Read Song of Songs 3:1–5
Questions from the Scripture text: What time was it (v1a)? Where was she? What was she doing? With what results (v1b)? What does she resolve and do (v2a–d)? With what result (v2e)? Who finds whom (v3a)? What does she ask them (v3c)? When does she finally find Him (v4a–b)? What does she do then (v4c)? To where/whom does she bring Him (v4d–e)? Whom does she address (v5a)? By what (v5b)? Not to do what (v5c–d)?
What must Christians always seek and cling to? Song of Songs 3:1–5 prepares us for the evening sermon on the coming Lord’s Day. In these five verses of Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit teaches us that Christians must be continually active in seeking and clinging to Christ and the experiential knowledge of His love.
v1–5 a similar situation to 2:8–17. In this case, the distance between her and the Bridegroom, is described especially according to her experience, rather than what Christ is like, and what He is doing when He seems distant.
“By night” (v1) signifies spiritual darkness, a nighttime of the soul. Then she says, “on my bed,” instead of “our bed” (cf. 1:16). She is alone. And in this case, the bed does not indicate rest, but inactivity. There is a spiritually dull, spiritually lazy manner of seeking: “By night, on my bed, I sought the One I love. I sought Him, but I did not find Him.” One may still be a Christian—His identity to her is “the One Whom I love”—but get spiritually lazy, not actually making use of His means, not actually exercising his soul. There is a sort of “seeking” that is just a kind of wishing that we would know and feel the closeness of Christ, but not doing any of the things which have the promise of His blessing and His drawing near to us.
The Christian life must be more than wishful thinking. There is a passiveness and laziness that Christians fall into, that is being identified here, and that the Lord is going to take her out of.
She proceeds to say, “I will rise now, and go about the city” (v2). We learn in v3 that the city is the church (a common image and theme—Jerusalem, Zion—throughout the Bible), since it is patrolled by the watchmen. The watchmen are the ones who, in the more agrarian countryside imagery of the previous passage, have been charged with catching the little foxes (cf. 2:15).
So, it is with respect to the church that she says, "I will rise now and go about the city." She does not just rise and go about the city. She purposes to do so first. She resolves to do so first. This is something that we need: the grace of the Holy Spirit to work in us when we have been spiritually lazy, to remind us again from His Word, what He has given us in His church—and to give us the force of will to do something about that. The streets and the squares, here, are His own ways in His church, His own ordinances. And we need the Holy Spirit to bring us to a decision that we will immediately and resolutely avail ourselves of the ministry, the preaching, the sacraments, the praying, the discipline, the fellowship of the church. From His side, He had said “rise, and come away” (1:10, 13). Now, in her experience, the Holy Spirit gives her the resolve, “I will rise now” (v2a) “and go” (v2b).
But there is need not only resolve, but perseverance. She does not find Him immediately (v2e). Spiritual darkness and illness may not dissipate quickly for the backslider. He may have to persevere in Christ’s means before he finds Him, before things are well with him spiritually, and he regains his assurance.
She has risen from her bed; she has started to participate in the worship of the church and the discipleship of the church, the fellowship of the church, the means of grace, the ordinances of Christ; and yet, she has not immediately found spiritual relief. Her heart has not been relieved of the guilt she has felt. Christ does not seem near to her. She is struggling to know the smile of God in the Lord Jesus again. Her assurance remains shaken, intermitted.
Even her resolve to seek is by His grace, but note what makes the ultimate difference: “The watchmen who go about the city found me” (v3). The Lord may use any of His means, or even none of them, but it is especially His preached Word which He has honored as the means by which it is He Who finds us. What a mercy from Him it is, when His preachers find us. And, He gives us to have shepherds as preachers, so that we may engage privately, when found by the Word, as she does “Have you seen the one I love?” (v3c).
Still, it is a little after her interaction with the watchmen (v4a) that she actually finds Him (v4b). We must not be satisfied merely to be back in the practice of Christianity, until we are back in lived fellowship with Christ. And, once things are well with us spiritually, we must continue to receive grace to cling to Him (v4c). The Christian life is never to be passive or complacent; there ought always only be seeking Christ or clinging to Christ. This is something that the genuine believer wishes to share with the whole church, the mother within whom the Lord gives us spiritual birth (v4d–e; cf. Ps 87:4–6, Rev 12:14–17).
Finally, in addition to the resolve and the perseverance, the seeking and the clinging, there is the necessity of watching against those things that would drive Christ from us again (v5, cf. Rev. 2–3). Spiritual wellness is recovered with difficulty and laboriously maintained. The knowing of the love of Christ is precious. It is not worth stirring it up or awakening it, and seeing it run off like a startled gazelle or doe.
Resolve. Seek. Persevere. Find. Cling. Corporately. Watching against all sin.
What is your current experience of Christ’s love? How are you responding to that? Where do you get the resolve to?
Sample prayer: Father, we pray that You would give us repentance of sin, renewal in faithfulness, and consistency in spiritual practice and Christian habits of the heart and mind, in Jesus's Name, Amen!
Suggested songs: ARP42A “As Pants the Deer” or TPH425 “How Sweet and Awesome Is the Place”
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