Friday, October 26, 2012

Altogether Lovely



Song of solomon 1:2-4
2Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.
 3Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.
 4Draw me (after you, let us run together)nasb addition


                The scene opens with dialogue, without explanation of who or what or why. There is no mention of where she is, or who she is speaking to. Only the statement of what she desires. “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth”. It seems as if she could no longer keep her feelings to herself anymore. It is unclear to whom she is speaking. Perhaps it is to her friends, or strangers, or even to herself. What is clear is that she could no longer keep those feelings to herself. Christ tells us in Matthew 12:34 “…for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” If you were to ask my friends it wouldn’t take much contemplation to think about who my favorite college football team is. Almost anyone who knows me would instantly say “ohio state is easily his favorite team”.  Why is that true? Why is it that my friends would never have to consider much of who my favorite team is? It is because “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.” I talk to people about them, tell others how they are doing, who they are playing, who plays for them. It is easy to know what is important to someone because they will talk about it more than anything else. What are most important to this woman are the kisses of her beloved. She desires them so much that her mouth cannot help speak of it. How much more should we speak of the love of our wonderful Savior than anything else. If we can readily speak of our favorite television shows, or sports team should we not even more so speak of the greatness of our blessed Lord and Savior.
One other point which should be noted is that she finds no need to use a name. She simply says “him” and “his”. Her attention is so directed to her beloved that to say his name seems unimportant. She even expects whoever she is speaking with to know who she is talking about. An interesting circumstance of this is found in John 20. When Christ asked Mary why she was weeping and Mary supposing him to be the gardener responds “Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away”. Her thoughts were so focused on Christ that when someone asks for who she simply says “him”. Surely whoever is asking must know who “he” is even if she doesn’t speak of his name. This idea makes me wonder, would people know I was talking about Christ if I didn’t use His name? Like my previous example of my friends knowing my favorite football team being ohio state, I would think that even if I didn’t use the name “ohio state” my friends would know what team I was referring to simply for how I talk about them and how often I talk about them. Do we talk with such affection and regularity of Christ that when someone overhears us talking about some “him” do they assume it is Christ?
                The first question that surely arises when one reads over this verse is what is meant by “kisses”? First, I do believe that this is actually an event between a man and a woman. So at first glance it is saying simply means that she is desiring to kiss him. But, I do believe there is a deeper connection here as well which reflects the relationship we have with the Lord Jesus Christ. So what is a kiss in the most general sense? It is simply a public demonstration of affection. Its manifesting to the one being kissed that there is affections between you and your beloved. There is not much more that we desire than to know that we are loved by the one we love. What does this mean to us? If we love Christ, should we not desire the proof that he loves us as well? We have the proof, clearly defined for us in scripture. Christ loved us when he left his glory in heaven to come to earth. There here was, the splendor of Heaven, the angels worshipping him and giving him the praise he is worthy of. Yet, he left it, to come to earth and be ridiculed be men. It was love that brought him here. He went under persecution, torture, temptations and various trials out of love. The hours right before his death he was praying in John 17, and he prayed for you and me, the ones he loved. When he died on the cross he did it out of love. When he rose from the dead and now intercedes for his own at the right hand of the Father in Heaven He does it out of love. People read love stories every day. If you want to read a real love story, the greatest love story ever told. Just look into the Gospels in be overcome with a love greater than the world has ever known. And it was a love for you and me.
                One point which should also be noted is the reason for why she is desiring the kisses of her beloved. I mean she is clearly having great desire for the kisses of this man for one reason or another. The end of verse 2 does explain to us why. “For thy love is better than wine”. It is because she has experienced how wonderful his love is that she now desires the manifestations of his affections. The same is true with us. We only desire the love of Christ because we have experienced his love already. In first john chapter 4 we are told “We love him, because he first loved us.” Had Christ not loved us with an overwhelming love we would never had been interested in loving him. We only love him because he has loved us with the most incredible love we had ever known.
                It must also be noted that there has been a change of pronouns. In the first statement she says “let HIM kiss me” but now she says “THY love”. It can only be assumed that her beloved has now entered the room. The moments, in which, we are alone with Christ we should declare how wonderful we find His amazing love. She also uses an interesting expression to show how wonderful she believes that his love really is. But in what ways can we find that the love of our blessed Lord and Savior is “better than wine.” In order to see what is meant here we must look at the qualities of wine and see what ways the love of Christ would be better. One way in which the love of Christ is superior to wine is that it can always be taken without question. Has there ever been a day in the history of the Church in which all Christians agreed on the amount of wine one was to drink? Ask one Christian and they will say “drink all you want”. Ask another and they will answer “drink only a little in moderation”. Others will tell you “never drink any at all”. Some will even say “never, not even during the Lord’s supper”. But what about the love of Christ? Has there ever been any Christian who has ever said “you are experiencing too much of the love of Christ, you should probably stop”. No, never! There will never be a day when we are told to experience less, yet are always told to take in more and more of his gracious love. We can never have enough of it.
                A second way in which Christ’s love is superior to wine is in that it is absolutely pure as it is. Wine is never in a perfect state. There is some amount dirt or grim that is still somewhat remaining inside. It can always be somewhat purified a little more. Or even there could be something always added to it to enhance the flavor just a bit. The flavor could always be made a little better. But what about Christ’s love? Can we ever add anything to it to make it better? Or is there anything that it is in it that makes it just somewhat impure? No, absolutely nothing! If anything were ever added or taken from it then it would lose its pure state. His love is utterly and completely perfect. Not the least thing can add or removed would ever help it in any way. Perfect plus or minus anything, at all, equals no longer perfect. We come to Christ with nothing of our own. If we came with anything of our own then we would be telling Christ his love was not perfect or inadequate. Let this never be so with us.
                A third way, in which the Love of our Savior is better than wine is that it is plenteous. No matter how much wine you buy or have, it is limited. The more you drink the less you have remaining. It is inevitable that sooner or later you will run out if more is not made or bought. This is never true with the love of Christ. The well where His love resides cannot and will not ever run dry. It is ever and always abundant. Sometimes we are unwilling to share something precious to us with people for fear of losing part of it. This is never the case with the love of Christ, if we share his love with another, we will only find that his love has increased in Us. It is like a never ending ocean, if you were to walk into his love you would never find a point in which it began to shallow. It would only become deeper and deeper the further you advance.
                For my fourth comparison, I feel it necessary to say that I do have a very lack of understanding when it comes to wine. But I do know that wine is to be aged at least to some extent for it to reach it’s full flavor. Is there a wine older than the love of our blessed Lord and Savior? Or is there even a love that is older than this love? No, His love reaches to the beginning of eternity. There is absolutely nothing older than the love of Christ. While you were still in your mother’s womb, he loved you. When Christ told his disciples that he was coming back, he loved you. When he rose from the grave, when he died on the cross, when he was beaten and lead to Golgotha he had love for you. When he left being the splendor of Heaven, to come to a place where he was to be persecuted, tormented, tortured, ridiculed he had love for you. When Abraham was told of the promised seed, and that through his seed all the nations of the world would be blessed, he loved you. When the first mention of the gospel was declared in Gen 3:15 when Adam was told that the seed of woman would bruise the serpents heel he loved you. Before God created Heaven and Earth he loved us. In eternity past, when there was only the blessed and glorious Trinity dwelling together and enjoying each other the love Christ had for you and me was there. If Christ were to begin to love someone more, that would mean that he grew in understanding of the person whom he loves. For that to be true, then Christ would have to grow in knowledge, but that is absolutely impossible. Christ’s knowledge is perfect and unchanging, therefore his love remains perfect and unchanging.
                A fifth comparison is that the love of Christ is superior to wine in that will never experience cloying. All too often we find something new and delicious and taste and the think that we love it and will never grow tired of it. This is true with me and a lot of different types of food. I love to eat pizza, but if I were to eat pizza every day then sooner or later I would want some of type of food. It would grow almost distasteful to me. This is never the case for the love of Christ. The more we take of the love of Christ the more we desire it. There is never a point in which we grow tired of His love. We will never come to Christ’s love and find it mundane or boring or distasteful. It only increases and increases and becomes more desirous to us.
                A sixth and last comparison is the most astounding of them all. We have offered to us the most wonderful and astonishing thing the world has ever known. Yet for what price must we pay to receive such an item as Christ’s love? Absolutely and positively nothing. It comes to us completely free, we could never pay for it or ever earn it. Wine, is in most cases very expensive, and in the best of cases its cheap but never is it free. Yet wine is in no comparable way as valuable as the love of Christ. But Christ gives us his love at no cost to us. How wondrous and beautiful is the love of our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
                Now we will move on to verse 3 “Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.” It seems clear that ointments could also be translated as oils. When oils are referred to in many Old Testament passages it is often times symbolism of the Holy Spirit. Especially reading the book of Leviticus and seeing the application oil in the various cleansing and sacrificing is clearly a representation of the Holy Spirit working in those matters. But let us notice that she is talking about how great his ointments are. They are gifts given to her from him. They are not hers, and are blessings He has bestowed upon her. She knows his wonderful love and desires his kisses and even gets to bask in the graces he gives her. What are some examples of these graces though?

                We will look at only a couple of examples in scripture that talking about the effects of oil, and how this can be compared to the Holy Spirits work within our lives. In Psalm 104:15 we are told they put on “oil to make his face to shine.” Just as oil makes the face glisten, the grace of the Holy Spirit allows us to live our lives that we should shine for Christ before all men. We are told in Matthew 5:16 to “Let your light so shine before men” and by the working of the Holy Spirit we can accomplish this. Another function of oil is found in proverbs 27:9 “Oil and perfume make the heart glad” NASB. I wont deal with how this is accomplished but notice that it is true. The same is true with the Holy Spirit. There is nothing to make us more joyful than the Holy Spirit working in us. How can we be sorrowful when God himself is dwelling within us making us joyful. We will only look at one more comparison and that is to be found in the story of the good Samaritan. The Samaritan poured oil on the beaten mans wounds. Oil has a healing property about it. How wonderful are the graces of the Holy Spirit when we are broken and beaten in our spiritual walk, and need comfort and healing. He is always there and always able and ready to bring us back. Like the shepherd of Psalm 23:3 “he restoreth my soul.”
                Now, she says that because of his good ointments, she finds his name to be like “ointment poured forth”.  I have thought quite in depth at to what this could mean. The first thing that should be considered is what’s in a name? I mean what is it about a name that makes it mean something to someone. Well, certainly a name only represents the character of the person it belongs to. It is like the line “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. The name doesn’t affect how the rose smells. It is not the way that the sound waves hit her ear in a certain manner that make her like that sound better than another sound when her beloveds name is said. She loves his name because she loves him. The sound of his name reminds her of the character of the person. It is the character she loves not the sound of a word. This is to be true with Christ as well. Call him Christ, Jesus, Messiah, Lamb, Lion of Judah call him whatever, if I know it represents my blessed Lord than I will love the sound.
                But what exactly does a name being like ointment or oiled poured forth really mean? I can only come up with only conclusion. It is as if she was walking around a room, and accidentally walked into a closed jar holding oil. Suddenly an overwhelming fragrance burst into the room that was completely unexpected. Her reaction is to forget what she was doing, breath in through her noise real deep and close her eyes and focus on the smell. It’s so lovely and so powerful that she closes her eyes to the rest of the world and allowing the smell to almost overtake her. I feel that we do the same thing whenever we spray and air freshner into a room. If we do this with a smell, is there any reason we should not do so with the name of Jesus? Is there any other sound in the world that represent so wonderful splendor that falling on our ears should overcome us and make us close our eyes to the world? The name of Christ is to be of such delight to our hearts that we have no desire for the rest of the world when we hear it. When can only dwell upon his greatness and glory.
                The verse ends with “therefore do the virgins love thee.” I am going to confess to my lack of knowledge. I am uncertain to who this is referring. If the context of the woman refers to the church and the man refers to Christ then this is perhaps Christians who are not members of Churches. Or perhaps unsaved ones who acknowledge that Christ is wonderful. If the woman is to represent a singular believer that perhaps it is just other believers mentioned. Nevertheless I am not sure and unconfident to say for certain what I believe. For fear of doing injustice to the Word and teaching heresy I do believe it would be best to just mention that there are others who notice the love of Christ. Seeing that He is wonderful and amazing in His character and person. What I would like to mention though is that there seems to be no jealously mentioned here. One unique characteristic of the love of Christ is that when we see others sharing the love we have for him, our own love increases. There is to be no sense of displeasure towards another for them having love or even more love towards Christ than us. The love we see in another should only extend our own love to greater heights.
                The part of this section that made me love this portion of scripture was the beginning of verse 4. So we can see the full power of this I will quote it out of the NASB. After looking at the kisses of his mouth, the moments when Christ public displayed wonderful love, and seeing the splendors of His amazing love being better than wine, noticing the blessed graces he bestows upon us by the work of the Holy Spirit and how even the sound of his name effects us there is only one thing we can say. And we would say it along with this woman as she say to her beloved. “Draw me after you and let us run together!” When we stop, and see Christ for who he is, what he has done, what he is doing for us there is only one reaction. Draw me after you and let us run together! This is what will draw a man from his home to take him to the most remote parts of the world. Leaving the luxuries of America to a wooden hut in Africa. Christ says “let’s go” and they say “wherever you go, take me, I don’t care where it is, take me”. They want to be with Christ and where Christ wants them to be. If you are a believer then you have already said this, you saw that Christ was Altogether lovely, there was nothing in Him undesirable or unlovely. You had to be with Him. Not taking care for where you were going, or anything like that. You shouted “Draw me after you and let us run together!” Just take me with you Jesus!
                There are a few different senses in which this verse can be interpreted. Like has just been mentioned, as a missionary following Christ wherever he leads them. Another way to view this verse would be as a believer who desires for Christ to return so that they might leave this world and go with Him to glory. We should live in this world but never love for the world, we should always desire for Christ to draw us after him. When I consider this I am reminded of when Christ was asked why his disciples do not fast. What was His response? He says “ they do not fast because the bridegroom is here, when the bridegroom is gone then they will fast” (paraphrase) . What does that mean? It means that when Christ is gone, there will be so distraught, so sadden that they will fast. Why? The want him back! They cant stay here without him! As the woman says in Song of Solomon 5:8 “I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.” When you get to Heaven and see Christ I ask that you till him one thing for me “come back… I am love sick for You”. “I am sick of love!!”
                Do we feel this way today? I am fearful that we do not. I am reminded of a quote from John Calvin on desiring the presence of Christ. Calvin was a man of immense illness and pain in this world. It allowed him not to desire the things of this world. As he says “we ought to learn to have one foot raised to take our departure when it shall please God.” We are on the earth and cannot leave until we the Lord is pleased to take us. But with Calvin let us live with “one foot raised”. We are here, but let us not have two feet down firm on the ground. But always raised ready to take our departure. Whether we are buying a house, having a baby, getting a new job, whatever it maybe let us do it with one foot raised.
                There is another way in which this verse can be interpreted. When the nonbeliever has his eyes opened and can view Christ for who he truly is there is only one response “Draw me after you and let us run together!”  This is what we call irresistible grace. Christ allowing us to see him for who He truly is. He is wonderful, resplendent and altogether lovely! I am reminded of a story I read in the biography of Adoniram Judson that I feel describes this most fully.
                Adoniram was having a discussion with a man that may have just been converted, and he was asking him questions to see if he had truly understood what he was saying. It started by talking of how the story of the cross could by true and was talking about this mans life. Finally the man said “I think I shall not be lost even though I should die suddenly”. “why” responded adoniram. “because I love Jesus Christ” answered the man. Adoniram responded in a somewhat doubtful manner “do you really love Him?”  The man’s answer is one of the greatest statements I’ve ever read. And it was said by a man that was untrained, unlearned and had only just recently heard of Jesus and learned about Him. “do you really love Him?”. “No one that really knows Him can help loving Him”. That is irresistible grace! He is irresistible because he is the only being worth loving!
                While preparing for this I considered the question of “Why?” What is it about Christ that makes us view him in a way that is irresistible to us. Basically the question is this. Why or what is it about Christ that makes us love Him? There are a few things that come to mind. First I would answer “he died for my sins” “he suffer on earth” “he left the glory of heaven” or perhaps I would answer with his attributes. Such as his goodness, mercy, love, justice. Interesting enough, the woman in Song of Solomon was asked the same question about her beloved. Verse 5:9 “What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? what is thy beloved more than another beloved,” Basically, what’s so great about the person you love? And how does she answer? Just read it. Head of gold, eyes like eyes of a dove, lips as lilies, legs as marbles..etc. What is she saying? Just as I did, simply rambling about the great characteristics that describe him. But in the last verse she answers in a way that cant possibly describe a single person on earth. When it comes down to it the list can go on forever, like in school where you have A, B C or D all the above. Sometimes the answer is D. When asked why I love Christ the only true answer is this “yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.” He is altogether lovely! What does that mean? Have you ever considered it? It means that every single thing he has ever done ever, is lovely. Every single word, every single step, every single thought or expression. Absolutely every single thing he has ever done ever was utterly lovely. There has never been anything about him that is not worth loving. We love him because to know him is to love him. It’s like jumping in water and getting wet. When you jump in water you get wet, it is unstoppable. What a wonderfully lovely savior we have.
                Perhaps you are here tonight and you have never experienced such a love as this. And you are saying to yourself “oh that Christ would draw me after Him”. But perhaps you think your sins are too great. Perhaps you find yourself so unworthy of Christ’s love therefore he could never love you. Never could the God of the universe love you. Trust me when I say this. If you are here and you are crying out to Him. If in your heart you are screaming out to Him “Draw me after you and let us run together!” there is only one answer that our blessed lord will give in response. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

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