THE state of the heart out of which have come the fond and ardent expressions of her appreciation of her lover in the two verses immediately preceding, and which have been already considered, has doubled the expressive beauty of the bride’s features; and the sight of this leads the delighted Bridegroom to express his enjoyment of it in the enraptured words, “Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes” (chap. 1:15).
The praise, “Thou hast doves’ eyes,” will be appreciated by every one who has marked the gentle expression, the soft, full, liquid beauty of the eye of the dove; and there is no power can give this beauty to the eyes and transfigure the countenance but the love of Christ realized and reciprocated. The Lord Himself said, “He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.” The bride had spoken of Him as a “bundle of myrrh, and a cluster of cypress,” ― “a bundle of myrrh is my Beloved to me” ― “a cluster of cypress is my Beloved to me;” and her endearing expression draws out the intensified expression of love to her, “Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes.”
It is one of the divine secrets of Christianity, that when we have been apprehended of Christ for “salvation with eternal glory,” the eyes of our hearts being opened, and the truth of the purpose of God the Father in Christ being communicated to us, and we consciously realizing our spiritual relationship to the Father as “children of His love,” in “the Son of His love,” risen and glorified in His presence “in the heavenlies,” the whole of Scripture becomes sensibly transfigured to us; and where we read before only narratives of human life, and tales of human love, we find now beneath the surface the true and hidden mysteries of the relationships, affection, and admiring reciprocal enjoyment of Christ and the Church. Just as a poet’s eye can perceive beauties where the duller eye of the prosaic see only common objects of no particular interest; so our eyes, when opened on the Holy Scriptures in the light of an opened heaven and a glorified Christ, see beauties and glories where the unanointed eye sees only the record of the varied incidents and intercourse of everyday life.
“Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes.” It is very observable, especially in the young, that the knowledge of Christ and intense enjoyment of His constraining love, and steady contemplation of His glorious person―especially if there be a considerable amount of intelligence in the Word―transfigure even the human countenance, and “newness of life” looks forth in entrancing loveliness from the gentle, soft, dove-like eyes, so that one who has seen much of the Lord’s work could almost pick out the Christians by means of their looks, when Christ, in all His fullness, is being preached. There is a wonderful transforming power in beholding the glory of the Lord. It transfigures into the same image; and where the whole demeanor is not entirely metamorphosed by such a contemplation, it is a sure token that the person is either very ill taught in the Word of truth, or has never known the transforming power of “the grace of God,” and of intimate, loving communion with the exalted Christ of glory.
There is such a word in Scripture as “the meekness and gentleness of CHRIST;” and He said, “Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart;” and “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; and the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all... in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves;” and Paul, exemplifying His teaching, says, “We were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children;” and he writes to his own son Titus to enjoin upon the Christians that they be “gentle, showing all meekness unto all men.”
The more thoroughly Christians are filled with Christ’s fellowship and company, the more the gentle man or gentle woman will appear in their looks, words, and ways. But the “lofty eyes,” the haughty mien, the imperial manner, and the habit of riding roughshod over, instead of condescending “to men of low estate,” are sure indications of little spiritual fellowship with Christ, and little of that condition of soul that would draw from him the admiring expression of ardent endearment and sense of beauty, “Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes.”
There is no means of getting entirely rid of one’s old self and his ill-favored features, but by getting a new self in the person of Christ; for when He becomes the one circumstance, thought, desire, and object, self dies out of sheer neglect, and the beloved Bridegroom of the heart is in the foreground. He is manifestly put on; not professed merely―which is easy to do―but so possessed that He beams forth in the soft, liquid beauty―in the gentle looks of the dove-like eyes. If we speak too strongly of the outward metamorphosis, we are not aware of it; and if the generality of Christians are not so changed, so much the worse for the Christians; and we fear the apostle Paul would have added, “I speak this to your shame.” Those who live according to the Christian ethics inculcated in such portions of the New Testament as Romans 12 and 1st Corinthians 13, and the second halves of the Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians, will do so on account of supreme occupation with the person of Christ, and their whole deportment will exemplify “the meekness and gentleness of Christ.”
Beloved, it is solemn work this Christian life of ours. We are making personal history for eternity! This is our only opportunity to be epistles of Christ to sinful men―lights in this world of darkness: are we able to say, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain”?
THE FAIR BELOVED AND THE GREEN COUCH.―We come now to consider the bride’s words, “Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant; also our bed is green. The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir” (chap. 1:16, 17).
1. BEHOLD, THOU ART FAIR, MY BELOVED, YEA, PLEASANT.― The bride returns the expression, “Thou art fair,” conscious that He and not she was rather the one who should be so described: she also adds, “yea, pleasant.” These two we find, in substance, in Psalm forty-fifth, where Christ is addressed, “Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into Thy lips.” “Thou art beautified with beauty among the sons of men: Grace is poured upon Thy lips.”
“Everything (says one) that is attractive, everything that is graceful in character and form, in feature and expression, is meant by grace. It is not what we usually call by that name: it is a term for what fits the person and draws the eyes of others to him. It is thus used (Prov. 4:9), ‘She shall give to thy head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee;’ ― wisdom so clothing the person with moral beauty. It is thus, too, in Psalm 84:10, ‘The Lord will give grace and glory’ ―the ornament of beauty, the crown of glory. All this, in full perfection, is found in Messiah’s person: all that is fitted to attract and fix the soul’s gaze: all that is beautiful in excellence: all that is drawing in holiness and majestic worth.”
Our Beloved is, indeed, fair beyond all human or angelic fairness, for He is the very impersonation of “the beauty of the Lord” ― “the brightness of His glory and the express image of his person:” and, as the Word made flesh and dwelling amongst us, He was full of grace and truth; the form and reality of every moral excellence dwelt in Him, as well as all the fullness of the Godhead, and the Man Christ Jesus was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners; and oh! how His fairness takes a poor believing sinner’s eye as he sees Him nailed to the cross for him, and radiant in His beauty and glory, as He pleads for him at the Father’s throne on high, arrayed in His priestly garments for glory and beauty. Says Augustine, “The bridegroom, to us believing, is everywhere beautiful. He is fair in heaven, fair on earth; fair in the Virgin’s womb; fair in the arms of His parents; fair in His miracles, fair in His stripes; fair when calling unto life, fair when disregarding death; fair in laying down His life, fair in receiving it again; fair in the cross, fair in the sepulcher.” But we would also add, fair in ascension, fair in His sitting on the Father’s throne crowned with glory and honor; fair in His preparing mansions for us in the Father’s house; fair in His coming again to receive us to Himself, that where He is there we may be also. “Lo! Thou art fair!”
And then, He is not only our fair beloved, but He is pleasant. Fair, “yes, charming!” is only the expression of her loving transport, and finds an illustrative commentary in the description (2:3-5).
“Fair Without being pleasant, the sons of men often are; pleasant also in measure they may be without being altogether fair; but JESUS is both, and in both He is perfect. Pleasantness implies a peculiar fitness to yield a resting-place for the soul, as distinguished from the excellence which excites mere admiration, or even from that which awakens love. It is found in the ‘good man, for whom peradventure some would even dare to die,’ but not in the ‘righteous man for whom they will scarcely die.’ The word is used to describe the sweet and solemn melodies of the sanctuary: ‘Sing praise to Him, because it is pleasant;’ the affectionate union of brethren, ‘Behold, how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity;’ and the agreeableness of a chosen earthly friend, closer than a brother; ‘Very pleasant hast thou been to me, O Jonathan.’ Even such a delight, such a quiet rest and repose of soul does the redeemed church and the ransomed soul find in the kinsman Redeemer.” “Behold thou art fair my Beloved, yea pleasant.”
2. “OUR BED IS GREEN.” ― “Yea, our couch is green:” the literal meaning is, “greeneth, grows; green,” a reference to the stately, verdant, and refreshing natural surroundings, in the midst of which, to their delight, their loving intercourse now takes place, and perhaps more particularly to a shady grass-plot under the trees of the park, upon which they were for the moment sitting or reclining. This figure requires some reference to Oriental customs and Eastern scenes in order to make it yield its illustration of very precious gospel truth. We shall allow a few to tell us what they know: ― “Also our bed is green,” or the green flowery turf is our place of repose. The scene in which these words, and possibly all from verse 12, are used, seems to be laid in the kiosk or summerhouse in the royal garden. Oriental gardens were without the city, and from half-a-mile to a mile distant from the houses of the persons to whom they belonged. In the gardens around Aleppo commodious villas are built for the use of the inhabitants, to which they retire during the oppressive heats of summer. Here, amid the wild and almost impervious thickets of pomegranate and other fruit-bearing trees, the languid native and exhausted traveler find a delightful retreat from the scorching beams of the sun. A similar custom of retiring into the country, and taking shelter in the gardens at that season, appears to have been followed in Palestine in ages very remote. The exquisite pleasure which an Oriental feels while he reclines under the deep shade of the pomegranate, the apple, and other fruitful trees in the Syrian gardens, which, uniting their branches over his head, defend him from the glowing firmament, is well described by Russel: “Revived by the freshening breeze, the purling of the brooks, and the verdure of the groves, his ear will catch the melody of the nightingale, delightful beyond what is heard in England; with conscious gratitude to heaven, he will recline on the simple mat and bless the hospitable shelter.”
Lady Montague writes: “In the midst of the garden is the kiosk―that is, a large room, commonly beautified with a fine fountain in the midst of it. It is raised nine or ten steps, and enclosed with gilded lattices, round which vines, jessamines, and honeysuckles make a sort of green wall. Large trees are planted round this place, which is the scene of their greatest pleasures.”
Speaking of the plain of Sharon, a traveler remarks: “The fields were decked with thousands of gay flowers, forming an enameled carpet, that perfumed the air, and offered a scene replete with everything that could gratify the eye or charm the imagination.”
Wilkinson, vol. ii. p. 187, says: “The Egyptians spent much time in the cool and shady retirement of their gardens, when, like the Romans, they entertained their friends during the summer season, as we may judge from the size of some of the kiosks which occur in the paintings of the tombs.”
“How beautiful a retreat! For this plane tree is very wide-spreading and lofty, and the height and shadiness of this agnus castus are very beautiful, and, being now in full bloom, it makes the place exceeding fragrant. Moreover, there flows under this plane tree a delightful fountain of very cold water, to judge from its effect on the foot. Observe, again, the freshness of the spot how charming and delightful it is, and how summer-like and shrill it sounds from the choir of grasshoppers. But the most delightful of all is the grass, which, sloping gently, gives an easy support to the head as we recline.― (Plato’s Phœdrus, 5.)
“Our bed is green:” the place of our fellowship with our adorable Lord Jesus Christ is beyond the fading and the dying in the living beauty, freshness, and brightness of “the Paradise of God,” where the “Tree of Life” itself forever “grows green.” In the Canticles there is no question of sin raised; that has been conclusively settled for us by our self-sacrificing Bridegroom “long, long ago,” and believed by us to be so; and “the God of peace” has brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, and we are now sitting in His company in the heavenly places into which He is gone; and, now that He is risen from the dead and ascended up to the Father’s right hand, He is living in the ample glory of the paradise of God, and the verdure of glory flourishes eternally beneath His feet and ours, and the ever-during cedar spreads its living beams, and the fragrant cypress intertwines its branches, and forms the beautified roof of our house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
He is resting at noon in this pleasing, lovely place, the tabernacle which God hath pitched for Him and His ransomed Bride, “at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.” He has gone to His Father and our Father, to His God and our God; and now we are sanctified by this truth of the Father and the Son—and what a freshness there is in our communion, what fragrance, what gorgeousness and loveliness envelop us! All is instinct with vitality, beauty, loveliness. It is no longer the confined place in the city of Salem, but the garden of God in all its grace, glory, and refreshing shade. “Truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” No language can express how fair is our Beloved, no words convey any adequate conception of His sweetness; and to be with Him in a place so restful, and be there all alone enjoying the interchange of His loving looks, and mark how His pleasant countenance tells how delighted He is to have His affianced bride beside Him, where reciprocated love feeds the lips with the utterances of exquisite enjoyment and mutual admiration. All Scripture “grows green” under us when we are separated to God by being accepted in Christ risen and glorified, and it forms the resting-place of happy communion with our Heavenly Bridegroom, while the arched roof of His place of rest in glory is formed of the cedar of His “eternal redemption,” and carved by the intertwined cypress of life in resurrection, through which, in the Holy Ghost, we have a place of repose in this fragrant solitude of glory.
Even when the Lord Jesus comes again and gathers His lovely bride of earth―the Israel of God―and is with her here below, she will sit with Him in the power of redemption under the canopy of the cypress life, and all its blessings, which shall be hers when under the new covenant and partaking of all its blessings; for it is then “His rest shall be glorious.” “The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious.” It will be the Father’s kingdom administered by the Son of His love and His risen bride, and enjoyed by His Israel in the grace and glory of risen life; and then shall “Israel blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit” (Isaiah 27:6). It is with “Jesus the Resurrection and the Life,” the exalted glorious One, our souls have happy fellowship, and it will be enjoyed in all its fullness in heavenly glory when we shall be with Him and like Him; and then, too, shall Israel be placed in connection with Him as the medium of living blessing in millennial glory to all the nations of the earth (Psalms 67-77.)
Such a theme is inexhaustible. We have many things yet to say on it, but time and space warn us to defer until another opportunity. Recommending our beloved readers to cultivate this living, glorious fellowship, with the loving Bridegroom of our hearts in the heavenly glory, we say for the present, Farewell. “Alone with Jesus:” How full of bliss and glory!