Song of Songs - Chapter 6

There are some unbelievable truths in this chapter.  The most amazing of all is that Jesus looks at every one of us as completely unique!

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Welcome back, everyone. This is Jeff's Bible Trek. We continue our trek through Solomon's Song of Songs with this episode covering the sixth chapter. Now, you must admit, I mean, you have to admit, I'm just kidding, not kidding. Um, you must admit that this book is rich with imagery, tenderness, and most of all love, the everlasting, ever powerful love of our God. The chapter begins with the friends of the maiden speaking. They ask our maiden and our bride, where has your lover gone, most beautiful of women? Which way did your lover turn that we may look for him with you? Now having heard her testimony in the previous chapter, they desired to go out and search for themselves for him. They saw in the maiden a person filled with the freshness of the new creation life. In reflecting on Jesus, she had proclaimed him as she knew him, and this was so different from the way they, the friends, knew him. She had a sense of power now, a peculiar drawing power, and they continued to refer to her as most beautiful of women. Now they had a desire to know him also, and they figured that she ought to be able to locate him for them. This represents a higher kind of witnessing, besides just giving people the four spiritual laws. It's about showing people what Jesus means to you. It also draws less mature Christians into a fuller knowledge of him. And so her response follows in verses two and three, My lover has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to browse in the gardens and to gather lilies. I am my lovers, and my lover is mine. He browses among the lilies. Now it's worthy of note that she had gone to them to find out where he was. But suddenly, while giving them a glowing testimony of his glorious person, she finally understood where he was to be found. He's in his garden browsing, and this was figurative language of his indwelling presence in her life. Let's reconsider a few verses from earlier in chapters four and five. In four hundred twelve he said to her, You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride. You are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain. In four hundred sixteen she said back to him, Awake, North Wind, and come south wind, blow on my garden that its fragrance may spread abroad. Let my lover come into his garden and taste its choice fruits. In chapter five and verse one, his reply was I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride. I have gathered my myrrh with my spice, I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey, I have drunk my wine and my milk. This is where she realized he was now. The fact is he had never really left her, and this is key. She didn't need to ascend to the heavens to find him or descend into hell. He was very near to her and within her. This whole episode was to teach her not to worry about a lack of conscious feelings of his presence, but rather to stand firmly on his word, confess what we know to be true of him, and know that he's always present in his garden. These three things standing firmly on his word, confessing what we know to be true of him, and knowing that he's always present in his garden inside of us can be considered as the steps to recovery when you feel like he's drifted away from you. For that reason, it would be worthwhile for you to pause this and go back so you can make a note of them. If you do these things, he will soon manifest his living presence and make you aware of him. The starting point for her was reviewing what she already knew and was learning about him. When believers talk about Jesus, it brings him very near. It is very important what we speak about and dwell upon. Verse three shows that she realized that though feelings change, the covenant she had with her Lord was unchangeable and forever steadfast. She says, I am my lovers and my lover is mine. He browses among the lilies. She could now rest in him, not only amidst the enjoyments of everyday life, but also in times of adversity and when feelings of his presence are gone. Amen. The king now speaks in verses four through nine, wherein are more glowing comments about the maiden from her king. And imagine Jesus saying this to you. You are beautiful, my darling, as Terza, lovely as Jerusalem, majestic as troops with banners. Turn your eyes from me, they overwhelm me. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing. Each has its twin, not one of them is alone. Your temples, actually cheeks, behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate. Sixty queens there may be, and eighty concubines, and virgins beyond number, but my dove, my perfect one is you hear this word loud and clear. My perfect one is unique. Unique the only daughter of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore her. The maidens saw her and called her blessed. The queens and concubines praised her. The word literally means one of a kind or one of one. You are not lost in the crowd by Jesus. You are like none other to him. This is a key passage because we're learning more about how Jesus feels about you. After her praise of him in chapter five, it's possible she expected him to immediately express his satisfaction in her, and that's exactly what he did. Their communion was growing deeper. Why? Because she was becoming identified more closely with him, with his desires and his will, and also because he noticed that. His own glorious life was blossoming in her. In verse four, he says, You are beautiful, my darling, as Terzah, lovely as Jerusalem, majestic as troops with banners. So let's talk about the various pieces of this verse. This is how the Lord sees her in the holy place in heaven. This is how he sees her in his presence and in her secret life with him. Terzah means delight. It was the name of Solomon's residential palace, and represents the holy place in heaven where God dwells. Jerusalem is the chosen place where God manifests his glory and the center of all spiritual activity, all the feasts, the gatherings, the temple, and so forth. When John the Apostle saw the new Jerusalem in the book of Revelation, he called it the holy city and compared its beauty to that of a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. See the connection with this book? So we see the Lord is looking at his loved one as she is in her heavenly position before God, and as she lives her life in God's presence. There's nothing unlovely there, only beauty. The Christian who looks this way to Jesus is the one who actually begins to express the future, heavenly glory of the kingdom of God on earth. He said she is majestic as troops with banners. Majestic, that's an interesting word. The King James says terrible as an army with banners. The new King James says awesome, and here in the NIV majestic. In a time of war, it's important to have weapons. But in a time of victory, it's important to have banners to display. If there was a defeat in battle, banners were rolled up and put away. But unfurled and waving banners represent glorious victory. Therefore the maiden is not only beautiful and lovely, but also strong like a heavenly host. Though quiet and gentle, she could still wave the flag of victory before all the powers of darkness. Her life in the secret place is not meant to be lived only in the quietness of God's presence, but also in the field of battle before the enemy. God never intended for you to possess just heavenly beauty and yet not have spiritual stamina to conduct warfare. Many Christians today have lost both loveliness before men and terribleness before the powers of darkness. There are those who are mighty before men, but do nothing in the secret place. I believe God would reverse that. Gently loving and humble before men, and mighty in battle in secret. If we did that, we would see the enemy retreat before our very eyes, and we would have the praise of God, as here in verse four. In five A, he says, Turn your eyes from me, they overwhelm me. This is a poetic expression that shows how strong her love is for the Lord. It is expressed through her eyes and it overwhelms him. Now, what he's saying does not mean he is refusing or spurning her love. The phrase indicates his praise of her with an interesting challenge in it. And that challenge is persistence. Actually, we've seen him do this before. When he turned away from the Gentile woman who wanted him to heal her daughter, he ignored her in order to get her to persist in her request. In another case, he deliberately waited two days to go to Lazarus' tomb when Mary and Martha sent for him. He delayed at the consternation of Mary and Martha, so he could raise Lazarus from the dead, but wanted them to persist in their request. God told Moses to leave him alone so he could destroy the nation of Israel. His goal was to get Moses to persist by interceding for the mercy of God on the Israelites. In wrestling with Jacob, he said, Let me go, for it is daybreak. Well, he certainly had the power to get free of Jacob, didn't he? But he wanted to see Jacob persist in obtaining the Lord's blessing. In each case, God turns away in order to challenge us to press in harder. So it is here. Jesus says, Turn your eyes from me, because he's challenging her to return an expression of love, which, by the way, she does in the next chapter. She is not just glancing at him, she has a riveted gaze at him that displays the strength of her love. And the Holy Spirit shows us that Jesus is irresistibly overcome by the strength of such love. Isn't that amazing? Those who are mature in Christ will recognize this. They can look beyond his apparent rejection and delay and see his appreciation of our strong love for him. By the way, I'm going to be doing an episode on persistence in the near future. It's a persistent theme, if you pardon the joke, in the Word of God. In verses six B through seven, he says, Your hair is like a flock of goats. Now I can't imagine saying that to my wife ever. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing. Each has its twin, not one of them is alone. Your temples, or rather your cheeks behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate. Hair represents the strength of her dedication, kind of like a Nazarite in the Old Testament, of whom Samson was one. The reference to teeth is her capacity to consume and digest spiritual truth. The cheeks with her veil represent her hidden beauty. This is an echo of the praise the Lord had once given her in chapter four, verses one to three. And this tells us a couple things. The first thing is the Lord's love never changes. Though we may procrastinate and fail from time to time, the Lord's love remains forever the same. You know, many times when we do fail, the first thing to disappear is our unshakable faith in God. And rising up in its place is some misconception about our relationship with Him. And that is that, wow, there must be some sort of breach between me and God. You know, we're just sometimes we're just a big bundle of doubts. Okay. It's against these doubts that Jesus reaffirms his love and praise for us. The second thing this tells us is that some things we learned about God and his love for us should be kept or held on to and not discarded. Therefore, you know, sometimes we experience the same lesson over and over again. Been there, done that. And each time we learn the same lesson, it becomes more real than before because our ability to receive it has improved as we've matured in Christ. In verses eight and nine, he says sixty queens there may be, and eighty concubines, and virgins beyond number, but my dove, my perfect one is unique, the only daughter of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore her. The maidens saw her and called her blessed. The queens and concubines praised her. Wow. Now looking at this from a worldly point of view, it's a great error to have so many lovers, but there's a spiritual there's a great spiritual truth here, one which is profound and beautiful. There's no doubt that the Lord desires to possess all believers in the fullest and purest love and in the closest, most intimate relationship. I think I've mentioned previously that from reading the two books on Imagine Heaven, those who stand before Jesus before being sent back into their bodies, they all feel like they are the only person in the whole universe whom Jesus loves so much. That is an intimate relationship. All of us make up the bride of Christ, but each individual Christian's relationship to him varies. These differences are represented by the queens, the concubines, and the virgins. Adam, Isaac, and Moses are all types of Christ, and their brides are types of the church as a whole. But Solomon is a type of Christ in his relationship to the individual believer. In his personal life, Solomon is no picture of Christ at all. He falls way short in holiness and spiritual behavior. It is rather his high and kingly office that he is a type of Christ. Even a thief, as in thief in the night, is used to represent an aspect of the Lord. It's not stealing that the Lord wants us to get from that, but the unexpectedness of his Appearing. Likewise, the point here is everyone's love relationship with Jesus differs. Some are queens, meaning they are intimate. Some are concubines in nature. And some are like the simple, immature virgin. The first line of verse nine is, but my dove, my perfect one, is unique. Oh, that gets me. I love that the Lord has made this point twice in this chapter. It's that important for you to hear. You're not you're not like anybody else in human history to him. Here, some feel that the Spirit of God wants us to see that it's those who fully satisfy the Lord's heart, who alone are regarded as unique. This does not mean that there's only one Christian who ever reached such a state, but that all who become like the maiden are as only ones, quote unquote, in the eyes of the Lord. They are special ones who have a special place. They live by the Spirit. They have single eyes for the Lord as a dove. They are completely separated to him. They have progressed in the love for Jesus. And they are now a choice one, not only forgiven of their sins by God, but bearing grace worked in her life through the years of constant working and shaping. The church is full of children of grace, but those who allow that grace to work to its full end are few and far between, sadly. In verse nine B, he says the maidens saw her and called her blessed. The queens and concubines praised her. Many who are less mature still recognize those who are. Although not of the same spiritual caliber, they are able to admire complete yieldedness to Jesus when they see it. They might have thought the maiden was too fanatical, and they may have resisted God's grace, drawing them into the same relationship she had, but they did realize how blessed she was. In verse ten, he says, Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession? Now it's not real clear who is speaking here. It is thought by some that the Holy Spirit is speaking through a third party, such as one of the queens or concubines, and asking this question in such a way as to bring out the beauty of this beloved maiden or child of God. All four parts of this question call attention to different aspects of her life in the Lord. And the question is intended to challenge less mature believers to think, to reflect, and to look at the full work of God in the life of a mature soul. That way they can see what's pleasing and acceptable to the Lord. It's interesting that this form of question always seems to appear after some fresh revelation. In three six it was Who is this coming up from the desert like a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and incense made from all the spices of the merchant? And this was after she saw him as the Lord who had triumphed over death, hell, and the grave, and now seated at ease on his throne. In chapter eight and verse five, it's who is this coming up from the desert leaning on her lover? Now we haven't covered chapter eight yet, but this was after the revelation of how she appeared to Jesus. So it is here. After the revelation of how she appeared to Jesus, this question is meant to lead less mature believers to understand more of the deeper walk with Jesus. She quote, appears like the dawn, unquote. The unique ones to Jesus have come to a new morning through grace. The shadows have fled away, and there is no remaining darkness in relationship to the Lord. She has now come to the life of nothing between her and Jesus, quote unquote. She has not come to the full light of life at high noon, but her life is like the womb of the morning. It is her hopes that shine with the brightness of daybreak. Her whole outlook is like opening the day shining with morning light. Her goal is high noon with Jesus, however, for as Proverbs four eighteen says, the path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day. This is where she was headed in her relationship with Jesus. For the Christian life isn't very satisfying unless we have a desire to see the full splendor of Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. It's Matthew five, six. In Hebrews eleven six, God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. It said in verse ten that she is quote fair as the moon, unquote. Now the size of the moon is not important here, but rather its radiance and beauty. The moon shines with a soft and gentle light. In this way, the bright of Christ is to reflect the light of Jesus into the black night of earth, so those in spiritual darkness can find her can find their way. Jesus sees her in this way now. It further said that she is quote bright as the sun, unquote. This speaks of the absence of gloom and the fullness of heavenly light. Both the sun and moon represent the heavenly life of the believer. The moon doesn't have any power or radiance in itself. It simply receives the light of the sun and reflects it to shine upon the earth as a witness. So it is with her. But in comparing her, and therefore us to the sun, the implication is that her slash our life is the life of God. Though we have no life or light in and of ourselves, he energizes us with his own life and light. In John 10, 10, it says, or Jesus said, I should say, I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. He said that she's majestic as troops with banners, quote unquote. Not only was she filled with hope for the future, which was reaching high noon with Jesus, not only was she in full possession of the heavenly life of Christ, but also she was super abundantly triumphant over all her enemies and every circumstance. This does not mean her circumstances went away. They just weren't affecting her anymore. She looked at it like it was just another little thing to get the victory over. Her daily song was the song of victory. Do you know this maiden or believer? Have you seen her? Does this speak of your life? Now verse eleven. The maiden speaks, quote, I went down to the grove of nut trees to look at the new growth in the valley to see if the vines had budded. Here we see the humility of the maiden and therefore the believer. She's embarrassed by the Lord's praise and so turns her attention to other matters by going down to the nut orchard. Well, let's talk about the nuts for a minute. With their hard shells that require careful cracking before the delicious and nourishing interior can be removed, this is the word of God, which gives its soul satisfying meats only to those who diligently and with prayer seek to rightly divide or correctly handle the word of truth. She has buried her face in the Word of God and didn't act as though she'd arrived, quote unquote. Further evidence of her humility. She has also examined the vines in the Lord's vineyard and pomegranate groves, which represent what God is doing in the whole church and not just herself. It kind of makes me think of something I heard somebody say once. They said, Show me a person who only cares about himself, and I'll show you a person nobody else cares about. Humility will not boast in itself. It will always seek to learn about others. In verse twelve, the maiden is still speaking. She says, quote, before I realized it, my desire set me among the royal chariots of my people, unquote. That last phrase is my people or the people of the prince. And so while she's engrossed in this study of the Word of God and her investment of what God is doing in the body of Christ, before she realizes what's happening, she finds herself being carried by the Lord in his chariot across the earth. They are accompanied by the chariots of others, the people of the prince. In other words, her desire for God, her humility, her selflessness, her search through the Word of God, and her willingness, these things caused her to ride upon the Lord's movements in the world and to become in touch with what Jesus was doing and saying in the church. It is not the total church that is represented by these people of the prince or people of a willing heart, because all are not so in these days. Rather it's those who are represented by the maiden, those who are desirous, those who are willing, those who are seeking, those who are searching, and those who are selfless. In thirteen A the friends interject this come back, come back, O Shulamite, come back, come back that we may gaze on you. This is a call by some less mature believers for the maiden to return. And to this, some others standing nearby respond with part B of verse thirteen, Why would you gaze on the Shulamite as on the dance of Mahane? And the answer to that question is given in the following verses in chapter seven, in the form of a victory dance. That will be in the next episode. The word Shulamite means a person of peace, and this is how Solomon and therefore Jesus now sees this loved maiden. It's interesting that Solomon's name also means peace. The Holy Spirit, through the voice of the friends, is requesting her to return and come into view in these last days, so that others less mature may look at her. There were others who wanted to observe her life and ways to find the secret of her progress in the Lord and how she managed to forge ahead with him without hindrance. This really points out the importance of having examples in the body of Christ who are like this maiden in their quest for closeness with Jesus. Again, verse thirteen B. Why would you gaze on the Shulamite as on the dance of Mahanium? The word Mahaniam is an actual Hebrew word in the text. The King James Version translates it two armies. The New King James Version translates it double camp. And that's pretty much what it means. Jacob gave this place that name when the angels of God met him as he prepared to meet his brother Esau. When he saw the angels, he said This is the camp of God. Thus the two camps are his camp and God's camp. At one time a dance apparently came about by the same name, the dance of Mahaniam. It must have been a dance of victory because of the place dances have in the Old Testament. Dancing followed the crossing of the Red Sea, and hey, you would have danced too if you had experienced that. Dancing followed the death of Goliath. Imagine the gazes at such a dance. So they're asking, why should you want to gaze at this child of God as on a victory dance? Good question. The answer follows as chapter seven begins. And with that, we conclude this episode. I'm looking forward to what's next. And so until then, may God bless you.