"Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in thee."--Solomon's Song iv. 7.
HOW marvellous are these words! "Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in thee." The glorious Bridegroom is charmed with His spouse, and sings soft canticles of admiration. When the bride extols her Lord there is no wonder, for He deserves it well, and in Him there is room for praise without possibility of flattery.
But does He who is wiser than Solomon condescend to praise this sunburnt Shulamite? 'Tis even so, for these are His own words, and were uttered by His own sweet lips. Nay, doubt not, O young believer, for we have more wonders to reveal! There are greater depths in heavenly things than thou hast at present dared to hope.
The Church not only is all fair in the eyes of her Beloved, but in one sense she always was so.
"In God's decree, her form He view'd;
All beauteous in His eyes she stood, Presented by Th' eternal name, Betroth'd in love, and free from blame.
"Not as she stood in Adam's fall, When guilt and ruin cover'd all;
But as she'll stand another day, Fairer than sun's meridian ray."
He delighted in her before she had either a natural or a spiritual being, and from the beginning could He say, "My delights were with the sons of men." (Prov. viii. 31.) Having covenanted to be the Surety of the elect, and having determined to fulfil every stipulation of that covenant, He from all eternity delighted to survey the purchase of His blood, and rejoiced to view His Church, in the purpose and decree, as already by Him delivered from sin, and exalted to glory and happiness.
"Oh, glorious grace, mysterious plan Too great for angel-mind to scan, Our thoughts are lost, our numbers fail;
All hail, redeeming love, all hail!"
Now with joy and gladness let us approach the subject of Christ's delight in His Church, as declared by Him whom the Spirit has sealed in our hearts as the faithful and true Witness.
Our first bundle of myrrh lies in the open hand of the text.
I. Christ has a high esteem for his church. He does not blindly admire her faults, or even conceal them from Himself. He is acquainted with her sin, in all its heinousness of guilt, and desert of punishment. That sin He does not shun to reprove. His own words are, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." (Rev iii. 19.) He abhors sin in her as much as in the ungodly world, nay even more, for He sees in her an evil which is not to be found in the transgressions of others,--sin against love and grace. She is black in her own sight, how much more so in the eyes of her Omniscient Lord! Yet there it stands, written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and flowing from the lips of the Bridegroom, "Thou art all fair, My love; there is no spot in thee." How then is this? Is it a mere exaggeration of love, an enthusiastic canticle, which the sober hand of truth must strip of its glowing fables? Oh, no! The King is full of love, but He is not so overcome with it as to forget His reason. The words are true, and He means us to understand them as the honest expression of His unbiassed judgment, after having patiently examined her in every part. He would not have us diminish aught, but estimate the gold of His opinions by the bright glittering of His expressions; and, therefore, in order that there may be no mistake, _He states it positively:_ "Thou art all fair, My love," _and confirms it by a negative:_ "there is no spot in thee."
When He speaks _positively_, how complete is His admiration!
She is "fair", but that is not a full description; He styles her "all fair." He views her in Himself, washed in His sin-atoning blood, and clothed in His meritorious righteousness, and He considers her to be full of comeliness and beauty. No wonder that such is the case, since it is but His own perfect excellences that He admires, seeing that the holiness, glory, and perfection of His Church are His own garments on the back of His own well-beloved spouse, and she is "bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh." She is not simply pure, or well-proportioned; she is positively lovely and fair! She has actual merit! Her deformities of sin are removed; but more, she has through her Lord obtained a meritorious righteousness by which an actual beauty is conferred upon her.
Believers have a positive righteousness given to them when they become "accepted in the Beloved." (Eph. i. 6.)
Nor is the Church barely lovely, she is _superlatively so_.
Her Lord styles her, "Thou fairest among women." (Sol. Song i. 8.)
She has a real worth and excellence which cannot be rivalled by all the nobility and royalty of the world. If Jesus could exchange His elect bride for all the queens and empresses of earth, or even for the angels in heaven, He would not, for He puts her first and foremost,--"fairest among women." Nor is this an opinion which He is ashamed of, for He invites all men to hear it. He puts a "behold" before it, a special note of exclamation, inviting and arresting attention. "_Behold_, thou art fair, My love; _behold_, thou art fair." (Sol. Song iv. 1.) His opinion He publishes abroad even now, and one day from the throne of His glory He will avow the truth of it before the assembled universe. "Come, ye blessed of My Father" (Matt. xxv. 34), will be His solemn affirmation of the loveliness of His elect.
Let us mark well _the repeated sentences of His approbation_.
"Lo, thou art fair! lo, thou art fair!
Twice fair thou art, I say;
My righteousness and graces are Thy double bright array.
"But since thy faith can hardly own My beauty put on thee;
Behold! behold! twice be it known Thou art all fair to Me!"
He turns again to the subject, a second time looks into those doves' eyes of hers, and listens to her honey-dropping lips. It is not enough to say, "Behold, thou art fair, My love;" He rings that golden bell again, and sings again, and again, "Behold, thou art fair."
