SONG OF SONGS 5
We come now to a part of the book which has a special voice for us, and which is very exercising, because it shews that even when grace has been known in a very full way, and its spiritual fruits have been produced, a state of self-complacency may come about in the saints which does not yield to the Lord what His heart looks for. The contrast between the previous section and this one corresponds with that which may be noted between the first epistle to the Ephesians and the second (Revelation 2: 1 - 7). That which is the full fruit of grace and of the presence of the Spirit is seen in the one; an assembly fallen, as having left her first love, is seen in the other. Many fruits of grace remained which the Lord refers to in Revelation 2:2,3; Revelation 2:6, but the spring was gone which could alone yield to Him what His heart looked for. We have seen in chapter 4, of the Song that the spouse is spoken of as “a spring”, “a fountain”, “a well of living waters”; there is a flow of spiritual energy in her affections which is lacking in chapter 5: 2, 3. She can still say, “my heart was awake”; He has not ceased to be her Beloved, nor has she lost ability to recognise His voice and His knock. There is true affection for Him, but it has ceased to be an energetic motive. The wakeful and watching spirit that had all its desires and hopes centred in the Beloved was no longer there. “I slept”
[p. 125] The spouse is not seen here in evil associations, nor is she defiled, nor does she lack the evidence of devotion, and preparedness to suffer, in service. Her hands dropping with myrrh would speak of this. She has truly attractive features. Few of us, perhaps, could say that we come up to what is set forth figuratively in this view of the spouse, or to what the Lord speaks of as characterising Ephesus in Revelation 2: 2, 3. But Ephesus had left her first love, and the spouse had become lethargic as to her Beloved. He was absent from her, but, notwithstanding this, she was in repose; she had composed herself for the night, having put off her tunic and washed her feet. She was restful and self-complacent without Him.
Alas! it is possible even for the fruits of grace to become the occasion of self-complacency. It was so with Job; all that was good in him was of God’s mercy, but it turned to self-complacency, and, indeed, to self-righteousness. Now God may have been very gracious to us, He may have given us light above many, He may have conferred spiritual gifts and graces upon us, He may have led us into a path of separation, and given us the enjoyment of many privileges that are peculiar marks of His favour. He may have enabled us to serve the Lord faithfully and with blessing. And yet, with all this, Christ Himself may not have the place that is due to Him; He may not, as a present experimental reality, be dwelling in the heart through faith. We may be wrapped up in what we have, and what we are, without realising that it is a subtle form of self-sufficiency, though it does not appear to be such, but rather giving place to what the grace of God has brought about.
[p. 126] The Lord is very jealous as to the place He would have with us; His love cannot suffer us to be at rest without Him. He would not have us to be content even with what we have received from Him; He would be Himself the one object of our desire and delight. He knows only too well when He is really out in the cold so far as our hearts are concerned. And He does not fail to call our attention to it in a way that is appealing and effective.
It must be noted that in this chapter it is not, that the Lord is outside a great worldly profession like Laodicea, but, He is seen out in the cold when His true lovers are very comfortable without His company. In such a case first love has been left, and the soul has entered upon a course which, if not broken in upon by the Lord in His ever faithful love, would lead to Laodicean self-satisfaction.
The attitude taken by the Beloved is deeply touching. There is no presentation of Him in the book more calculated to move the heart. He is not here the King crowned, or sitting at His table, or finding satisfaction in His garden. He is One who has no house to shelter Him, but who is exposed to the chilly moisture of the night. He has no place to lay His head. We know it was so when He was here. “And every one went to his home, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives” (John 7:53 - John 8:1).
But surely, it might be said, it will not be so when He is truly loved. In such a case He will have but to speak and to knock, and the door will be thrown open immediately! But such is not the picture here presented. He speaks, He knocks, He addresses His spouse in terms of tender affection. “Open to me,
[p. 127] my sister, my love, my dove, mine undefiled”. He appeals to every kindly feeling in her heart when He says, “For my head is filled with dew, my locks with the drops of the night”. But she is not prepared to rise; she is unwilling to disturb herself. “I have put off my tunic, how should I put it on? I have washed my feet, how should I pollute them?” It would probably be painful and humbling to most of us if we realised how much we are governed by self-consideration rather than by consideration for Christ. Self-consideration often takes the form of avoidance of exercise. Every spiritual movement that opens the door for personal intimacy with Christ costs something. It means a certain disturbance of present conditions. And when we have settled down into conditions which are comfortable, with nothing evil that we know of to trouble our consciences, we do not care to be disturbed by the thought that we are not giving Christ the place that He longs to have. It makes less demand to go on as we are; we have got things nicely into accord with our own feelings; why should we unsettle all the conditions of our spiritual life out of consideration for the feelings of Christ? If it did not mean quite such a reversal of all that we have been doing for our own ease and comfort it would not meet with the same reluctance to move.
But when the soul has got into this dormant state of self-consideration and self-complacency the Lord will raise the question of His own rights in love. His love is sensitive: He feels it if we can be comfortable without Him. When that is the case, He is outside in the cold and the wet so far as we are concerned. He has not, the place that His heart desires.
[p. 128] What we see here is that neither His voice nor His knock were sufficient to rouse her. Much ministry that goes forth is the Lord’s voice and knock, and it is recognised as being so, but the lethargic state is such that it does not, lead to definite movement in relation to Christ. But His hand being put in by the hole of the door is evidently a further and more direct action of His love. His voice and His knock were heard before, but He was hidden. But His hand being put in was really a partial manifestation of Himself, It made the spouse so conscious of the reality of His Person and love, and of His claim to her, that it produced deep feelings in her. It speaks of a direct and personal action of the Lord which is more effective in producing an impression than His voice or His knock. It is now, in a peculiar way, Himself, and this changes everything. I am sure such moments come in the history of the soul. I am speaking of an experience that might be long after conversion, long after one has been breaking bread. His word may have been known, His work, the blessings He has secured, but now it is Himself. And now the depths of the soul are moved: “My bowels yearned for him”.
“Yes! then ’twas faith — Thy word, but now
Thyself my soul draw’st nigh”.
Saints recognise ministry which is of the Lord, and have true pleasure in listening to it, but I am sure we are all conscious that we have heard much that has not really moved us spiritually. But when He puts in His hand there is a deep inward movement in the soul, and a rising up to open the door to the [p. 129] Beloved. He is now so real and attractive that selfish ease no longer detains. There is revival, movement, a quickening of heart in relation to Him.
But though this is a happy revival, it is not true restoration of heart. She has not yet felt the condition into which she had fallen in a way that at all corresponds with how He had felt it. Distance of heart had really come in on her side, and there would be no true recovery of confiding affection without this being felt by her. Nothing could be more injurious to those who have left first love than to get the impression that the Lord has not felt this defection deeply. One has known persons who have been in a cold state for years think they could resume normal relations with the Lord and with His people when they thought fit, without any deep feeling as to the past. But if the Lord has felt things deeply there will be no real concert of heart with Him until they are felt deeply by the soul that has been content to be without His company. The Lord will not give Himself to a repentance which is light and superficial. The fidelity of His love comes out as much in His withdrawing Himself in verse 6 as it had come out in His voice and His knock, and in putting in His hand “by the hole of the door”. For true restoration He has to make her conscious how deeply He had felt her former condition.
The Lord knows at this moment just what place He has had in our hearts, and if we have kept Him out in the cold He feels it and He would have us to feel it too. The myrrh upon her hands did not compensate for the state of her heart. I suppose the myrrh in this connection might suggest a faithfulness [p. 130] and endurance in service such as were recognised by the Lord at Ephesus, but this did not make amends for having left first love.
The soul of the spouse going forth, her seeking Him but not finding Him, her calling but getting no answer were all part of a needed exercise. It is often through such an experience that we come to the reality of things. Unhappy as is the experience, it is far better than the self-complacency in which He found her.
Then she gets into trouble with the watchmen and the keepers of the walls. She ought never to have come under their notice at all, but having lost the company of her Beloved through indolence and self-complacency she was agitated and restless now that she realised her loss. The distance that had come in left her uncertain as to His mind or movements. She did not know where to find Him. And in this perturbed state of mind her very anxiety to recover what she had lost exposed her to misunderstanding. The watchmen mistook her for a woman of worthless character, and they treated her roughly. They went beyond what was due to her, but the King permitted it to deepen her exercises. Every blow must have brought home to her that if He had been by her side they would never have touched her. And why was He not there? Every blow and disgrace was making her feel that she wanted Him more than ever. It was all doing its work in her soul.
I once said to J.B.S. with reference to one who had got sadly astray, “Will he not get some discipline from the Lord?” J.B.S. replied, “When he returns to the Lord then he will get discipline”. The scripture [p. 131] before us would confirm the thought that severe discipline comes in to deepen exercise after the soul is awakened to truly seek the Lord. It has been said to me more than once, When I was careless about divine things I had not much trouble, but since I began to really want the Lord Himself I have had a great deal of trial. Be assured that the Lord is not making any mistake in this. Even if the watchmen make a mistake He does not, and He is over all that the watchmen do, though they may do what He would never have told them to do. The brethren may be over zealous and unduly severe sometimes, but what they do — perhaps mistakenly — is all under the Lord’s hand. If they treat me hardly I may be sure that there is some ground for it in my ways, and that there is also a reason for it as between the Lord and myself — a reason which perhaps they know nothing about. It is well to humbly accept every such exercise as from the Lord.
The spouse now turns (verse 8) to charge the daughters of Jerusalem. There was a point of sympathy there, and she could confide her exercises to them. I believe the Lord always provides an outlet for soul exercises. The watchmen were faithful to their trust in keeping order in the city — though, in this case, with mistaken severity — but they were unsympathetic with the hidden exercises of her heart. I think we have to learn how to combine faithfulness with sympathy. To sympathy she could confide the true and deep secret of her heart. “Tell him ... that I am sick of love”. Faithfulness without sympathy will never command the confidence of a distressed heart, It would be well if we gave the [p. 132] impression of unflinching faithfulness in regard to all that is due to the Lord, but also of sympathy with every gracious exercise that may be under the surface in one who is really seeking Him.
The spouse is now brought to the point when she is prepared for full restoration. Her self-satisfaction and self-complacency have gone, She cannot now be at ease without her Beloved. He was becoming more precious, more indispensable, to her heart all the time. Everything was leading her to think more of Him. “I am sick of love”. She has learned to think of Him in a way that corresponds, in measure at least, with how He thought of her. This is true restoration. All that she has, and all that she is, utterly fails to satisfy her apart from Him. Now she is coming out in her true beauty as the “fairest among women” (verse 9). Self-complacency is the result of losing that spring of lively affection for Christ which the Spirit would maintain in the bride. See the great place the Spirit has in the epistle to the Ephesians. But in Revelation 2: 1 - 6 there is no longer concert between the Spirit and the bride. First love has been left, and, apart from repentance, the lamp will be removed out of its place — a sure sign that the light is not being maintained by the Spirit. But it is sweet to note that there is a call to repent, and to know that, after all church failure, at the end, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come”! Whatever the public history of the assemblies may be, the Lord’s ways in love with His own ever tend to the spiritual quickening or restoration of those affections which are proper to the bride.
There is a history of gracious revival in the first [p. 133] part, of this chapter. From self-complacency and apathy the spouse has been aroused to intense desire for the company of her Beloved. She is now an overcomer; she has overcome that in herself which had deprived her of His company. She has charged the daughters of Jerusalem to tell Him that she is sick of love. She has now no thought or desire for anything or any one else. She is overcome by the intensity of a longing which, as yet, remains unsatisfied.
This gives occasion to the daughters of Jerusalem to draw out from her more of her heart’s secret. These “daughters” represent those who fear God, and who can recognise spiritual features when they see them. So they can address the spouse as being the “fairest among women”. We do well to remember that there are persons of that kind about. They are not yet, perhaps, delivered from a legal system of things. They do not know the Beloved as the spouse knows Him, but they are interested and sympathetic, and the spouse has features in their eyes which they can recognise as being fair. In applying this to present conditions the spouse would represent those who have chaste virgin character, and who have known intimacy with the Lord, and have yielded Him pleasure as carrying some of the features of the bride. Then there are others in whom there is a work of God, and who can appreciate spiritual features, though they may not yet stand in liberty, or have the intelligence and affections of the bride.
Now what kind of impression are we giving to such persons? Are we giving them the impression which the spouse gave to the daughters of Jerusalem — that our affections are captivated by a wonderful Beloved [p. 134] who surpasses all others? She spoke in a way that indicated plainly that in her estimation He had no rival. This awakened enquiry from them, “What is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us?”
To bring Christ into comparison with others is not the highest way to view Him, for He is, indeed, beyond comparison, but it is one blessed means of arriving at a true and affectionate appreciation of Him. The Psalmist had taken account of Him thus when he said, “Thou art fairer than the sons of men” (Psalm 45: 2). The officers sent to take Him compared Him with all others when they said, “Never man spoke thus, as this man speaks” (John 7: 46). It is good when our hearts learn to compare Him with others; it is one way to learn His exceeding preciousness and beauty. We might say that in a certain way the blessed God has compared Him with others, for it is written, “I have exalted one chosen out of the people” (Psalm 89: 19). God has singled Him out from all others as the One who answered perfectly to His will and to every desire of His heart. So at His baptism He was singled out from “all the people” who had been baptised. The Holy Spirit descended on Him, and the voice out of heaven said, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight” (Luke 3: 21, 22). The thought of Christ being God’s “chosen” or “elect” One suggests His being singled out as the one precious Object of divine complacency and delight. And God is now teaching His people to give Him the place of unrivalled honour — the place of supremacy in their affections.
It has often been remarked that when the Beloved [p. 135] speaks of the features of the spouse He speaks to her, but when she describes His features, as in the chapter now before us, she speaks of Him to others. It has been said, “It is, I judge, a fine moral perfectness of thought that the bride never speaks of the Bridegroom’s perfections to Himself as if she was to approve Him; she speaks of Him fully as expressive of her own feelings and to others, but not to Him. He speaks freely and fully of her to herself as assuring her of His delight in her, When we think of Christ and our relation with Him this is beautifully appropriate” (J.N.D.).
It is sometimes through the bitter sorrow of having lost His company that the heart is led to recall what it has known of Him. And in the very process of doing so restoration is perfected. He alone is before the heart, and the consciousness that He is unchanged fills the soul with comfort. He is “the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”. And when He gets the place that is due to Him in the affections of His spouse she is no longer at a distance, unable to find Him, or even to tell where He is to be found. She then knows well where He is, and she knows her own place in His affections. “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth his flock among the lilies” (chapter 6: 2, 3). In giving her heart to the contemplation of His beauty, and in speaking of it, she was brought back to nearness and to the knowledge of His mind. The very fact that she had been without His company imparted a peculiar and touching character to the way she spoke of Him. In going over in her affections His well-remembered features she was travelling on a [p. 136] road that brought her back to Him. It was so with the two going to Emmaus; they had lost Him, but He still engaged their hearts, and when He joined them and “interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”, their hearts glowed with increasing fervour until the moment when “their eyes were opened, and they recognised him”.
It is a comfort to know that impressions of Christ that have been made upon our hearts by the Spirit are abiding. They may be hidden or obscured, but they cannot be obliterated, and even if we have “slept” — to our own shame — they can be revived through the faithfulness of the love that first gave them. There is then definite movement in relation to Him, and He becomes the all-perfect and all-glorious One to us, not only in our secret appreciation, but manifestly so to others, as in the scripture before us.
Movement on the part of the spouse leads to desire for similar movement on the part of the daughters of Jerusalem. “Whither is thy beloved gone? ... we will seek him with thee” (chapter 6: 1). Spiritual affections and emotions are contagious; one soul moving in lively desire after the Lord may be a great reviver of all the brethren.
Her first statement as to her Beloved is general: “My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand”. She speaks of Him in His completeness before she mentions different members or features. The basis of all that she has to say lies in the words, “My beloved is white”. There is stainless moral perfection in Christ, and in this He has no rival. As born of the virgin He was “the holy thing”.
He “did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2: 22). He could say, “Which of you convinces me of sin?” (John 8: 46). He “knew not sin”; none of its inward motions were known to Him (2 Corinthians 5: 21). Speaking of the ruler of the world He could say, “In me he has nothing” (John 14: 30). Satan tried to find in Him something of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life, but he found an undefiled and undefilable One. He was ever the righteous One, the holy One. On the mount of transfiguration the spotless character of His holy Person was witnessed in the effulgence of His garments. They became “exceeding white as snow, such as fuller on earth could not whiten them” (Mark 9). This personal purity is the foundational feature of His excellence, and of God’s delight in Him, and of our confidence too. Admit the possibility of one stain, and all is gone; He is not the Christ of God, and we have no Saviour. The spotless perfection of His Manhood is essential, not only to the value of His sacrifice, but, to the place which He holds in the affections of His spouse.
There is one blessed Person in whom the most minute scrutiny will never find a single flaw or spot. We cannot look at a Moses, or a Paul, or a John without finding spots, but there is One who is “white”.
He is not only “white” but “ruddy”. This speaks of life in intense vigour. It is practically the same word as is used in speaking of the “rams’ skins dyed red” in the tabernacle. It conveys the thought of intense consecration to God. The renewed heart and mind craves for this. It is due to God that He should be loved and served, not coldly or formally, but with [p. 138] intense devotion. So it is a delight to think of the Beloved as “ruddy”. It came out in Him at the age of twelve. “Did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?” (Luke 2). And when He purified the temple His disciples “remembered that it is written, The zeal of thy house devours me” (John 2). They recognised how “ruddy” He was relative to God and His interests here. It was so all through. He went to the garden and the cross that the world might know that He loved the Father, and that as the Father had commanded Him so He did (John 14: 31).
We are told of David, who was in so many ways a type of Christ, that he was “ruddy” (1 Samuel 16: 12). How devotedness to God marked him! “I will not give sleep to mine eyes, slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for Jehovah, habitations for the Mighty One of Jacob”. From his very youth at Ephratah his heart had been on this (Psalm 132: 1 - 6), cherishing it in a spirit of devotion to God. Yet he was but an imperfect type; the reality was in Him who was not only David’s Son but David’s Lord. He could say, “My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work” (John 4: 34).
The same intensity of devotion came out in Him relative to the assembly and to the saints individually. He has given Himself for us. The warm glow of a changeless and perfect love has come out in His life, His death, and in His untiring service on high. John says, “To him who loves us”; he brings the love of Christ into the present tense. This is, I think we may say, His ruddiness in our eyes.
It is as “white and ruddy” that He is lifted up as a banner among ten thousand. It is not merely that He is “chiefest” among them; He is the only One to be exalted and honoured. He is the rallying point for the thousands who love God. “Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth” (Psalm 60: 4). It is not views or dogmas, but a living Person who is Himself the truth. The testimony in one word is CHRIST. ‘L’ his is the Banner to be displayed; He is lifted up amongst the saints. They rally round that Banner; they defend it; they would have all to see it and to honour it. He is their glory, their boast, their bond; the One for whom they should all be prepared to live, to fight, if need be to die. Everything that is worth standing for is in Him. The words “Chiefest among ten thousand” have long been sanctified in the affections of the saints, but the margin gives the true reading, and is better. The “ten thousand” get their importance and glory from the fact that Christ is lifted up among them. They stand publicly as a band who attach the utmost value to Him.
The spouse then describes in detail ten different features of her Beloved, beginning with His head. “His head is as the finest gold”. How blessed to know that there is a glorious Man who has full intelligence of all that is in the mind and heart of God! A Divine Person — one who was from eternity God — become Man alone could compass this. God had infinite thoughts of blessing manward; they have all been brought to light through and in Christ; a Divine Person come in Manhood has made them known mediatorially. But, on the other hand, they have been fully [p. 140] understood and appreciated by One who was in the place of Man Godward. The thoughts of divine love in regard to men are held in their completeness by a Man who has taken the place of Head for us in relation to God. They have all been fully entered into by one Man, and that Man is our Head. He is in this place on our side, so that the true measure of all that is ours in relation to God, through His grace and love, is not what we hold, but what Christ holds for us as our Head. Our true blessedness is to hold fast the Head; we shall then be ministered to, and increase with the increase of God. Our Beloved has this precious character in our eyes that He has full intelligence of the wealth of divine thoughts “His head is as the finest gold”. And, knowing this, we cannot accept any lower or lesser thought of blessing than that which He holds. We are complete in Him; to go outside Him for any conception or measure of divine blessing is to turn from “the finest gold” to the dross of human thoughts. It would make an immense difference to many believers if they realised that Christ, was their Head, and that His thoughts of what is divinely conferred upon men are the true ones.
God had innumerable thoughts manward, and Christ came in according to Psalm 40 that He might do God’s good pleasure, and establish those thoughts through His own precious, death, He has done it perfectly, and now He holds all those thoughts in their integrity. The saint who has been searched and known by God can say, “But how precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more in number than the sand” (Psalm 139: 17, 18). But these thoughts are known now as held by Christ our Head in all their fulness and perfection. If we would be happy, and pleasurable to God, we must hold them as they are known to Christ. Then we have them in their true measure. If one has learned the poverty of one’s own thoughts, how blessed it is to turn to Christ, and to learn the wealth of His thoughts. We then understand something of what George Herbert meant when he wrote:
“Another Head I have,
Another heart and breast”.
We pass over to the thoughts of Him whose head is as the finest gold. There are no limitations there, and there can never be any deterioration. Every divine thought is maintained in its fulness in Christ as Head; it is maintained there for the individual saint and for the assembly. No church failure can affect it, though it may take many away from the knowledge or joy of it. When Christ has His place as Head there is no intermixture of human thoughts; the “finest gold” is there without alloy. Full spiritual joy, true notes of praise, all that really glorifies God, depends on our souls holding Christ as Head. The heavenly city (Revelation 21) is “pure gold” because it derives all from Christ, and nothing is really of God in the assembly today save what is derived from Him. His thoughts are the true measure of everything, and, thank God, they will never know diminution or decay.
Then “His locks are flowing, black as the raven”. His head carries the evidence of undeteriorated vigour and energy. There will never be any grey hairs on [p. 142] that head as with Ephraim (Hosea 7: 9). Nothing in Christ ever gets old or tends to decay; that which was from the beginning abides in unchangeable freshness. The new covenant is not only new in kind and character, but it is also new in the sense that it retains its original freshness unimpaired. We have not to do now with things that grow “old and aged” (Hebrews 8: 13) like the first covenant, but with the One of whom it is written, “Thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail”. On the side of man’s responsibility everything has tended to decay: there is evidence that it will be so even in the millennial age. Perpetuity and immutability of perfection are in Christ alone. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end (Revelation 22: 13). The glory of God, and the blessing of every family of the redeemed, are secured unchangeably in Christ as the Head, who is “the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”. Individual recovery or assembly recovery are brought about as there is a return to the Head, and to the unchanged perfection in which everything is maintained in Him. Freshness and vigour in the saints are restored as they are revived in the recognition of what, subsists without decay in Christ as Head. The anointing ever teaches us to abide in Him. The failure at Ephesus was in ceasing to hold the Head; therefore true assembly character was lost. It can only be regained as there is a return to that which was departed from. Saints may, through infinite grace, return at the present time to that which is as perfect in vigour and beauty as it was at the beginning. There is no change, nor ever will be, in Christ the Head,
[p. 143] As judging in the midst of the assemblies His head and hair are “white like white wool, as snow” (Revelation 1: 14). There He is seen in the majestic character of the Ancient of days, in the full maturity of judicial discernment. It is an altogether different figure, In the chapter before us, He is not viewed as judging according to divine purity and majesty, but as the Beloved in whom His spouse finds everything that her heart can rest upon with profound delight.
We come now to the eyes of the Beloved. “His eyes are like doves by the water-brooks, washed with milk, fitly set”. The eyes are the most expressive feature of the countenance; they indicate the attitude and feelings of the heart towards the one on whom they rest more directly and immediately than the voice or the words. The voice may be heard at a distance; but to gather what is expressed by the eye one must be near. And no doubt this applies to the eyes of the Beloved.
When the Lord looked around in a circuit at those that were sitting around Him (Mark 3: 34) what that look must have conveyed! What love, what complacency, what a sense of joy in having brothers, sisters, mothers who did the will of God! And then when Peter rebuked Him for speaking of His sufferings and death we read that He “turning round and seeing his disciples, rebuked Peter” (Mark 8: 33). What a look that must have been! How His eyes must have expressed all that they were to Him — all that they would be eternally through His death! And who could tell what those eyes spoke to Peter when the Lord, turning round, looked at him in the house of the high priest? (Luke 22: 61).
[p. 144] Now what have the eyes of the Beloved spoken to us? The spouse could describe them as one who had known what they had expressed to her heart. She had apprehended them in an aspect full of gentleness, and yet which bad conveyed to her a great sense of purity. I understand this to be set forth in the symbol of “doves by the water-brooks, washed with milk”. The gentle and tender affection of the dove shines out from those eyes, but it is combined with figures which speak of purifying and cleansing. Those elements enter into the Lord’s view of His loved ones. He regards them from the standpoint of One who has refreshing and purifying influences which His love purposes to bring to bear upon them.
How different is this from the “eyes as a flame of fire”, which mark Him as judging in the midst of the assemblies! There it is divine purity acting in a judicial way to search out and detect all that is unholy and untrue to bring it under judgement. Such an aspect of His eyes comes in on account of persistent disregard of His eyes as doves, and the refusal of His purifying service of love. His headship was no longer recognised; the assemblies were no longer in affectionate subjection to Him; He could no longer regard them as having the features of His spouse, Evils were there which called for rebuke, and which, if un_ repented of, would inevitably come under judgment.
But the eyes of the Beloved as resting upon His spouse have no such aspect as this. They beam upon her with gentle and complacent affection, for she recognises Him, and no other, as her Head. However she may have failed she has now returned to loyal affections, her desire is toward Him in the subjection [p. 145] of love, as in heart-appreciation of His beauty she tells out what He is in her eyes. She knows herself to be the object of His love, and in the consciousness of this she is free from self-consideration. How blessed is such a state of heart! His eyes only convey to her thoughts of a love that has with it precious suggestions of purifying.
John 13 and Ephesians 5 shew how He regards His saints, His loved assembly. He will in love wash the feet of His own that they may be “wholly clean”. And He has “loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up for it, in order that he might sanctify it, purifying it by the washing of water by the word, that he might present the assembly to himself glorious, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things”. It will be noticed that in each of these scriptures the thought of washing or purifying originates in His love. It forms an essential part of His view of His saints. There are with Him all sanctifying and cleansing resources to bring about in those whom He loves a condition which will correspond with the thoughts of His love. This thought of purifying is so present to His mind and heart that it is conveyed to His spouse as suggested by the very aspect of His eyes. He ever looks at the saints as having cleansing, sanctifying, purifying in view for them. He conveys to them that, His love will be active to remove every spot and soil. He looks at them, not only in the light of what His death has effected, but in the light of His own service of love; it ever enters into His thought for them. John 13 makes this clear. Before the disciples knew what He was doing, He knew, and He conveyed to them what [p. 146] was in His own thought. He loved them and He would serve them so that they might be “wholly clean”. Here the spouse has understood how He views her: she has read gentleness in His eyes, combined with a suggestion of refreshment and cleansing which in the light of the New Testament we can interpret as entering into the outlook of His love upon us.
Subjection to His service of love is needed on our part if we are to get the good of it. Moral exercises come in on our side. But the spouse is not occupied with this, but with what was expressed towards her in the eyes of her Beloved. And in John 13 and Ephesians 5 it is what His heart prompts Him to do rather than any exercises on our side which may be involved in view of the service being effectual. He will do whatever is necessary to secure His own complacency in those whom He loves. The more we have Himself before us, and the way that He regards us, the more deeply will our hearts be affected. There is no greater power for moral cleansing than that. What could be more clean than a heart that has Christ as its Object? Indeed the spouse in pouring out her heart’s appreciation of her Beloved gives precious evidence of complete purification in her affections. She does not draw attention to herself but to Him, and in doing so she is proving herself to be, like the Nazarites of old, “purer than snow, whiter than milk”. If I am occupied with what I have been, or what I am, I may go down lower and lower in self-abasement, but I shall find no true cleansing or moral elevation in it. With Christ in view there is deeper self-judgment, but there is detachment from the self that is judged, and true spiritual elevation,
His eyes being “fitly set” intimates that He ever looks upon His saints from the standpoint of divine love, and of divine purpose and working, therefore there is nothing uncertain or changeable in His view. His own are the Father’s gift to Him, and they will ultimately be with Him where He is. In John’s Gospel particularly He ever speaks of His own as the subjects of unchanging love — divinely quickened and divinely drawn to Him and eternally held by the Father’s hand and His own hand. If we consider how He views His own from John 13 to 17 we see how “fitly set” are His eyes.
“His cheeks are as a bed of spices, raised beds of sweet plants”. The number of scriptures which speak of smiting on the cheek suggest to me that His cheeks represent that lowly grace in which He exposed Himself to man’s violence. He came in grace into a condition and position where He was exposed to insult and hatred. It speaks of how near He has come to men, and in how lowly a guise. “I gave my back to smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not my face from shame and spitting” (Isaiah 1: 6). There is no more striking scripture in this connection than Micah 5 We read of Him there as the “Ruler in Israel: whose goings forth are from of old, from the days of eternity” (verse 2). He came forth from the eternal glory of Deity to be born as a Babe in Bethlehem Ephratah. What a stoop of infinite grace! Then, as to the future, “He shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of Jehovah, in the majesty of the name of Jehovah his God” (verse 4). This is His majesty in the world to come. But between “the days of eternity” in the past, and His majestic rule in the millennium, He has in lowly grace placed His cheeks within the reach of man’s hand, and He has been unfeelingly smitten. “They shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek” (verse 1). We know that those blessed cheeks — so often wet with tears of pity and of love — were actually smitten; they were once covered with the treacherous kisses of Judas. He subjected Himself to such treatment at the hands of men. Can we wonder that His cheeks will have peculiar attractiveness and beauty in the eyes of the remnant? They had nationally esteemed Him “stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted”, but when they learn that He was their Messiah, yea, their Jehovah Himself, and that His visage was so marred more than any man because of the way that His love was taking for them, how deeply will their hearts be moved! What a combination of all that is fragrant and sweet will they behold in His cheeks! And shall we, who are of His loved assembly, see less in them than they will? Surely not. It is a great part of the beauty of Christ in the eyes of those who love Him that in lowly grace He has been despised and rejected of men. The very features in Him which were, and which still are, objects of derision, contempt and hatred to men are peculiarly attractive to His spouse. All that in which He has been, and still is, contemned and despised has in the eye of His saints an excellence beyond compare. This is what Peter means when he says, “To you therefore who believe is the precious_ ness” (1 Peter 2: 7). He has been cast aside as worthless by men, but His preciousness is known to those [p. 149] who believe. That for which He is reproached by men is cherished by believers as His peculiar distinction and glory. It is to them most fragrant and attractive, “as a bed of spices, raised beds of sweet plants”. There is something about the humiliation of the Lord which is supremely moving to the heart, and profoundly subduing. If we contemplated it more it would deeply humble us as to much in ourselves of which, perhaps, we do not think as badly as we ought. And it would separate us in heart from a world which glories in everything that is unlike Christ. Though He is highly exalted in heaven it is still the day of His humiliation in this world. Men are as ready to smite Him on the cheek as ever, and this not least amongst those who make profession of His Name. What is all the infidelity as to His Person and work, and as to the inspiration of the Scriptures upon which He has put His seal, but a public smiting of Him upon the check? He is still wounded in the house of His professed friends. But what a privilege it is, as seeing His incomparable worth and glory, to be in any small way identified with His dishonour and reproach!
But there is another side to His humiliation. If it has brought out what men thought of Him, it has also brought out all the grace that was in the heart of God manward. And this comes out in the next feature which the spouse describes. “His lips lilies, dropping liquid myrrh”. The lilies speak of the attractiveness of grace as set forth by Jesus. He has Himself told us that there is something in the lilies which surpasses all the glory of Solomon, The inspired title of Psalm 14 tells us that it is “Upon Shoshannim” — meaning, the lilies, — and also that it is “a song of the Beloved”. It is a psalm to be read in connection with the Song of Songs. It says of the Beloved, “Grace is poured into thy lips” (verse 2). God has made His grace most, attractive as presenting it through Jesus. He has not, proclaimed it by an angel, or by a trumpet voice from heaven, but He has made it known by — Jesus, the lowly and humbled One, His own beloved Son. What an impression of grace the disciples got as they companied with Jesus. John tells us that He dwelt among them “full of grace and truth”, and that of His fulness they all had received, and grace upon grace. Now the grace that was poured into His lips, and that flowed from those lips, dropped into their souls as “liquid myrrh”. How exquisite must it have been to them, and especially when they recalled it all in the light of His sufferings and death! For not one of His words of grace could have been spoken save as in the foreknown value of His death. The real meaning and value of all His words of grace would be lost if they were disconnected in our thoughts from the love in which He suffered and died for us. If He said, “Thy sins are forgiven”, or “Be thou cleansed”, or “Hr that believes on me has life eternal”, it was all speaking forth the fragrance and value of His death, for without His death such words could never have been spoken to sinful men. The grace of Luke 7, Luke 10, Luke 14, Luke 15, Luke 18, Luke 23 all carried the fragrance of His death; the “liquid myrrh” was there, and the spouse as divinely taught recognises it.
One cannot but feel that the words of our Lord should be very specially treasured by those who love Him. It is by His words that we know Him, for He [p. 151] was altogether what He said (John 8: 25). If we want to know the Lord better let us ponder the Gospels; let us consider every drop of the “liquid myrrh” that fell from His lips; let us contemplate His acts. All that He was then, He is now, and will be for ever. He is Personally the Same, though now glorified in heaven, and borne witness to there by the Spirit whom He has shed forth. But He has been near to us here that we might know Him, and in reading the Gospels we are privileged to be, as it were, near Him so as to know Him. He is the same Jesus in heavenly glory now.
“His hands gold rings, set with the chrysolite”. We have seen that “His head is as the finest gold”; now we learn that His hands are gold; and in verse 15 we read that His legs are “set upon bases of fine gold”. Whether we look at His head, His hands, or His feet, divine glory shines bright, but it is divine glory seen in a Man. A Head that can hold in completeness every divine thought; Hands that are strong enough for all God’s pleasure to prosper in them; and Feet immovably stable so that nothing that is established in Him can be moved! And divine glory characterising all! What a Person, what a Beloved, is ours!
“His hands gold rings”. The word “rings” is somewhat uncertain in meaning; it is translated “folding” in 1 Kings 6: 34. It suggests, I think, the power of His hands to hold, or to enfold, in a divine way what is put in them. What a comfort it is to know that nothing that has been put into the hands of Christ will ever slip out of them. “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”
([p. 152] John 3: 35). The Father has given Him authority over all flesh, that as to all that the Father has given to Him He should give them life eternal (John 17: 2). Every one of His sheep is in His hand, and therefore will never perish (John 10: 28). The future blessing of Israel and of the nations, and all the power of the kingdom, is committed to His hand, and therefore it is as certain to be brought about as if it were now accomplished.
But in being “set with the chrysolite” the thought seems to be suggested of how things are held in His hand even while outwardly and publicly everything is in confusion and disorder. This may be gathered from the connection in which the chrysolite appears in Ezekiel 1: 16; Ezekiel 10: 9; Daniel 10: 6. Though Israel was in captivity, and Jehovah’s glory departing from Jerusalem as utterly corrupted, He would make known that the wheels of His government would ever move in harmony with His throne — a throne which has “the appearance of a man above upon it”. God is not baaed by the confusion brought in even by the failure of His people. His government continues and has in view the ultimate triumph of His purpose. So that through the whole history of the times of the Gentiles God’s government has been steadily moving on to the moment when Messiah’s enemies will be put as His footstool, and the sceptre of His might will be sent out of Zion, and His people Israel — so long rebellious — will be willing in the day of His power (Psalm 110). It is in view of this that Christ is sitting now at the right hand of God. The throne is there, and the Man is upon it in whose hand the pleasure of Jehovah will prosper, and in the meantime [p. 153] the wheels are moving on steadily and without any deviation. And this appearance and this work “was as the look of a chrysolite”. The chrysolite thus seems to intimate the peculiar way in which God maintains His own glory during a period when publicly all is in disorder.
In Daniel 10 we see another captive in deep exercise about all that was happening, and a man appears to him whose body “was like a chrysolite”. He comes to make Daniel understand what should befall his people at the end of the days. Notwithstanding all that should intervene Daniel’s people would be delivered, “every one that is found written in the book”. God would have His way in the end, and accomplish His own designs. The secret of all lies in the Man above upon the throne. It is striking that as Ezekiel speaks of “the appearance of a man” upon the throne, Daniel speaks of “one like the appearance of a man” who touched him in all his weakness and strengthened him, and said to him — “Fear not, man greatly beloved; peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong”. It is the same glorious Man whom the spouse describes in the chapter before us. Glorious upon the throne; glorious, too in the priestly grace in which He can touch His feeble saints down here and strengthen them!
“His hands gold rings, set with the chrysolite” bring before us how He is holding things at the present time in a divine way. All is confusion in the world, and even in the Christian profession. But what He holds will be carried through into eternal glory. “Those thou hast given me I have guarded, and not one of them has perished”. During nineteen centuries [p. 154] there has never been a moment when the Father has not been glorified by the Son. And when this period terminates, and what has been secured in it for God is displayed in the holy city, it will be found to come up to full measure by the “golden reed” in the hand of the angel. There will be a full result; not one stone missing or out of place. What Christ builds is eternal. “On this rock I will build my assembly, and hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”. How blessed to think of a structure in which every atone has been put in its place by those hands which are “gold rings, set with the chrysolite”!
There is great import in the Lord shewing His hands to His disciples after His resurrection. His hands in the Gospel of Luke are seen touching men in the service of grace. In the Gospel of John they are seen as holding things for His God and Father. They retain the same blessed character in resurrection. The Lord would specially engage our hearts with them; they are in an eminent way characteristic of our Beloved.
“His belly is bright ivory, overlaid with sapphires”. This, no doubt, speaks of the deep inward feelings of the Lord. It is the same word as “bowels” in verse 4. The spouse had her deep feelings moved then; “my bowels yearned for him”. But He had deep feelings, too, and she is now thinking of them. He could say prophetically, “my heart is become like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels” (Psalm 22: 14). His sufferings as the Sin-bearer are a profound depth, but it is through them that divine compassion has been expressed towards sinful creatures. The compassions of God came out wonderfully in the Old Testament towards His sinful people. “Is Ephraim a dear son unto me? is he a child of delights? For whilst I have been speaking against him, I do constantly remember him still. Therefore my bowels are troubled for him: I will certainly have mercy upon him, saith Jehovah” (Jeremiah 31: 20). But it is in Christ that divine compassions have been fully expressed. They have come out in a blessed Man who suffered in the expression of them, and this is perhaps conveyed in the figure of “wrought-work of ivory” (see margin). Ivory is the product of suffering, it is not like gold or gems or precious wood, but it is yielded at the cost of suffering. The compassion of the Lord was the fruit of His entering in His own spirit into all that was upon the creature through sin. “Himself took our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Matthew 8: 17). He was moved with compassion when He saw the crowds “because they were harassed, and cast away as sheep not having a shepherd” (Matthew 9: 36). He was moved with compassion when He touched the blind man’s eyes (Matthew 20: 34). He had compassion on the crowd when they had stayed with Him three days, and had not anything they could eat (Mark 8: 2). He had compassion on the widow of Nain who was bereft of her only son (Luke 7: 13). The Samaritan — a blessed picture of the Lord — was moved with compassion when he saw the half-dead man (Luke 10: 33). And Jesus could speak, as no other could speak, of the Father as being moved with compassion when He saw His lost son arise to return to Him (Luke 15: 20). And it is to be noted that in all these instances the word for compassion signifies a yearning of the F [p. 156] bowels. And, with the exception of the case of the two blind men, these compassions were unsought by thorn upon whom they were exercised. They were sovereign in character. This is the true character of compassion; it flows out to need which is realised in the feelings of the One who shews it. What the Lord said and did was the outcome of how He felt things; it was not according to how the people felt them. So the power of preaching lies in how the preacher, feels things. The unconverted do not feel their need, but the preacher stands up to represent One who does feel it, so that what Christ feels — what the blessed God feels — about them may be brought home to their hearts. The bowels and compassions of Christ must be in the preacher by the Spirit of Christ if he is really to do this.
It is profoundly moving to think of the deep feelings of divine compassion as they have been expressed in the Son of God as a blessed Man here. His groans, His sighs, His tears reveal a true and blessed Man, but the compassions and sympathies are divine and heavenly. He had come down from heaven to bring the very feelings of God into expression in a world of suffering and sorrow and death. The “wrought-work of ivory” speaks of the fine detail with which those feelings manifested themselves through a sorrowing and suffering Saviour, and the “sapphire”, being, as another scripture says, “a’ it were the body of heaven for clearness” (Exodus 24: 10), brings before us the heavenly character which attached to them.
Solomon “made a great throne of ivory”, and we are told “there was not the like made in any kingdom” (1 Kings 10: 18 - 20).
[p. 157] The throne of the kingdom is very elevated and majestic, but it is a compassionate throne. Think of Psalm 72:4; Psalm 72:12-14; Isaiah 32: 2; Isaiah 13: 3; Isaiah 42: 1 - 3; Zechariah 6: 13. The One who will soon sit upon His glorious throne is the One who wept at the grave of Lazarus, and who wept over a Jerusalem that was about to witness His crucifixion. The deep feelings which are symbolised by “wrought-work of ivory, overlaid with sapphires” give character to the throne on which He sits now; it is a “throne of grace”, and mercy is dispensed from it. And when Solomon’s throne has its antitype in a coming day the “gold” will be there which speaks of divine glory; the “steps” will have their answer in the elevation of the throne; the “lions” in its majestic strength. But the throne itself is of “ivory”; it is the throne of One in whom divine compassions have been expressed in humiliation and suffering. That will make it such a throne as never was in any kingdom. The spouse knows the deep and tender feelings of His heart, and gives them a place in her description of the King, who is also her Beloved. He is our Beloved too!
Paul was in true sympathy with the deep feelings of the heart of Christ, for he could say to the Philippians, “I long after you all in the bowels of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1: 8). He expected to find similar feelings in those who were Christ’s, for he said, “If any bowels and compassions” (Philippians 2: 1). And he exhorted the Colossians to “put on ... bowels of compassion” (Colossians 3: 12). If we have learned to appreciate the wrought-work of ivory as seen in Him, some of it will be wrought by His Spirit in us.
[p. 158] There will be a preparedness to suffer so that feelings which are of God may come into expression. There will then be “ivory palaces” on our side, out of which stringed instruments will make our Beloved glad (Psalm 45: 8). Ivory palaces cannot be built without cost of suffering, but it is out of such palaces that music issues to gladden the heart of the Beloved.
Compassion is the way that love expresses itself when there is no deserving on the part of its object. Nothing could be more undeserving than to be “dead in offences”, but the riches of mercy and God’s great love reached us when we were such. God acts sovereignly. “I will feel compassion for whom I will feel compassion” (Romans 9: 15). That is how God feels apart from any deserving on man’s side. So when Jesus had compassion He disclosed the feelings of His own heart. There are also special feelings as to saints, having regard to them as subjects of the work of God. So that when Paul longed after the Philippians “in the bowels of Christ Jesus” it was a special yearning over them as saints. There were causes of anxiety, but they were the occasion of deep feeling and spiritual yearning. The “bowels of compassion”, that are to be put on by saints, refer to the deep and tender feelings which are to be in mutual exercise amongst the brethren. So that even if things are not as they should be there are the yearnings of love. The “wrought-work of ivory, overlaid with sapphires” would appear in this.
“His legs, pillars of marble, set upon bases of fine gold”. This intimates the stability of all that is in Christ. His feet are not mentioned; His movements [p. 159] are not contemplated here but His immovable stability. God has introduced in Christ what is marked by stability, in contrast with all the instability that marked Adam and his race. “And he shall be the stability of thy times” (Isaiah 33: 5, 6). It is righteousness which gives stability. As to the Son it is said, “Thy throne, O God, is to the age of the age, and a sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness and hast hated lawlessness” (Hebrews 1: 8, 9). The word for “marble” here is the same as that translated “fine linen” in many scriptures; it expresses the whiteness of the substance spoken of, and this is figurative of righteousness. It is striking how the thought of whiteness runs through the spouse’s description of her Beloved. “My beloved is white”, then the washing with milk, the lilies, the bright ivory, and the pillars of marble all suggest what is white. And Lebanon has the thought of whiteness in it: it may have been so called from the snow that rests on it (Jeremiah 18: 14). All that is of God must have this character. It appears even in the “great white throne”.
Christ as the Beloved is the Righteous One, and every promise of God is righteously secured in Him so that it can never be invalidated. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, “did not become yea and nay, but yea is in him”. There is no uncertainty or instability about Christ, no possibility of anything being overturned or even moved. The whole created universe can be shaken, and will be shaken, but Christ, and what is established in Him stands firm eternally. In being brought to that we receive a kingdom that cannot be moved.
The “pillars of marble” are “set upon bases of fine gold”. All that is in Christ is stable because it is purely of God, and is established upon the foundation of divine righteousness and glory. “Whatever promises of God there are, in him is the yea, and in him the amen, for glory to God by us” (2 Corinthians 1: 20), God Himself, we may say, is the base of all, and all that is of God is so confirmed in Christ that it can never be overthrown by any power of earth or hell. The two pillars for the porch of the temple — Jachin and Boaz — suggest a very similar thought to the “pillars of marble”. Jachin means “He will establish”, and Boaz means, “In him is strength”.
Man after the flesh has never been able to stand in any position in which God placed him; so it is no wonder that “he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man” (Psalm 147: 10). But how pleasurable to Him is that One who can maintain eternally for the glory of God, and for man’s blessing, every divine thought and purpose!
Then in “His bearing as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars”, there would seem to be a general statement as to His appearance. It expresses the whole excellence and elevation of His aspect as it can be surveyed by the eye of love. Wherever we look at Him we see an excellent bearing. We see Him in the Gospels in an immense variety of situations and circumstances. We see Him as a Boy and as a Man; we see Him with crowds and with individuals, with men, women, and children; we see Him with the devil; we see Him with sinners, with disciples, with Pharisees, with scribes, with rationalists, with lawyers, with priests, with friends, and with enemies,
[p. 161] with a king and a governor, with the traitor Judas, with feeble and failing believers! But what dignity and elevation marked His bearing with them all! Whether in private or in public there was never anything lower than Lebanon, or less noble than its cedars. The affectionate eye of His lover can survey Him in every position and see nothing but an excellence of supremely elevated character. And the thought may be carried into resurrection, for whether with Mary Magdalene, or Simon, or the two going to Emmaus, or with the disciples as together, His bearing was truly excellent. And as walking in the midst of the assemblies His bearing is excellent too. How suitable it is to the conditions which He reviews, and upon which He passes judgment! And so it will be forever, whether as reigning in the kingdom, or as placed in subjection to God in the eternal state. Supreme excellence is there, and will be the eternal joy of His bride.
The Spirit has given the appreciation of the Beloved’s “lips” in verse 13, but His “mouth” is spoken of in verse 16. The “lips” and the “mouth” are in very close association, but there is evidently some difference in the spiritual thoughts which they suggest. And a special place is given to His mouth as being the last feature which the spouse mentions. “His mouth is most sweet”. We have connected with His “lips” the perfect expression of grace to sinful and needy men as it is presented in Luke’s Gospel, its fulness being commensurate with the value of the death of Jesus. But His “mouth” suggests an additional thought; it is actually the word “palate”; it is more inward than the lips; and [p. 162] it carries with it in several scriptures the idea of tasting. There is something received, the sweetness of which is perceived and enjoyed by the palate. We may see this force of the word clearly in chapter 2: 3: “His fruit is sweet to my taste”. “Taste” is the same word as “mouth” in chapter 5: 16. I think His “mouth” as spoken of in this way conveys the very precious thought that whatever He communicated to men He had first received and known the sweetness of Himself. No part of Scripture brings this out so fully as the Gospel of John, where the glory of His Person appears more than in the other Gospels. In His mediatorial position as the Sent One, the only-begotten Son, He received all from God His Father. It had been said of Him in what was perhaps the first distinct prophecy of His mediatorship, “I ... will put my words in his mouth” (Deuteronomy 18: 18). And those who love Him are well assured that the words that were put in His mouth were very sweet to Him. Everything that He communicated to men was first communicated to Him by the Father. He was the first to taste its sweetness. He could have said of all those communications, as one had said long before by His Spirit, “How sweet are thy words unto my taste!” (Same word as “mouth” in Song of Songs 5: 16) “more than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119: 103). If faith could taste and enjoy the sweetness of God’s words, as we see repeatedly in the Old Testament, what must the Father’s words have been to the Son! How blessed to think of Him as here in this world in this mediatorial position, receiving all from God for men, and enjoying as Man all the sweetness of it before He spoke of it [p. 163] to others! All was communicated to Him by the Father, and was the substance of communion between the Father and the Son before it was made known to men. This is His mediatorial place and glory. He had been with God from eternity, and ever was God, but He came down from heaven to be Man here, the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, that there might be a Man to whom God could communicate all that was in His heart and mind for men to know concerning Himself and His thoughts of grace and love. There was a Man here — a divine Person become Man — able to receive all the words of God, all the Father’s words, able to fully appreciate and enjoy them, and able to communicate them to men.
The scriptures which bring this out are happily familiar to us, but if we have in any measure the affections of the spouse we find them ever sweet. “My doctrine is not mine, but that of him that has sent me. If any one desire to practise his will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is of God, or that I speak from myself” (John 7: 16, 17). “He that has sent me is true, and I, what I have heard from him, these things I say to the world ... , I do nothing of myself, but as the Father has taught me I speak these things” (John 8: 26, 28). “For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what I should say and what I should speak; and I know that his commandment is life eternal. What therefore I speak, as the Father has said to me, so I speak” (John 12: 49, 50). “I have called you friends, for all things which I have [p. 164] heard of my Father I have made known to you” (John 15: 15). “Now they have known that all things that thou hast given me are of thee; for the words which thou has given me I have given them, and they have received them, and have known truly that I came out from thee, and have believed that thou sentest me” (John 17: 7, 8). “Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me” (verse 11). Every word that He spoke would give His disciples an impression of what it was to Him to receive such words from His Father. He fully perceived their sweetness before He communicated them to His own. So that He could say, “I have spoken these things to you that my joy may be in you, and your joy be full” (John 15: 11). “And these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in them” (John 17: 13). The Mediator had His own personal joy in all that He communicated, and He would have His disciples to know that He had received it all from the Father. I am sure we need to ponder the Lord’s mediatorial glory as it is unfolded in John’s Gospel. All that comes to us from God, from the Father, comes to us mediatorially through the Son in Manhood. We see Him in His relation to the Father, and how the Father spoke to Him. How perfectly could He appreciate every word that the Father said to Him! What intimacy and nearness characterise the communications of love! The Father speaking to the Son as a blessed Man here on earth, the Object of His delight, dwelling in His bosom! How freely could the Father speak to Him all that was in His heart to say to men! The Son, on His part, entering [p. 165] into it all, able to appreciate it fully, and then uttering it to others! He was in the greatest nearness, in the bosom of the Father, and the Father was in Him. And yet as having come in flesh He was near enough to men to speak to them all that, the Father said to Him. He “dwelt among us”, says the beloved disciple, and he tells of two who said, “Teacher, where abidest thou?” to whom He replied, “Come and see”. “They went therefore, and saw where he abode; and they abode with him that day” (John 1: 38, 39). John tells us, too, that “there was at table one of his disciples in the bosom of Jesus” (13: 23). Such language breathes something of the same character of sacred intimacy as we find portrayed in the Song of Songs. Intimate nearness to the Father on one side, and intimate nearness to men on the other, combine to make His mediatorial glory wondrous in the eyes of those who love Him. The spouse may well say, “His mouth is most sweet”.
It is in the very Gospel where His personal glory is most manifest — where He says, “Before Abraham was I am” — that we have His mediatorial glory most fully brought out. His absolute Deity is unmistakably made known, His eternal Personality, but He is seen as in a mediatorial position, not speaking from Himself, but speaking as the Father had said to Him. The remnant in a coming day will apprehend His mediatorial glory, and they will be so in the grace of it that His Name and His Father’s Name will be written on their foreheads (Revelation 14: 1). To them His mouth will be, indeed, “most sweet”. And is it not so to us, who have an even nearer and more intimate place? We have so much in common [p. 166] with those who are in the place of the spouse — as knowing the love of Christ and responding to it — that we can most profitably identify ourselves with the precious utterances of affection in which she expresses her delight in her Beloved. I have no doubt that God intended this book to have a distinct place in the promotion and development of bridal affection, and that it is as much for the assembly to profit by today as it will be for the joy and comfort of another company of saints who will be on earth after the assembly has been translated.
As the glorious Mediator “His mouth is most sweet”. May we appreciate Him more and more in this precious character! If we knew better His glory as the Mediator we should be more qualified to understand His Headship. As Mediator He speaks on God’s part — on the Father’s part — to us, but as Head He takes a place on our side, as associating us with Him, so that He says, “My Father and your Father ... my God and your God” (John 20: 17).
If we are able, as divinely taught, to appreciate the beauty and glory of Christ, as it is presented figuratively and symbolically in this description of Him by the spouse, I am sure we shall be ready to say with her, “Yea, he is altogether lovely”. Each of His features that we can trace is lovely in its perfection, and no feature of perfection is lacking. He is altogether lovely.
Finally, she exclaims, “This is my beloved, yea, this is my friend”. Her use now, for the first time, of the word “friend” would seem to be significant. The Beloved had used this word in chapter 5: 1, but it is new on her lips. It is the word very generally translated “neighbour”; it means one who is near. And, as used by the spouse, it seems to suggest that she is now restored to a sense of conscious nearness to Him. She could call Him her Beloved even when she was at ease without Him, but she could hardly have said then that He was her Friend — her near Companion. But now she is consciously near to Him; her affections are fully restored. So that when the daughters of Jerusalem ask whither her Beloved had gone she is not at a loss how to answer them. I do not think that any saint could really travel spiritually through verses 10 to 16 of this chapter without being fully restored in heart to the Beloved. I do not mean merely reading the verses, but taking them up in the heart’s true appreciation.
Before she began to describe Him she felt that others might find Him before she did (verse 8), but by the time she ended speaking of Him she knew far better than they did where to find Him. If there is any sense of distance with us let us not settle down in it. Let us think of Him; let us describe Him, as it were, afresh to our hearts; let us speak of Him, as we have opportunity, to those who are interested in Him. The very doing so will indicate a reviving glow of heart, and it will lead to fully restored affections. And others, it may be, will be moved to seek Him.