AP

Song of Songs 6:3-4 I am my lover’s and my lover is mine; he browses among the lilies.  You are beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, majestic as troops with banners.
In this love duet sung by the ‘lover’ (Solomon, foreshadowing Jesus, King David’s ‘Greater Son’) and his ‘darling’ (foreshadowing the Church, whom Jesus bought with his own precious blood – Acts 20:28), we are privy to expressions of very intimate interaction between two committed, betrothed lovers.  The first of today’s verses (3) is sung by the Bride (the Church), and the second (4) by Solomon (Christ).  ‘Tirzah’ is a feminine Hebrew name (cf Numbers 26:23) meaning ‘favourable one’.

Because this is duet is part of God’s revealed truth, we need to put ourselves personally into this song.  Do we know Jesus as our Saviour personally, so that we are able to sing with some passion, “I am my lover’s and my lover is mine”?  The words of an old song can help us: “Jesus is the rock of my salvation, his banner over me is love … He brought me to His banqueting table, his banner over me is love … He is the vine and we are the branches, his banner over me is love … his banner over me is love.”

Are we committed to membership in his ‘Bride’ so that we can bring blessing to, and receive blessing from, brothers and sisters in Christ?  It is only ‘collectively’, not individually, that the Scriptures know us as the ‘Bride of Christ’.

Have we come to experience personally the overwhelming joy of knowing the love Jesus always has for his Church?

“Loved with everlasting love, led by grace that love to know; Spirit, breathing from above, thou hast taught me it is so.  O, this full and perfect peace!  O, this transport all divine!  In a love which cannot cease, I am his, and he is mine.  Heaven above is softer blue, earth around is sweeter green; something lives in every hue Christless eyes have never seen; birds with gladder songs o’erflow, flow’rs with deeper beauties shine, since I know, as now I know, I am His, and He is mine.  Things that once were wild alarms cannot now disturb my rest; closed in everlasting arms, pillowed on the loving breast. O, to lie forever here, doubt and care and self resign, while He whispers in my ear, I am His, and He is mine.  His forever, only his; who the Lord and me shall part?  Ah, with what a rest of bliss Christ can fill the loving heart.  Heaven and earth may fade and flee, firstborn light in gloom decline; but, while God and I shall be, I am his, and he is mine”  (George Wade Robinson).

It is interesting, and humbling, to see that Jesus is prepared to use words like ‘beautiful’, ‘favourable’, ‘lovely’ and ‘majestic’ to address his ‘darling’ Church when we consider its chequered history … and especially its present state … But he DOES!  Why don’t I love him more?
– Bruce Christian