2022-5丨General Subject：Loving the Lord and Loving One Another for the Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ

General Subject：Loving the Lord and Loving One Another for the Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ

Message Two Song of Songs—the Progressive Experience of an Individual Believer's Loving Fellowship with Christ for the Preparation of the Bride of Christ

B. In the second stage of Song of Songs, the lover of Christ is called to be delivered from the self through her oneness with the cross of Christ—2:8--3:5:

S.S. 2:8 The voice of my beloved! Now he comes, / Leaping upon the mountains, / Skipping upon the hills.

S.S. 2:9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young hart. / Now he stands behind our wall; / He is looking through the windows, / He is glancing through the lattice.

S.S. 2:10 My beloved responds and says to me, / Rise up, my love, / My beauty, and come away;

S.S. 2:11 For now the winter is past; / The rain is over and gone.

S.S. 2:12 Flowers appear on the earth; / The time of singing has come, / And the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

S.S. 2:13 The fig tree has ripened its figs, / And the vines are in blossom—they give forth their fragrance. / Rise up, my love, / My beauty, and come away.

S.S. 2:14 My dove, in the clefts of the rock, / In the covert of the precipice, Let me see your countenance, / Let me hear your voice; / For your voice is sweet, / And your countenance is lovely.

S.S. 2:15 Catch the foxes for us, / The little foxes, / That ruin the vineyards / While our vineyards are in blossom.

S.S. 2:16 My beloved is mine, and I am his; / He pastures his flock among the lilies.

S.S. 2:17 Until the day dawns and the shadows flee away, / Turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young hart / On the mountains of Bether.

S.S. 3:1 On my bed night after night / I sought him whom my soul loves; / I sought him, but found him not.

S.S. 3:2 I will rise now and go about in the city; / In the streets and in the squares / I will seek him whom my soul loves. / I sought him, but found him not.

S.S. 3:3 The watchmen who go about in the city found me—/ Have you seen him whom my soul loves?

S.S. 3:4 Scarcely had I passed them / When I found him whom my soul loves; / I held him and would not let go / Until I had brought him into my mother's house / And into the chamber of her who conceived me.

S.S. 3:5 I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, / By the gazelles or by the hinds of the fields, / Not to rouse up or awaken my love / Until she pleases.

1. Song of Songs 2:8-9 speaks of the vitality of resurrection; in these verses Christ is likened to a gazelle or a young hart “leaping upon the mountains, / Skipping upon the hills”; mountains and hills refer to difficulties and barriers, but nothing is too high or too great to stop the resurrected Christ; we need to seek for and know Christ's mountain-leaping and hill-skipping presence.

S.S. 2:8 The voice of my beloved! Now he comes, / Leaping upon the mountains, / Skipping upon the hills.

S.S. 2:9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young hart. / Now he stands behind our wall; / He is looking through the windows, / He is glancing through the lattice.

2. The lover of Christ falls into introspection, which becomes a seclusion as a wall that keeps her away from the presence of Christ (v. 9b); hence, Christ encourages her to rise up and come out of her low situation to be with Him (v. 10).

S.S. 2:9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young hart. / Now he stands behind our wall; / He is looking through the windows, / He is glancing through the lattice.

S.S. 2:10 My beloved responds and says to me, / Rise up, my love, / My beauty, and come away;

3. The lover of Christ also hears the Lord telling her that the time of dormancy (winter) is past and that the trials (rain) are over and gone (v. 11); He also tells her that the springtime has come; thus, she is entreated and encouraged by the Lord with the flourishing riches of resurrection (vv. 12-13).

S.S. 2:11 For now the winter is past; / The rain is over and gone.

S.S. 2:12 Flowers appear on the earth; / The time of singing has come, / And the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

S.S. 2:13 The fig tree has ripened its figs, / And the vines are in blossom—they give forth their fragrance. / Rise up, my love, / My beauty, and come away.

4. It is by the power of resurrection, not by our natural life, that we, the lovers of Christ, are enabled to be conformed to His death by being one with His cross (vv. 14-15); the reality of resurrection is the pneumatic Christ as the consummated Spirit, who indwells and is mingled with our regenerated spirit; it is in such a mingled spirit that we participate in and experience the resurrection of Christ, which enables us to be one with the cross to be delivered from the self and to be transformed into a new man in God's new creation for the fulfillment of God's economy in the building up of the organic Body of Christ (Rom. 8:2, 4, 29; Gal. 6:15; 2 Cor. 5:17).

S.S. 2:14 My dove, in the clefts of the rock, / In the covert of the precipice, Let me see your countenance, / Let me hear your voice; / For your voice is sweet, / And your countenance is lovely.

S.S. 2:15 Catch the foxes for us, / The little foxes, / That ruin the vineyards / While our vineyards are in blossom.

Rom. 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life has freed me in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death.

Rom. 8:4 That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit.

Rom. 8:29 Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers;

Gal. 6:15 For neither is circumcision anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation is what matters.

2 Cor. 5:17 So then if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, they have become new.

Morning Nourishment

S. S. 2:8-10 The voice of my beloved! Now he comes, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young hart. Now he stands behind our wall; he is looking through the windows, he is glancing through the lattice. My beloved responds and says to me, Rise up, my love, my beauty, and come away.

Song of Songs 2:8 and 9 speak of the vitality of resurrection. In the Bible, both the mountains and the hills refer to difficulties and barriers... Nothing is too high or too great to stop Him. Christ has resurrected; He has overcome all difficulties and barriers. Difficulties and barriers are things of yesterday. He is living in the next day. All difficulties are beneath His feet. The minute He leaps, all the barriers are behind Him. (CWWN, vol. 23, “The Song of Songs,” p. 32)

Song of Songs 2:14-15 portrays the lover’s deliverance from the self by the cross of Christ. The attainment of the lover of Christ in her pursuing after Christ for satisfaction and rest results in a condition in which she overcares for her spiritual condition before Christ. Overcaring for her spiritual condition causes the lover of Christ to fall into introspection, which becomes the seclusion as a wall that keeps her away from the presence of Christ (v. 9). The Bible tells us to look away unto Jesus (Heb. 12:2), but introspection always directs us to look into ourselves... In our introspection we may ask, “Am I still perfect?...” Such introspection increases the self, resulting in a kind of seclusion as a wall to separate us from the presence of Christ.

Christ comes as a gazelle leaping upon the mountains and as a young hart skipping upon the hills, showing forth His resurrection power over difficulties, to call her repeatedly to rise up from her down situation and come away to Him from that situation which separates her from Him (S. S. 2:8-10, 13b).

The Lord wants us to experience His cross so that we may enter into His resurrection. The calling for the cross and the resurrection figured by the springtime is in Song of Songs 2... The flowers, the fruit, the time of singing, and the voice of the turtledove are a picture of resurrection...When [the Lord’s seeker] looks into herself, it is the wintertime of dormancy. But when she looks away to the resurrected Christ, she enters into the stage of spring, signifying the stage of resurrection.

In order to empower and encourage His lover to rise up and get away from her down situation in her introspection of the self, Christ empowers her by showing her the power of His resurrection by the gazelle’s leaping upon the mountains and the young hart’s skipping upon the hills (vv. 8-9). It is by this power of Christ’s resurrection that we, the lovers of Christ, determine to take the cross by denying our self (Matt. 16:24)... It is also by this power of Christ’s resurrection that we, the lovers of Christ, are enabled to be conformed to His death (Phil. 3:10), to be one with His cross as staying in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the precipice (S. S. 2:14).

Christ encourages His seeker by the flourishing riches of His resurrection (vv. 11-13). The dormant days (winter) are past, and the trials (rain) are over and gone...This is a portrait of the riches of Christ’s resurrection.

The resurrected Christ became the life-giving Spirit as the reality of His resurrection (John 11:25). The resurrection of Christ is linked with the Spirit who gives life. This life-giving Spirit indwells our spirit (Rom. 8:11; Eph. 2:22). Hence, our regenerated spirit indwelt by the life-giving Spirit becomes the Holiest of all as God’s dwelling place linked with the Holiest of all in the third heaven (Heb. 4:16).

In order to experience the life-giving Spirit as the reality of resurrection in our spirit, we have to discern our spirit from our soul. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “Crystallization-study of Song of Songs,” pp. 292-294, 304-307)