Read Song of Songs 1:16–17
Questions from the
Scripture text: How does she introduce her exclamation (v16a)? What does she
exclaim about Him? What does she call Him? What else does she exclaim about Him
(v16b)? What else does she describe (v16c)? As what color? What else does she
describe (v17a)? As of what wood? And what else (v17b)? As of what wood (v17c)?
How does the Bride
respond to the Bridegroom’s praise? Song of Songs 1:16–17 prepares us for the evening sermon on the coming
Lord’s Day. In these two verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us
that the Bride responds to the Bridegroom’s praise by praising both Him
and her fellowship with Him.
In v16, the word that's being translated ‘handsome’
is the masculine form of the word ‘fair’ in v15. And what we have is the
response of the church to Christ. Whenever He praises the beauty that he has
attributed to us, the beauty that He has worked in us, the beauty that He sees
in us (v15), we immediately want to throw it back onto Him—because any beauty
that is in us is from Him. The beauty is natively, rightly, properly His. The
beauty is only ours derivatively. It's ours as a gift, but it's His by virtue
of Who He is and what He is like in Himself. He is inherently beautiful.
It's this way and should be this way with believers:
that, in any good thing, as soon as we receive any commendation, or possess any
good thing, or any praise whatsoever, we would always want to turn it, immediately,
to the praise of the Lord Jesus.
He never finds us more lovely (v15), or make us
more lovely, than when we are expressing our love to Him (v12–14). Never do we
perceive the loveliness of Christ (v16–17) so much as when He is displaying His
love to us (v15).
The riches of the glories of Jesus (v16) are known
especially when He is saying, “Behold, you are fair, my love, behold, you are
fair” (v15). And the church ought to respond, recognizing that whatever good is
in us is rightly and properly from Him, and rightly and properly to His praise.
He had commanded, “behold.” She responds, “behold,”
not as a command, but as a form of obedience—as if to say, “yes, behold; I'm
looking, and this is what I see; I see your beauty. Any beauty that might be in
me has come from you.”
The beloved is the origin of His bride’s beauty.
And His beauty is of a different quality, a different character. So she hurries
to add the word, “pleasant” (v16b)—a second word that means a similar thing, with
more emphasis on the experience of beauty, rather than the content of beauty. He
is beautiful in Himself, and beautiful to enjoy.
By calling her, “My love” (v15) He gave to her to
find her own identity in Him, and to know Him especially in his union with her.
So now, she responds, “my Beloved” (v16). Again, she's recognizing that it is
in union with Him, and in shared life (communion) with Him, that she has
whatever beauty she has. He is the One Whose beauty is ultimate (v16a–b). He is
the One Who is ultimately pleasant. And she has come to be beautiful (“fair,”
v15), only because she has been united to Him, Whom she knows now as her Beloved.
But it isn’t just He Whom she experiences as beautiful.
Her shared life with Him beautifies everything else that she is experiences
(v16c–17). Notice the shared life: not “Your bed,” but “our bed”; not “Your houses,”
but “our houses.” She is experiencing her life as something in which she has a
joint interest and experience with the Lord Jesus (cf. Rom 8:17).
And so, the church’s experience of the most comfort
and intimacy with Christ (“our bed,” v16c) is given a color of refreshment and
life and fruitfulness (“green”). And the structure and order which He has erected
for their life together (“the beams of our houses,” v17a; and, “our rafters,”
v17b) are given a substance of strength and beauty and endurance (“cedar” and “fir”).
And there is certainly some allusion to the cedar of the temple that Solomon
himself had built, where the Lord made a life for His people with Himself, by
provision of priesthood, sacrifices, etc.
But the house of God is not ultimately the
structure that Solomon built out of cedar. That house itself—by use of cedar,
by use of gold, by use of the great stones that were used in it—looked forward
to the life of God with His people, in His ordinances, as they would ultimately
be experienced in Christ: Christ leading our worship, Christ drawing us near to
God, Christ addressing us with God's word, Christ consecrating us as our high
priest. And He has furnished for us those ordained servants by whom He Himself
leads us before God. The structure that He has provided should be strong, enduring,
beautiful and sweet to us, as cedar and fir are.
And so as the bride responds with her praise of His
beauty, she is also responding with praise of intimacy with Him, and of the
provision that he has made for the house.
Finally, this word rafters, refers to a covered
walk, a third concentric circle, out from the bedroom and the household. The
first is very intimate. Then there's the household, which is the life with Him which
He provides. But then there's also these rafters, some sort of structure in
which to walk. And so, even in her going out to do business, or daily life, or
whatever she's going out to do, she still has that fellowship with Him that
goes wherever she goes.
As you do, in your, life all the things that you go
to do, you go accompanied by, bordered by, the fellowship that you have with Him.
His beauty, His pleasantness, fills the whole of the life of the church, the
whole of the life of the Christian. May God give you to have this experience of
Christ.
How are you enjoying the Lord
Jesus? How are you enjoying times of intimacy with Him? How are you enjoying
the structure that He has provided for drawing near to Him? How are you
enjoying fellowship with Him, even as you go out into the rest of your life?
Sample prayer: Lord,
we thank You for this song. We thank You for the poetry of it. We thank You
most of all for the reality that this poetry is being employed to describe.
Give us, we pray, to have a life, not only of intimate moments with You, but
then, in your church, and in our engagement even in the world, that it would
always flow from, and be accompanied by, the fellowship that we have with our
Lord Jesus. For we ask it in His Name, Amen!
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