expect the regal kisses wrapped up with ancient kingship. When the kiss comes from a subject to his king, we might call it a “kiss of homage.” More than just a bow, which can happen at a distance and accents submission, the kiss expresses a heart of devotion and love, even delight. The kiss of homage also presumes the trust of the king, who allows a subject into such proximity with the dignitary. When the prophet Samuel anointed David king, he “took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him” (1 Samuel 10:1). As he does, Samuel expresses his glad devotion to the newly anointed king.

“The kiss, sincerely expressed, communicates not only welcome but delight.”

But in a king’s presence, kisses can go both ways. When a kiss comes from the king to his subject, it serves as a great sign of blessing. In 2 Samuel 14:33, when Absalom has been estranged from his father for two years, he comes into the king’s presence for the first time and bows. David then welcomes his estranged son with a kiss that is not only a familial (and filial) greeting but a kingly kiss of blessing. The king communicates that he holds no grudge against his son (a father welcomes home his prodigal, Luke 15:20), and as king, his kiss expresses not only his own personal acceptance but the whole kingdom’s.

Kiss the Son

Among the many instances of kissing in the Old Testament, one regal kiss stands out above the rest — the one of Psalm 2:12:

Kiss the Son,lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,for his wrath is quickly kindled.Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

Here “the Son” is God’s anointed king over his people (Psalm 2:2; Acts 4:25 attributes the psalm to David). Hostile nations rage and unbelieving kings take counsel against him, and in doing so they plot against the God who has installed him — that is, the God who laughs at such hubris, and speaks in holy wrath, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill” (Psalm 2:6). This turns the threat utterly on its head. It is not God’s appointed king, “the Son,” who’s actually in danger, but any and all who oppose him.

The king then issues his enemies a warning: “Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (Psalm 2:11). The next utterance declares what form such a dramatic change of heart should take:

Kiss the Son.

This is not just a bow of submission. Any defeated foe can cower, and fall to his knees, when overpowered. But Psalm 2 calls for a kiss of homage, and kissing expresses the movement, and transformation, of the heart. Former enemies not only become servants and kiss their new king; they become worshipers in their very soul.

Why So Many Kisses?

In the end, the nature of the kiss speaks volumes about the God who rules over all, the glory of his Anointed, and the faith of his people in him. A people who kiss — whether to greet each other or in the act of worship — testify to a dynamic life of the heart, much like a people who sing. The people of the one true God not only think; they feel. They not only confess; they kiss. They not only affirm, but they do so with affection. And the people of God, in ancient Israel and the early church, are singers and kissers.

The kiss, sincerely expressed, communicates not only welcome but delight. It is no mere exchange of niceties, but a communication of steadfast love. While, for many of us, the “holy kiss” may not, at present, fall in the acceptable (or comfortable) range of normal greetings, we will do well to expand our expressions of holy affection, and find meaningful ways to communicate not only acceptance to our fellows in Christ but affection for them.

And all the while, in expressing our affection for his people, we say something about our God and King as the one who not only moves the human heart, but himself is our final satisfaction. When we “kiss the Son,” we not only acknowledge him, in word and in worship, as Lord and Savior, but we express delight in him, in our hearts, as our supreme Treasure. And so we are, in Christ, a kissing people.

No one wakes up an Olympian. No athlete competes against the world’s best by natural ability alone.

Among other things, the Olympics display the plasticity of human bodies and skills. Granted, many of the world’s top competitors may have been born with some unusual abilities and proclivities, but nature alone did not get them to the highest level. Rather, training separates Olympians from natural athletes. And this is by God’s design. He made the human body to be formed and re-formed through the gift and grit of training.

Human Plasticity

It is a wonder that God made us both fixed and pliable creatures. On the one hand, you cannot grow a third leg. There are basic givens to our humanity that cannot be altered, no matter how much we’d like it otherwise. But on the other hand, you can significantly strengthen and condition the two legs you have. Our bodies are trainable. You cannot train yourself to breathe underwater, but you can train to greatly increase your VO2 max.

Athletics offer a fresh, vivid, concrete reminder of the power of human plasticity, and not just of our bodies but also of our minds and hearts. And as Christians, recipients of the priceless gift of delighting in God through regeneration and Spirit-indwelling, we now do not just spontaneously delight in God or not. Every day we are conditioning our souls, in at least some small degree, to delight in God or be indifferent toward him.

To be clear, “plastic” in this context doesn’t mean cheap or easily breakable. The plasticity we’re focusing on here is how neuroscientists describe the human brain. That is, our brains flex and shift. They re-form and re-grow. They learn and adapt and change — not simply in what information they store, but in their actual makeup and shape. They are not static but plastic, ever changing in small increments and degrees that are not easily discerned in the moment but produce vast effects over time.

And as with our brains, so also with our souls. Our hearts and desires are not givens but pliable and plastic. We are ever shifting and re-forming in tiny increments that snowball over time. Our choices not only express who we are but also affect who we will be.

What gets our best attention and affection today profoundly conditions what we will desire and delight in tomorrow.

Condition Your Soul

Strange as this plasticity may sound to modern ears with our mechanistic metaphors for our humanity (like “hard-wired” or “processing”), the concept was not foreign to the apostle Paul.

In 1 Timothy 4, he writes to his protégé Timothy about conditioning his soul. That is, he assumes Timothy’s mind and heart are pliable, bendable, plastic. His inner person, like his outer, is re-formable and re-shapable within the bounds of God’s created order.

Both for the health of Timothy’s own soul and for his effectiveness in Christian ministry, he needs to give attention to himself and to his teaching and persist in these things (1 Timothy 4:16). He is to devote himself “to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.” He should not neglect the abilities he’s been given but “practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress” (1 Timothy 4:13–15).

Over time, the disciple will not stay the same. He will either get better or get worse. The health of his soul and his spiritual abilities and inclinations will either grow and mature (“progress”) or deteriorate and atrophy into spiritual lethargy, dullness, and apathy.

More Pliable Than Your Body

Most memorably, Paul says, “Train yourself for godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7). Here he likens the conditioning of the eternal soul to the conditioning of the physical body:

While bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. (1 Timothy 4:8)

Running, weights, and HIIT workouts train and condition the body for the present life — and indeed have “some value.” But training in godliness — that is, conditioning the soul in spiritual likeness to Christ — reshapes the inner person for eternity and “is of value in every way.”

“Our choices not only express who we are but deeply shape who we will be.”

Not only is the soul, like the body, malleable — with its various likes and dislikes, its delights and disgusts, its preferences and apathies — but the inner person is even more trainable than the physical body. The shape of our objective bodies is more stubborn than the shape of our subjective desires and delights. We may be quick to overlook this countercultural reality since we cannot see (with physical eyes) the inward changes like we can with outward changes to the body.

What’s Your Five-Year Trajectory?

What, then, might we do about this truth, demonstrably biblical, yet lost on so many of us in the modern world — that our desires and delights are condition-able and not simple givens?

The question is not whether we are training our souls right now or not. Oh, we are training them. Unavoidably so. With every new day, in every act and choice. With every thought approved and word spoken and initiative taken. With every desire indulged or renounced. With every meditation of our hearts in spare moments. With every click, like, and share. With every podcast play, video view, check of the scores on ESPN, or browse of the headlines news. With every fresh opportunity to show love and compassion received or rejected. In all the little moments that make up our human days and lives, we are constantly becoming who we will be and ever reshaping what our hearts pine for and find pleasing. The question is not if we’re reshaping our souls but how.

And if you wonder how, you might start with an audit of your habits and patterns and ask, Am I conditioning my soul to delight in Jesus in five years, or to be apathetic toward him? The way I go to bed, and how I rise. How I approach meals, and the calendar, and commutes. The way I work and rest, my vocational labor and recreational leisure. And in it all, how I treat and take initiative toward others, or seek to minimize and avoid them.

Perhaps today, if someone were to ask you, “Do you trust in Jesus and delight in him?” you could quickly answer, “Yes, I delight in him.” But what do your patterns say? And what kind of heart will your habits produce in time? This week, this month, even today, are you conditioning your soul to delight in Jesus five years from now or to be indifferent to him? What will be the long-term, heart-effects of your investments in Netflix or social media or your garden or house-projects or favorite team?

You might ask, right now, in this season of life, am I feeding and growing and strengthening my delight in Jesus or starving it? And what lesser joys and delights am I feeding that will, in time, eclipse and choke out my delight in God if I continue to shape my soul in these ways? Am I daily putting my soul within earshot of God’s grace? Am I seeking to shape my heart to the texture of Scripture? Am I re-forming and re-consecrating my desires before God by lingering in prayer? And who am I spending most of and the best of my time with? How will my heart be reshaped by the hearts of those people whose opinions are coming to matter most to me?

You will become more like what and who you fawn over. So, do you continue to fawn over Jesus, and prioritize others who do the same?

Morning and Evening

Especially significant in this regard are our morning and evening routines. Where do you turn first in the morning to meet and direct the desires of the new day? Do you put the world’s horizontal demands first or “go vertical” with God? Do you open his Book to hear from him, see his Son with the eyes of faith, and continually, one day after another, shape your heart to delight in the truly delightful?

And what typically occupies your attention, the musings of your heart, once the day is essentially done and you move through the routine of “gearing down” for bed?

Rome wasn’t lost in a day, nor is Christian faith — typically. The dulling and disappearance of faith is usually the effect of spiritual conditioning not just yesterday but through yesteryears.

Saving faith hears God’s word, sees him as true with the eyes of the soul, and embraces him as desirable. Saving faith is not indifferent to what it sees or apathetic toward who God is and what he has said and done in Christ. There is in genuine faith an eagerness, a desire, a thirst, a hunger, and a foretaste of satisfaction. Faith says to Jesus, “I want you. I delight in you.”

And saving faith perseveres. It keeps wanting — meaning it makes choices today that condition the soul not for indifference to Jesus but for delight in him.

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