The Pulpit Commentary — Song of Songs — Section 110

,·crs. 7-16.-Further conversation. I. THE WORDS OF THE BRIDEGROOM, 1. His c11tire love for the bride. If the view of ver. 6 indicated above gives the true meaning, the bride has left the bridegroom for a time. In the evening they meet again, and the king again expresses his affection: "Thon art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee." Such shall the Church be in the eyes of Christ, when he has sanctified and cleansed her with the washing of water by the Word ; when she is clothed in the fine linen, clean and white, which is the righteousness of saints; when he "of God is made unto her "'isdom, and Righteousness, and Sanctification, and Redemption" (1 Cor. i. 30). Such shall the saints be in his eyes when they have" washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb;" "they are without fault before the throne of God" (Rev. xiv. 5). But it is Christ who has cleansed them. They were stained with many sins., as David was when he cried in the anguish of his deep penitence, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow" (Ps. li 7). We have sinned so long and so greatly, we have so often fallen back into sin after imperfect repentance, that to be "whiter than snow " seems a hope alt~ gether too high for us, out of our reach. But we have the sw·e Word of God. He is able to " present us faultless before the presence of his glory ; " he is able to "cleanse us from all unrighteousness;" "the Lamb of God taketh away the sins of the world." Icdeed it is true that "we are all a& an unclean thing, and all our righteous- nesses are as filthy rags" (Isa. lxiv. 6), but we may have, if we come to Christ in faith, "that righteousness which is through the faith of Christ;" that righteousness which is his, not our own ; and yet, if we abide in him, it becomes throngh his grace our own; for it is given to us, imparted to us, infused into us by the indwelling influences of the Holy Spirit of God. Then we may dare to hope for that spotless righteousness; we may, we must, long for it and strive after it. Not to do so is not humility, but unbelief; not distrust of ourselves, but distrust of God; for we have the sacred word of promise, "Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." 2. His invitation. The Hebrew words are full of life: '' With me from Lebanon, 0 bride, with me from Lebanon shalt thou come." The bride is henceforth to be with the bridegroom, with him always: she is to forget her own people and her father's house (Ps. xiv. 10, 11). She is to come away from her old haunts-from Amana, Shenir, ant.I Hermon; for even Hermon in all its grandeur is but a "little hill" in com- parison with the spiritual glory of Mount Zion, where God is pleased to dwell (see Prayer-book Version of Ps. xlii. 6). She must come from the lions' dens, from "the violence of Lebanon" (Iiab. ii. 17), to Jerusalem, the foundation of peace. The Church, the bride of Christ, shall be in the eternal blessedness "for ever with the Lord." She bhall come away from her old habitation, the earth which is filled with violence (Gen. vi. 11); away from the raging of the roaring lion, who walketh about, seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet. v. 8), to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living Gc,d. And the Christian soul, which looks forward in living hope to the inheritance of the saints in light, must now come with Christ away from other masters, from the lusts of the flesh and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. "To deport and to be with Christ," St. Paul says (Phil. i. 23), "is far better"-" by much very far better," for such i.s the full meaning of the emphatic words. 'fhen the soul that hopes to be en. rv. 1-16.J THE SONG OF SOLOMON.