THE SONG OF SONGS, WHICH IS SOLOMON’S, is the title of this inspired Song of love; and the title is divine as well as the Song: and it is very expressive. Solomon wrote one thousand and five songs (1 Kings 4:3232And he spake three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five. (1 Kings 4:32)), but this is “the Song of songs,” so far as his compositions are concerned, though not perhaps pre-eminent above all that David his father or others wrote under the inspiration of the same Spirit. As “heaven of heavens” represents the highest heavens, so “Song of songs” means the pre-eminently excellent song.
And it is Solomon’s, not David’s: David was the conqueror; but Solomon, the king of righteousness and peace: and the Song represents to us the communion in love which we who believe have with our heavenly Bridegroom, now that He has fought, conquered, and been seated in peace on the throne of His Father as our Divine Solomon, “crowned with glory and honor.” Christ is “our righteousness” and “our peace” (Eph. 2:1414For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; (Ephesians 2:14)).
When we think of Solomon, we have one before us whom there has been none to equal among all the sons of men for greatness, wisdom, riches (1 Kings 4:12, 1312Baana the son of Ahilud; to him pertained Taanach and Megiddo, and all Beth-shean, which is by Zartanah beneath Jezreel, from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah, even unto the place that is beyond Jokneam: 13The son of Geber, in Ramoth-gilead; to him pertained the towns of Jair the son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead; to him also pertained the region of Argob, which is in Bashan, threescore great cities with walls and brazen bars: (1 Kings 4:12‑13)), power, and glory (2 Chron. 913Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and threescore and six talents of gold; (2 Chronicles 9:13).), so that he is a fitting type of our glorious Bridegroom.
“A greater than Solomon is here” (Matt. 12:4242The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here. (Matthew 12:42)); and He has sung a new song, a song of love and victory, when as the conqueror He rose from the dead and took His place in the midst of the great congregation as the leader of our praise; and we cannot but sing with Him, and of Him, and to Him, for “He shall bear the glory” forever.
The place which this “Song of songs” occupies is remarkable, coming, as it does, after Ecclesiastes, where we find a capacity too great for the object, as here we find an object too great for the heart. The world’s pleasures and enjoyments failed to fill the soul of the man in Ecclesiastes― “vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” was written upon them all; but Christ more than satisfies,―He is so great, as an object of love, that the heart cannot contain Him.
Christ is now on the throne; He has gone to the Father, and has sanctified. Himself―set Himself apart for God, at His right hand in heaven, after passing through death up to God, that He might have us sanctified in separation from the world by the truth of what He has done and where He now is, by the truth concerning His person, work, and glory. And only as we are in heart with Him in “His glorious home” will we sing in affectionate and joyful communion our “Song of songs,” “UNTO HIM that loveth, us, and hath washed us from our sins in His own blood.” The more thorough our practical sanctification—in the realization of resurrection life—from this present evil world, the more will we enjoy our exalted Lord, and sing of His person and work, His love and glory.
O that we only listened and overheard what He is saying of us in His holy Father’s ear, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” He is now the earth-rejected, God-accepted One; and “as He is, so are we in this world.” What power there is to sanctify in the fact of Jesus not being here, but gone to the Father!
This “Song of songs” is a song of the absent loved One, and a heart filled with longings for Him is breathing out its intense desire for communion. There are, thank God, still saints amongst us of the longing soul―pilgrims of the homeless heart. O that we knew it, beloved, more and more! O that in opening this book of love, this precious hymn were the utterance of all our hearts:
“My soul, amid this stormy world,
Is like some flutter’d dove;
And fain would be as swift of wing,
To flee to Him I love.
“The cords that bound my heart to earth
Were broken by His hand;
Before His cross I found myself
A stranger in the land.
“That visage marr’d, those sorrows deep,
The vinegar, the gall,
These were His golden chains of love,
His captive to enthrall.
“My heart is with Him on the throne,
And ill can brook delay;
Each moment list’ning for the voice―
‘Rise up, and come away.’
“With hope deferr’d, oft sick and faint,
‘Why tarries He?’ I cry:
And should He gently chide my haste,
Thus would my heart reply:
“May not an exile, Lord, desire
His own sweet land to see?
May not a captive seek release,
A prisoner to be free?
“A child, when far away, may long
For home and kindred dear;
And she that waits her absent Lord
Must sigh till He appear.
“I would, my Lord and Saviour, know
That which no measure knows;
Would search the mystery of Thy love,
The depth of all Thy woes.
“I fain would strike my golden harp
Before the Father’s throne;
There cast my crown of righteousness,―
Would sing what grace hath done.
“‘Ah, leave me not in this dark world,
A stranger still to roam;
Come, Lord, and take me to Thyself―
Come, Jesus, quickly come!’”
If I can truly say,
“My heart is with Him on the throne,
And ill can brook delay,”
I will be able to enter into this fervent, unformal, impassioned utterance of the Bride, with which this “Song, of songs” opens, ― “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth, for thy love is better than wine.”
Let us look at these three things, (1) The Bridegroom, (2) The kiss, (3) The love, and “learn of Him who loved us and gave Himself for us,” “for we love Him because He first loved us.”
1. “HIM.” ― “Let Him kiss me,” tells of real intimacy and tenderest love. There was no naming of the Beloved: for why should the loved one speak like a stranger? There is but the one object present to the affections when the heart is really set on Jesus. As the rising sun not only dispels the darkness, but blots out by his superior light all the stars of night, so when Jesus, the “Sun of my soul, my Saviour dear,” rises in my heart, He not only banishes the night and darkness, but the most brilliant and sparkling objects of the night all disappear before His glorious light, for He is the Sun of my affections, and the sun rules the day. As even the glorious ones on the holy mount retired and left the disciples with Jesus only, so do even the best of saints when He is commended by the Father’s voice as His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased, and we enter by the Spirit into the Father’s mind about Him.
There is none in the Bride’s vision here but One, and therefore there is no need to name the One who moves in solitary grandeur before the loving, longing soul. “We see Jesus;” we see “Him” alone; and now that the eye is single, how wonderfully soon the whole body is filled with light to discover His superlative excellences; and the heart overflows with the most expressive simplicity of love. “Let Him kiss me.” There is only One to whom I will accord this intimacy, for He has loved me and died for me; and now that He has gone to the Father, His heart is towards me still. I know that He settled all for me with God, when here on Calvary’s cross He bled and died, that He might redeem me from all iniquity, and have me purified to Himself, and made ready for the coming nuptial day when He shall present me “faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,” and He is no longer a stranger to my happy soul, which He has redeemed and saved.
“He left His royal throne
To free the captive slave;
He found me, marked me for His own,
O what a price He gave!”
There is no question in this “Song of songs” of getting the relationship established. It is communion after all has been done to clear the soul of sin, to free and purify the affections and fix them on the all-worthy One.
“He came long since in grief and pain,
To seek and ransom me.”
The soul is now espoused to Christ, and longs for the tokens of His love: “Let Him kiss me.” This is the language of pure and unsuspecting love. This was how the loving, weeping “Mary at the Saviour’s tomb” spoke of the One who was nearest to her heart: “Sir, if thou have borne Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him.”
Says an old author: “The pronoun is used without a consciousness of the absence of the antecedent. Her heart is so full that she supposes every one must know who she means by Him.”
How engrossed the heart must be to cause such an utterance as “Let Him kiss me.” The person of Christ must be known before there can be this engrossment: knowledge of truth by itself will never do it. But when we pass from the region of the mere doctrines of Christianity, until Christ Himself fill our soul and heart, then do we know, by personal experience, of this divine engrossment; and whether we look back into eternity or time, upward into heaven or onward into the great future, “we see Jesus,” and the entrancing sight thrills our souls and fills our hearts.
How the word holds “Him” before us as in a mirror! Are we the objects of His everlasting love? Then it is “according as He hath chosen us in HIM.” “Of HIM gave all the prophets witness;” and all the Old Testament may be entitled “the things concerning HIMSELF.” And if we look at the cross, and look on “Him whom we have pierced,” we find this testimony to His work accomplished for us there―who HIS OWN SELF bare our sins in His own body on the tree. Is it washing from sins? ― “Unto HIM that loveth us, and hath washed us from our sins in His own blood.” Justification? ― “By HIM all who believe are justified from all things.” Is it standing? ―then, “Found in Him” describes it. Occupation? ― “That I may know HIM.” Is it present fellowship? ― “Through HIM I have access to the Father, joint-heirs with Christ,” and ours is fellowship in risen life with the Father and the Son. And as to the future, He says, “I will come again, and receive you to MYSELF.” “The Lord HIMSELF shall descend from heaven” to fetch us, “and so shall we ever be with the Lord;” for “we believe we shall live together with HIM,” just as “we shall be saved from wrath through HIM.” When a risen Jesus draws near, and says, “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I MYSELF,” then our hearts are filled with holy, worshipping joy, and we can truly enter into the abrupt ejaculation, “Let HIM kiss me,” etc.; for whether it be in the past, present, or future, “we see Jesus” ― “Jesus Himself” ― “JESUS ONLY.”
2. THE KISS. ― “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth.” The kiss here is the token and pledge of love. In Scripture we have kissing spoken of as a sign of worshipping reverence, ― “Yet have I left seven thousand in Israel which have not bowed the knee unto Baal, and every mouth that hath not kissed him.” It is the expression of submission and obedience, as when Samuel anointed Saul “and kissed him,” as “captain over the Lord’s inheritance;” and so in the second Psalm we have “Kiss the Son.” It is also expressive of reconciliation, as when Joseph “kissed all his brethren... and after that, his brethren talked with him.” And when the father saw the son, in the parable, “he had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck, and kissed him,” and this was the prelude to all he did for him. It is chiefly employed as the expression of friendship and love, and as such it was enjoined in the early Church, “Greet one another with a kiss of love” (1 Pet. 5:1414Greet ye one another with a kiss of charity. Peace be with you all that are in Christ Jesus. Amen. (1 Peter 5:14)). It was this “kiss of love” that was given when David and Jonathan “kissed one another, and wept one with another, until David exceeded” (1 Sam. 21:41). We may truly say the divine David hath exceeded in both, for “Jesus wept” in friendship as none could weep, and He has greeted us with “a kiss of love” as none other could.
The language here is expressive of the Bride’s desire for the kiss of love― “O that He would kiss me” is the force of it. It will not satisfy my soul to read of the love of Jesus, to hear the most beautiful descriptions of it, or even to believe that He loves me; but I must, by the Holy Ghost, enjoy a sweet sense of it, be conscious of His loving nearness, and feel as if He were imprinting “a kiss of love” upon my favored cheek. The emotional in religion is the life and joy of it; and what emotion so commanding as love, and that love the love of God “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us”? How entirely at fault is the religion of dogmatic intelligence, that stops short of the “O that He would kiss me.” The one is the knowledge of the letter, the other the communion of love―fellowship with the risen, living Lord Jesus, who lays His right hand upon us, saying, “Fear not: I am He that liveth and was dead.” It was when Jesus said “Mary,” that she replied Rabboni, and wished to embrace His feet. Nearness to, and fellowship with, the loved One are intensely craved where He is known as “the living One,” who was once “the dead One,” from love to us, for “the love of Christ constraineth, us.”
“Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth.” As one says, “Permission to kiss the hand of a sovereign is considered an honor; but for that sovereign to give another the kisses of his mouth is evidence of the tenderest affection, and is the highest possible honor.”
“The kisses of His mouth” is a phrase expressive of intense affection, and might be taken as referring to the gracious words which proceed out of His mouth. “His mouth is most sweet,” is said farther on. “Never man spake like this man.” Some take this longing dispensationally, as if it were the Old Testament saints’ longing for the Messiah. We might surely take it as expressive of the Church’s longing for His coming in person, and the joyful, happy intimacy of the glory at the marriage supper of the Lamb. It is said of the heavenly ones, Moses and Elias, that “they talked with Him.” When in the presence of superiors with whom we are not on terms of intimacy we wait until they talk to us; but here the intimacy of the glory is expressed in “there talked with Him two men,” and the subject was “the decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.” This proved to the disciples afterward “the kisses of His mouth,” when He appeared in their midst and said, “Peace be unto you,” while He showed them His hands and His side; for “then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord.” The hands and the side of the pierced One, shown to us, draw forth our hearts after Him. When even one from the many gracious words of His mouth reaches our souls when we are in trouble, we feel as if, by the Holy Ghost, they were bringing our beloved Lord so near that we felt the very “kisses of His mouth.”
How ravishing to the redeemed soul! “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth” is the language of one that knows already what it is to have such manifestations of His love: just like David, “To see Thy power and Thy glory, so as I have seen them in the sanctuary.”
“Betrothed to Him―His chosen Bride,
I in His changeless love confide;
Such love from trouble frees us.”
3. THE LOVE.― “For Thy love is better than wine.” The word in the Hebrew is “loves,” as marking the variety, depth, and fullness of our royal Bridegroom’s love. Well may we sing―
“O Lord, Thy love’s unbounded,
So full, so vast, so free;
Our thoughts are all confounded
Whene’er we think on Thee.”
“That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge.” Says one truly, “By the manifestation of Christ’s love to us, He begets in our souls a love to Him. His love is as the cause, our love as the effect; and, as Solomon saith of the rivers, that they both come from and return again unto the sea (Eccles. 1:77All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. (Ecclesiastes 1:7)), so Christ is the ocean of spiritual love from whence we derive and into which we return our love.” How manifold His love!
(1.) It is everlasting: “He loved me.” “Christ also loved the Church;” but it was “with an everlasting love.” (2.) His is self-sacrificing love: He “gave Himself for me,” “for the Church.” (3.) He had a purpose of grace to carry out, and He redeemed us by His blood—washed us from our sins in His own blood. (4.) His is persevering love:
He loveth His own in the world to the end. He sends the Spirit for the wilderness, and He intercedes above, and He will have us with Him and like Him in glory, as the result of this love. “Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.” “Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water, by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.”
The figure is “wine;” and the fact is “Thy love is better than wine.” Wine is sweet, refreshing, and exhilarating; but “Thy love is better than wine.” Look at the figure with which the royal Bridegroom’s love is compared.
(1.) Wine as a natural beverage. It was one of the blessings of the land of Canaan. It was one part of the ordinary diet of the people, and is so still in Eastern lands. It was refreshing―it cheered the heart (Ps. 104:15); “Wine maketh merry” (Eccles. 10:1919A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things. (Ecclesiastes 10:19)); “Give wine to him that is of a heavy heart” (Prov. 31:66Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. (Proverbs 31:6)); “Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and let him remember his want no more” (verse 7). This expedient might suit a miserable worldling; but “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit,” is the Holy Ghost’s exhortation to us; and if so filled, He will so reveal Jesus in us in all His beauty and glory, that we shall have, as the happy outcome, a spiritual means of forgetting all about ourselves in “singing mutually in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, making melody in our hearts to the Lord.” “For Thy love is better than wine.”
(2.) Altar wine. Drink-offerings of wine (Num. 15:55And the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering shalt thou prepare with the burnt offering or sacrifice, for one lamb. (Numbers 15:5)) were poured on the ashes of the sacrifices “for a sweet savor unto the Lord,” in token that the Lord had accepted them. And surely this wine to us is cheering; this is the “wine that cheereth the heart of God and man” (Judges 9:1313And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? (Judges 9:13)), the wine of the altar. God, as well as the believing soul, has His rest and joy in the finished sacrifice of Jesus; but His love is more to Him, for it was love to the Father that made Him finish His work. And so is it with us: we are cheered and refreshed, and have intense satisfaction and joy in the accomplished work of the cross, but we are filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory as we have fellowship in love with Himself, whom, unseen, “we love.” “I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.” Our unceasing song must be “unto Him who loveth us;” for “Thy love is better than wine,” even altar wine.
(3.) The wine of the Kingdom. What a day that will be for this earth when the King of Glory shall come to His kingdom, and when all the highest enjoyments of which men are capable shall be given in a world free from Satan, the curse, and warlike contention; when righteousness and peace shall be the prevailing characteristics, and all nations shall be blessed in Him—all nations call Him blessed. When He, the King-priest, shall “sit upon the throne of His glory,” and the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of His glory as, the waters cover the sea. Then Jesus, who is patiently waiting (His kingdom being in abeyance) until He drink the wine in the kingdom, will have His kingdom over all, as the Man of Glory, and be no longer under the Nazarite vow of the present time of His rejection, in which we also share, but shall have all His regal rights and joys; and we, reigning with Him, shall have it fulfilled also “in the Kingdom of God” (Matt. 26:2929But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. (Matthew 26:29)). But Thy love is better, we shall say even then, than the wine of the kingdom; though we shall have to say, so far as earth is concerned, “Thou hast kept the good wine until now.” But His love to us, “in that day,” will be more than all the glory, blessing, and gladness of that glorious time of “The Regeneration.”
“Then weep no more, ‘tis all thine own—
His crown, His joy divine;
And, sweeter far than all beside
HE, HE HIMSELF is thine.”