Morning Light – January 4th, 2017 – Song of Solomon 7: A Bride Most Lovely

Morning Light Song of Solomon 7
Today: [Song of Solomon 7] A Bride Most Lovely. In Song of Solomon seven we find the Bridegroom extoling the bride in words and descriptions that can only make us blush. Nothing of her loveliness escapes the Bridegroom’s notice and He delights in verbalizing to her how captivated He is with her loveliness. Chapter seven probably more than other passing in this book provoke many theologians and churchmen to reject it as inappropriate for the canon of scripture. However when you look past the surface you will see the Bridegroom is describing the church and describing a body of passionate believers who make up the bride that He is returning for – one without spot or wrinkle.
[Sng 7:1-13 KJV] 1 How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter! the joints of thy thighs [are] like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman. 2 Thy navel [is like] a round goblet, [which] wanteth not liquor: thy belly [is like] an heap of wheat set about with lilies. 3 Thy two breasts [are] like two young roes [that are] twins. 4 Thy neck [is] as a tower of ivory; thine eyes [like] the fishpools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim: thy nose [is] as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus. 5 Thine head upon thee [is] like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like purple; the king [is] held in the galleries. 6 How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights! 7 This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters [of grapes]. 8 I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples; 9 And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth [down] sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak. 10 I [am] my beloved’s, and his desire [is] toward me. 11 Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages. 12 Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, [whether] the tender grape appear, [and] the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves. 13 The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates [are] all manner of pleasant [fruits], new and old, [which] I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.
In chapter seven the Bridegroom continues to extol the comeliness and beauty of the bride. He describes her from head to toe, He can’t take His eyes off of her. If you wondered what occupies the heart of Christ at the right hand of the Father here is the indication. His utmost thoughts are of His bride. He continues ever day from the day of His ascension until now to be fixed in His gaze upon His bride. Hebrews 7:25 tells us He continually intercedes for her without stopping:
[Heb 7:25 KJV] 25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
When I met my wife the Father I was very moved in such a way that I was undone. I was not a young man and did not at that time believe in romantic love. I thought it was something used to increase sales at perfume counters or to sell Celine Dion records. In my mind I truly believed that the kind of love portrayed in Song of Solomon was a literary artifice, a fiction without any basis in fact. In one of the churches I pastored there were several young professional women who had come to Christ under my ministry. They looked at me as a papa, as a big brother in the Lord. I would preach on this subject and remark that I believed in the “Tina Turner” school of relationships, “what’s love got to do with it?”.
When I met Kitty and I was undone. I asked Father who she was in my life and among other things He told me she was the template of His will for my life. She was the context of everything the Father was doing in My life. Over the years I had repeated that often to Kitty. She wasn’t entirely comfortable with that and I asked the Father to help me explain it to her. He simply asked one question that settled it for me and for her: What has Jesus been doing for 2000 years? He’s been praying for His bride. What does this tell us? That for 2000 years the bride has continued to be the context of everything the Father is doing in Christ. He is ever interceding for her. He went to the cross for her. He washes her daily with the word. He is the lover of your soul individually and the dread Lord of the earth and Bridegroom of the bride.
In verse 1 He tells her that her feet are beautiful. I think my wife has beautiful feet. Like Solomon to the Shulamite my wife’s feet do not escape my attention. However notice what He says exactly – how lovely are your feet with shoes. What do the feet represent? This is the walk of the believer. What do shoes represent? You know already:
[Isa 52:7 KJV] 7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
[Eph 6:15 KJV] 15 And [having] your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
We tell believers they should go out and wins souls and have a heart for souls to keep them from hell. However here is another more lofty motivation to shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel. It beautifies your walk in the gaze of the Bridegroom. There are many things a bride can do but it is those things she does to beautify herself to her Bridegroom that occupy her uppermost. Evangelism and study of the word is not supposed to be a hardship. What if women took the attitude toward putting on their make-up and dressing themselves every day that most believers do toward spending time in the word and evangelism?
The Bridegroom describes the joints of her thighs as jewels fitly set. This is where conception takes place and where birthing takes place. Jewels are made and formed by heat and pressure. We want intimacy with Christ and we want to see His purposes birthed in our lives and we need to know and realize that this is within us a cunning work of the hand of God employing heat and pressure that isn’t always comfortable to us.
He tells the bride that her belly is a heap of wheat. Wheat represents souls coming in to the kingdom. He is telling her she has nations in her. He is identifying and describing her potential to bring forth. He says her navel is a goblet that wanteth not liquor. What is a navel really? It is a mark of birth. It shows that you came out of a woman’s belly and were not cooked up in a test tube. It is a mark of the new birth, brought about by the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the mark of the death of Christ and it is where the new wine is there for the drinking. He also describes her breasts and their loveliness. What are the breasts of the bride? 1 Peter 2:2 speaks of the milk of the word. The twin breasts are the Old and the New Testaments full and vibrant that feed the young ones the church brings forth through evangelism. Almost the whole of the metaphors found in chapter 7 speak of evangelism and winning of soul and immersing one’s self in the word of God as a means of beautifying yourself before the Bridegroom.
In describing her eyes the Bridegroom says they are as the fish pools of Heshbon. What do fish represent? Jesus told His disciples He would make them fishers of men. In other words the Bridegroom sees the mass of lost humanity coming to Christ in the eyes of the bride. This is what fills her mind and is uppermost in her vision at all times. A heart for the lost. A vision for the world. He goes on and describes her neck as a tower of ivory. The neck speaks of the will. He is saying that His bride is resolute and not double minded. Her nose is as a cedar of Lebanon looking toward Damascus. Damascus and Syria represent idolatry and anti-Christ. He is describing her discernment, which is a prominent feature of the bride’s face. She is ever aware and alert to the slightest encroachment of idolatry into her heart or the anti-Christ spirit that would contaminate her relationship with the Bridegroom. He says her hair is as purple and that the king is held in the galleries. In other words He says that her head is preoccupied with royalty (purple) and that her every thought is of the king, her Bridegroom, her spouse.
In verse 11 after this intimate and passionate description of the bride’s virtues the Bridegroom wants to show her off. Let us go into the field and lodge in the villages. This is the great commission of Christ. Go ye into all the world? Why? Just for souls? No much deeper than this – the Bridegroom wants to show you off. He will accompany you with signs following. They go forth and find mandrakes – an aphrodisiac in ancient times in the gates and all manner of pleasant fruit. This really speaks to us of where the Bridegroom where the lover of our soul wants to spend time with us – out in the fields, and in the gates of the city where the kingdom of God is made manifest to a dying and lost humanity. To often we preoccupy ourselves and sequester ourselves in the four walls of the church. The lion’s share of our investments of time and money in Christian culture are to gather ourselves not at the gates of the city but in the sheep shed away from the world. In the early church as we read in the New Testament there are very few chapters that focus on what was happening in the intimate gatherings of the church. The great majority of the stories of the New Testament and even the gospels took place in the marketplace and in public for this is where the Bridegroom longs to commiserate with and to show off His bride.