SONG OF SOLOMON


SONG OF SOLOMON 

... is about Love and Beauty... These are the qualities that are eternal. Love and Beauty are inseparable, and are essential to each other. There cannot be Love without Beauty. There can, of course, be love in the sense of kindness and compassion and desire to help, but not in the sense of affection and communion and unity of heart.

There can be no true mutual Love without spiritual Beauty on both sides. We speak of course of spiritual Love. All that is natural and animal will fade and wither and pass away. That which is spiritual will endure forever: Love and Beauty: Affection and Perfection.

The Song of Songs is unique in Scripture. It portrays Christ's intense, overflowing love for the Ecclesia (and hers for him) expressed intimately in the first person. It is so different from Psalms, which are largely Christ's feelings toward God: his struggles, his overcomings. Some Psalms come close, like Psalm 45, but with far less detail and intimacy -- and expressed more distantly in the third person...

...The Song expresses Christ's need for the Ecclesia: the motivation that his great love for her gives him. Does Christ have need? Does God have need? Are they not perfectly satisfied and self-sufficient? God is love, and the fullness of love requires an object worthy of it.

...The true Bride will have made herself ready. She will conform to the Beauty and Love herein portrayed. There will be a ready and prepared Bride, perfect in beauty, without spot or blemish, waiting to welcome her Lord. We see her in this Song being greeted and praised and embraced by the Bridegroom, and invited to be with him for ever.

If we fit into the picture; if we are in full harmony and compliance; if this is where all our heart and interest and labours and efforts center, then this Song is for our joy and comfort.

If, however, this is not so, and our minds and time and interests and activities are turned elsewhere, then this Song is for warning and instruction, and not for comfort at all. There is no comfort to be taken unless we are faithfully laboring to the utmost of our ability.

There will be a Bride of perfect Beauty and Love. Whether, in that great Day, we are part of that Bride, or part of the vast multitude turned weeping away, depends entirely upon what we devote our life to.

The two characters of this Song are Solomon, the Peace Giver, and Shulamith, the Peace-Receiver. Both names are related to Peace. Peace is of one fabric with Love and Beauty. He is the Prince of Peace: that "Peace of God" transcending comprehension (Phil. 4:7); the "Great Peace" that they alone enjoy who manifest in all their lives that they "love His law" (Psa. 119:165); the Peace that none can take from them "Peace with God": life's ultimate consummation (Rom. 5:1).


Bro Growcott - Come With Me, My Sister-Bride



THE Song of Songs is perhaps the most unique book of the Bible. As in Esther, there is no mention of God, but God is throughout it all, more intimately than in any other part of Scripture - its chief character is God manifest in the flesh, intimately described and detailed.

What is the value of this so strange book of love? It is to create and develop a frame of mind - a sweetening and softening of character - a disposition of gentleness and kindness and affection and care.

The spiritual is taught by means of the natural. We are led from something we know to something we need to know. It is spiritual food for the mind.

It is to develop and intensify our affection for Christ, which is the power and secret of all overcoming.

It is to counterbalance present things. By putting the things of the Spirit in the language of the natural, it impresses us vividly with the reality of the former, and their infinite superiority over the latter.

For the eternal spiritual reality must always be immeasurably more intense and meaningful than the mere passing fleshly shadow that represents it.

The book portrays the relationship of Christ and the Ecclesia. It is meant to express, and by its study to strengthen, the bonds between them, and to portray the manifested beauties of Christ, and the required beauties of the Ecclesia, that the contemplation of the one may generate the development of the other.

Generally, a progression can be traced, through acquaintance, interest, deepening of the relationship, espousal, separation, delay, waiting, seeking, finding, ultimate reunion.

While these aspects can be traced, and in general, in this order, still the progression of the narrative cannot, in its very nature, be too mechanically forced, because there are aspects of weaving together, repetition, anticipation, retrospection, to give depth and meaning and interest.


Br o Growcott - Song of Songs