Yet one figure more is used by the Bridegroom: "The smell of thy breath [is] like apples," or rather citrons. In the first section the bride exclaims:—
Here we find the outcome of that communion. The citrons on which she had fed perfumed her breath, and imparted to her their delicious odour. The Bridegroom concludes his description:—
How wondrous the grace that has made the bride of Christ to be all this to her Beloved! Upright as the palm, victorious, and evermore fruitful as she grows heavenward; gentle and tender as the Vine, self-forgetful and self-sacrificing, not merely bearing fruit in spite of adversity, but bearing her richest fruits through it;—feasting on her Beloved, as she rests beneath His shade, and thereby partaking of His fragrance;—what has grace not done for her! And what must be her joy in finding, ever more fully, the satisfaction of the glorious Bridegroom in the lowly wild flower He has made His bride, and beautified with His own graces and virtues!
This longing desire to be more to Him does not, however, blind her to the consciousness that she needs His guidance, and that He is her true, her only Instructor.
The second section (Cant. ii. 8-iii. 5) showed failure on her part; she was lured back again into the world, and soon found that her Beloved could not follow her there; then with full purpose of heart going forth to seek Him, and confessing His name, her search was successful, and her communion was restored.
The third section (Cant. iii. 6-v. 1.) told of unbroken communion. Abiding in Christ, she was the sharer of His security and His glory. She draws the attention, however, of the daughters of Jerusalem from these outward things to her King Himself. And, while she is thus occupied with Him, and would have others so occupied, she finds that her royal Bridegroom is delighting in her, and inviting her to fellowship of service, fearless of dens of lions and mountains of leopards.
The fourth section (Cant. v. 2-vi. 10), however, shows again failure; not as before through worldliness, but rather through spiritual pride and sloth. Restoration now was much more difficult; but again when she went forth diligently to seek her Lord, and so confessed Him as to lead others to long to find Him with her, He revealed Himself and the communion was restored, to be interrupted no more.
The fifth section (Cant. vi. 11-viii. 4), as we have seen, describes not only the mutual satisfaction and delight of the bride and Bridegroom in each other, but the recognition of her position and her beauty by the daughters of Jerusalem.
And now in the sixth section (Cant. viii. 5-14) we come to the closing scene of the book. In it the bride is seen leaning upon her Beloved, asking Him to bind her yet more firmly to Himself, and occupying herself in His vineyard, until He calls her away from earthly service. To this last section we shall now give our attention more particularly.
It opens, as did the third, by an inquiry or exclamation of the daughters of Jerusalem. There they asked, "Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, etc.?" but then their attention was claimed by the pomp and state of the King, not by His person, nor by that of His bride. Here they are attracted by the happy position of the bride in relation to her Beloved, and not by their surroundings.
It is through the bride that attention is drawn to the Bridegroom; their union and communion are now open and manifest. For the last time the wilderness is mentioned; but sweetly solaced by the presence of the Bridegroom, it is no wilderness to the bride. In all the trustfulness of confiding love she is seen leaning upon her Beloved. He is her strength, her joy, her pride, and her prize; while she is His peculiar treasure, the object of His tenderest care. All His resources of wisdom and might are hers; though journeying she is at rest, though in the wilderness she is satisfied, while leaning upon her Beloved.
Wonderful, however, as are the revelations of grace and love to the heart taught by the Holy Spirit through the relationship of bride and Bridegroom, the Christ of God is more than Bridegroom to His people. He who when on earth was able to say, "Before Abraham was, I am," here claims His bride from her very birth, and not alone from her espousals. Before she knew Him, He knew her; and of this He reminds her in the words:—
Gladly does the bride recognize this truth, that she is indeed His own, and she exclaims:
The High Priest bore the names of the twelve tribes upon his heart, each name being engraved as a seal in the costly and imperishable stone chosen by God, each seal or stone being set in the purest gold; he likewise bore the same names upon his shoulders, indicating that both the love and the strength of the High Priest were pledged on behalf of the tribes of Israel. The bride would be thus upborne by Him who is alike her Prophet, Priest, and King, for love is strong as death; and jealousy, or ardent love, retentive as the grave. Not that she doubts the constancy of her Beloved, but that she has learned, alas! the inconstancy of her own heart; and she would be bound to the heart and arm of her Beloved as with chains and settings of gold, ever the emblem of divinity. Thus the Psalmist prayed, "Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar."
It is comparatively easy to lay the sacrifice on the altar that sanctifies the gift, but it requires divine compulsion—the cords of love—to retain it there. So here the bride would be set and fixed on the heart and on the arm of Him who is henceforth to be her all in all, that she may evermore trust only in that love, be sustained only by that power.
Do we not all need to learn a lesson from this? and to pray to be kept from turning to Egypt for help, from trusting in horses and chariots, from putting confidence in princes, or in the son of man, rather than in the living God? How the Kings of Israel, who had won great triumphs by faith, sometimes turned aside to heathen nations in their later years! The Lord keep His people from this snare.
The bride continues: "The flashes of love are flashes of fire, a very flame of the Lord." It is worthy of note that this is the only occurrence of this word "Lord" in this book. But how could it be omitted here? For love is of God, and God is love.
To her request the Bridegroom replies with reassuring words:—
The love which grace has begotten in the heart of the bride is itself divine and persistent; many waters cannot quench it, nor the floods drown it. Suffering and pain, bereavement and loss may test its constancy, but they will not quench it. Its source is not human or natural; like the life, it is hidden with Christ in God. What "shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creation [R.V. margin], shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Our love to God is secured by God's love to us. To the soul really rescued by grace, no bribe to forsake God's love will be finally successful. "If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned."
Freed from anxiety on her own account, the happy bride next asks guidance, and fellowship in service with her Lord, on behalf of those who have not yet reached her favoured position.
How beautifully her conscious union with the Bridegroom appears in her expressions. "We have a little sister," not I have, etc.; "what shall we do for our sister," etc.? She has now no private relationships nor interests; in all things she is one with Him. And we see a further development of grace in the very question. Towards the close of the last section she recognized the Bridegroom as her Instructor. She will not now make her own plans about her little sister, and ask His acquiescence in them; she will rather learn what his thoughts are, and have fellowship with Him in His plans.
How much anxiety and care the children of God would be spared if they learned to act in this way! Is it not too common to make the best plans that we can, and to carry them out as best we may, feeling all the while a great burden of responsibility, and earnestly asking the Lord to help us? Whereas if we always let Him be our Instructor in service, and left the responsibility with Him, our strength would not be exhausted with worry and anxiety, but would all be at His disposal, and accomplish His ends.
In the little sister, as yet immature, may we not see the elect of God, given to Christ in God's purpose, but not yet brought into saving relation to Him? And perhaps also those babes in Christ who as yet need feeding with milk and not with meat, but who, with such care, will in due time become experienced believers, fitted for the service of the Lord? Then they will be spoken for, and called into that department of service for which He has prepared them.
The Bridegroom replies:—
In this reply the Bridegroom sweetly recognizes His oneness with His bride, in the same way as she has shown her conscious oneness with Him. As she says, "What shall we do for our sister?" so He replies, "We will build ... we will inclose," etc. He will not carry out His purposes of grace irrespective of His bride, but will work with and through her. What can be done for this sister, however, will depend upon what she becomes. If she be a wall, built upon the true foundation, strong and stable, she shall be adorned and beautified with battlements of silver; but if unstable and easily moved to and fro like a door, such treatment will be as impossible as unsuitable; she will need to be inclosed with boards of cedar, hedged in with restraints, for her own protection.
The bride rejoicingly responds, "I am a wall"; she knows the foundation on which she is built, there is no "if" in her case; she is conscious of having found favour in the eyes of her Beloved. Naphtali's blessing is hers: she is "satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord."
But what is taught by the connection of this happy consciousness with the lines which follow?
The connection is, we believe, one of great importance, teaching us that what she was (by grace) was more important than what she did; and that she did not work in order to earn favour, but being assured of favour, gave her love free scope to show itself in service. The bride knew her relationship to her Lord, and His love to her; and in her determination that He should have the thousand pieces of silver, her concern was that her vineyard should not produce less for her Solomon than His vineyard at Baal-hamon; her vineyard was herself, and she desired for her Lord much fruit. She would see, too, that the keepers of the vineyard, those who were her companions in its culture, and who ministered in word and doctrine, were well rewarded; she would not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn; a full tithe, nay a double tithe, was to be the portion of those who kept the fruit and laboured with her in the vineyard.
How long this happy service continues, and how soon it is to be terminated, we cannot tell; He who calls His servants to dwell in the gardens, and cultivate them for Him—as Adam of old was placed in the paradise of God—alone knows the limit of this service. Sooner or later the rest will come, the burden and heat of the last day will have been borne, the last conflict will be over, and the voice of the Bridegroom will be heard addressing His loved one:—
Thy service among the companions is finished; thou hast fought the good fight, thou hast kept the faith, thou hast finished thy course; henceforth there is laid up for thee the crown of righteousness, and the Bridegroom Himself shall be thine exceeding great reward!
Well may the bride let Him hear her voice, and, springing forth in heart to meet Him, cry:—
She no longer asks Him, as in the second section:—
Very sweet is the presence of our Lord, as by His Spirit He dwells among His people, while they serve Him below; but here there are many thorns in every path, which call for watchful care; and it is meet that now we should suffer with our Lord, in order that we may hereafter be glorified together. The day, however, is soon coming in which He will bring us up out of the earthly gardens and associations to the palace of the great King. There His people "shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."
They are clearly not the bride, yet they are not far removed from her. They know where the Bridegroom makes His flock to rest at noon; they are charged by the Bridegroom not to stir up nor awaken His love when she rests, abiding in Him; they draw attention to the Bridegroom as with dignity and pomp He comes up from the wilderness; their love-gifts adorn His chariot of state; they are appealed to by the bride for help in finding her Beloved, and, stirred by her impassioned description of His beauty, they desire to seek Him with her; they describe very fully the beauty of the bride, but, on the other hand, we never find them occupied with the person of the Bridegroom; He is not all in all to them; they mind outward and earthly things.
Do they not represent those who, if not actually saved, are very near it; or, if saved, are only half-saved? who are for the present more concerned about the things of this world than the things of God? To advance their own interests, to secure their own comfort, concerns them more than to be in all things pleasing to the Lord. They may form part of that great company spoken of in Rev. vii. 9-17, who come out of the great tribulation, but they will not form part of the 144,000, "the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb" (Rev. xiv. 1-5). They have forgotten the warning of our Lord in Luke xxi. 34-36; and hence they are not "accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man." They have not, with Paul, counted "all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord," and hence they do not "attain unto" that resurrection from among the dead, which Paul felt he might miss, but aimed to attain unto.
We wish to place on record our solemn conviction that not all who are Christians, or think themselves to be such, will attain to that resurrection of which St. Paul speaks in Phil. iii. 11, or will thus meet the Lord in the air. Unto those who by lives of consecration manifest that they are not of the world, but are looking for Him, "He will appear without sin unto salvation."
[1] Loves = endearments, caresses.
[2] The pronoun here and in chapter iii. 5, and viii. 4, should not be "he" as A.V., nor "it" as R.V., but "she."
[4] The Church of Popular Opinion, as pointed out by the Rev. Charles Fox in an address at Keswick, as the Church of Philadelphia is the Church of Brotherly Love.