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Scripture Reading: S. S. 1:4b-8
I. The inner chambers of Christ — S. S. 1:4b:
А. His lovers’ regenerated spirits mingled with and indwelt by Him as the life-dispensing Spirit — Rom. 8:16; 2 Tim. 4:22; Rom. 8:11.
B. The practical Holy of Holies in Christ’s lovers for their participation in and enjoyment of the pneumatic Christ as the consummated Triune God — Heb. 4:16.
II. The fellowship in the mingled spirit of Christ’s lovers — 2 Cor. 13:14; Rom. 8:4b:
А. In the joy of Christ’s lover with her companions, extolling His unrivaled love — S. S. 1:4c.
B. Enlightened to see that she is sinful in Adam but justified in Christ — vv. 5-6a.
C. Receiving the revelation on how to enter the church life — vv. 7-8:
1. Realizing that she was separated from Christ’s flock by the denominational people and that she needs Christ’s feeding and rest with satisfaction — vv. 6b-7; John 10:16; Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 5:2.
2. Instructed by Christ that she should leave where she was kept away from the church and go forth on the footsteps of the flock — S. S. 1:8a:
а. The flock is the church in the proper sense according to the apostles’ teaching in the New Testament.
b. The footsteps of the flock have laid a line showing us the proper way to follow the Lord in His recovery.
c. The church is the place where Christ pastures, shepherds and feeds, His saints.
d. Christ charges her to pasture, shepherd and feed, her spiritual children in the churches (shepherds’ tents) — v. 8b.
3. Though the lover of Christ is seeking after Christ for her own satisfaction and rest, Christ, in answering her request and instructing her how to seek after Him, charges her to take care of her spiritual children, the members of the Body of Christ.
In the first chapter we stressed two words: personal and affectionate. In saving us and in building up a relationship with us, God came to visit us personally and affectionately. How personal and affectionate Jesus was in the Gospels! But this was His visitation to His chosen people in the physical life. He was a man physically but was not yet the Spirit.
One day He told His disciples of His intention to die. They could not understand this. They thought that He had come to build up the kingdom of God and that they would be with Him on the throne. James and John wanted to sit at His right and left in His kingdom. When the other ten heard this, they were indignant, showing that they also were ambitious to be with the Lord on the throne (Matt. 20:20-28). They were in the physical realm.
Through His death and in His resurrection He became “another kind of Jesus.” He was no longer physical, because He became a life-giving Christ, a life-giving Spirit. The last Adam, who was Jesus in the flesh, became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). I would like to ask, “Are you still preaching and ministering a physical Jesus or a pneumatic Christ?” Mostly, those in Christianity preach a physical Savior, but the Bible unveils to us that this physical Savior, after He accomplished God’s full redemption through His death, changed into a life-giving Spirit in resurrection. They do not believe that Christ has become another kind of person, not physical but spiritual.
When Christ was in the flesh, He could visit His disciples outwardly and openly, but there was no possibility for Him to visit His disciples inwardly and privately. Today Christ visits us privately and spiritually because He is the life-giving, compound, consummated, all-inclusive Spirit. He is the Spirit as the consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God, so He visits people secretly, privately, not openly.
First, in Song of Songs the Lord captivates His seeker, and she with all her companions follow Him. To pursue Christ for satisfaction is the first “crystal” in Song of Songs. The second crystal is the King bringing His seeker into His inner chambers. Song of Songs is a book of figures. In a figure of speech the king’s inner chambers signify our regenerated spirit as Christ’s inner chambers.
God created man so that man may become Him by His being received by man so that He can enter into and stay in man. For this reason God created us with a spirit. According to the New Testament teaching, our regenerated spirit is not only for us to have a means to receive Him but also for us to contain Him. Second Timothy 4:22 says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” Ephesians 3:16 says that we need to be strengthened into our inner man. The inner man is our regenerated spirit. Ephesians 2:22 shows that our spirit is a habitation, a dwelling place, to God. The real inner chambers to God are our spirit.
Regretfully, the majority of Christians in today’s Christianity do not believe that there is such a thing as the human spirit. They say that the human spirit is synonymous with man’s soul or heart. The Chinese translation of the Bible mixes up the heart, the soul, and the spirit by using the terms spirit-soul or heart-spirit. Not many Christians today know definitely that they have a spirit. When I came to the United States in the early 1960s, I began to teach concerning the human spirit. Many told me that before I taught this, they never knew that they had a spirit.
There are three verses in the New Testament that show the divine Spirit and the regenerated human spirit. John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit.” In this verse are God the Spirit and our spirit, with which we worship God the Spirit. John 3:6 says, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Romans 8:16 says, “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.” I came to the United States with a burden to release all the high-peak truths. One among these is the human spirit. Another is that Christ, as the last Adam, became a life-giving Spirit. Christ as the life-giving Spirit dwells in our human spirit, and these two spirits are mingled together to be one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17).
In this chapter we want to stress the words private and spiritual. Christianity preaches the physical Jesus, but we preach the pneumatic Christ, the Christ who is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). This One is private and spiritual. We have seen that the king’s chambers signify our spirit. He visits us in our spirit privately, and He comes to us in a spiritual way, not a physical way. He visits us privately as the all-inclusive consummated Spirit.
Christ the King brings His seekers into His chambers, that is, into their regenerated spirit, His dwelling place. Let us consider the application of this. When I was young, I was taught to pray to God as the heavenly Father. I was also told not to pray to the Spirit, because in the entire New Testament you cannot find a verse concerning praying to the Spirit. But the more we pray, the more we have the feeling that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all in us (Eph. 4:6; 2 Cor. 13:5; Rom. 8:9). According to our experience, our spirit is the Holy of Holies — the dwelling place, the inner chambers, of the Triune God. In this first chapter of Song of Songs He and we have the private and affectionate fellowship.
The seeker in Song of Songs prayed, “Draw me; we will run after you” (1:4a). Then the king drew her and she followed, but she did not know where to go. The King knows where to go. We must go to our spirit. The inner chambers of Christ are His lovers’ regenerated spirits mingled with and indwelt by Him as the life-dispensing Spirit (Rom. 8:16; 2 Tim. 4:22; Rom. 8:11) and are the practical Holy of Holies in Christ’s lovers for their participation in and enjoyment of the pneumatic Christ as the consummated Triune God (Heb. 4:16).
After we were saved, we began to pray, and eventually, we realized that the heavenly Father, the Lord Jesus, and the Spirit are all in us. But at that time we did not know in what part of our being the Triune God dwelt. We did not know that we had a human spirit, but gradually we found out that the Triune God dwells in our regenerated spirit. The seeker followed the Lord, and He immediately brought her to her regenerated spirit to have fellowship with Him.
Song of Songs 1:4b-8 shows the fellowship in the mingled spirit of Christ’s lovers (2 Cor. 13:14; Rom. 8:4b). This fellowship is in the joy of Christ’s lover with her companions, in their extolling His unrivaled love (S. S. 1:4c). She and her companions extol the Lord’s love, but this seeker stands out. She says, “I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, / Like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon” (v. 5). Kedar is a place in Arabia. The black tents of Kedar were dried up by the sun, but the lovely curtains of Solomon were within the king’s home. She was black because of the scorching sun: “Do not look at me, because I am black, / Because the sun has scorched me” (v. 6a). In her fellowship with the Lord, she was enlightened to see that she was a sinner in Adam (black) but that she has been justified in Christ (lovely). She stands out among her companions as one who is pleasant to God and man. She wants the Lord Himself, whereas the others are satisfied in a general way. She was enlightened to see that although she is sinful in Adam, she is beautiful in Christ in the eyes of God.
Then the seeker said, “My mother’s sons were angry with me; / They made me keeper of the vineyards, / But my own vineyard I have not kept. / Tell me, you whom my soul loves, Where do you pasture your flock? / Where do you make it lie down at noon? / For why should I be like one who is veiled / Beside the flocks of your companions?” (vv. 6b-7). My mother’s sons signifies the denominational brothers who persecute the seeking one. Noon is the time when the sun is at its highest, a scorching time. The seeker wanted to know where the Lord makes His flock lie down at noon. At the time of hardships she needs someone to shepherd her. She was telling the Lord, “Lord, I want to have You. I don’t want to miss You. I want to enjoy Your presence. Bring me to where You shepherd Your flock at noon so that I can be under Your shelter to have rest and satisfaction.” Christ’s presence has two issues. If you have Christ’s presence, you have Christ’s rest and satisfaction.
The seeker received the revelation concerning how to enter the church life. The seeker realized that she was separated from Christ’s flock by the denominational people and that she needed Christ’s feeding and rest with satisfaction (vv. 6b-7; John 10:16; Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 5:2). Christ led us into our spirit, and in our spirit, in fellowship with Him, He directed us to the church life. She was instructed by Christ to leave the place where she was kept away from the church and go forth on the footsteps of the flock (S. S. 1:8a). The flock is the church in the proper sense according to the apostles’ teaching in the New Testament. The footsteps of the flock have laid a line showing us the proper way to follow the Lord in His recovery.
In the Lord’s care for His seeker, the Lord was very wise. She was seeking after the Lord for her own satisfaction. That was her concern. But the Lord’s concern with His saved sinners is not just for their satisfaction but for God’s eternal economy. Thus, the concerns are different. Our concern is very low, personal, but the Lord’s concern is God’s economy. God’s economy is to save sinners to gain the churches, so that the essence of these churches can become the organic Body of Christ for the consummation of the New Jerusalem. The Lord’s intention in saving us is for us to be in the church so that we can be built up in the Body of Christ and be in the consummation of God’s economy, the New Jerusalem.
Many do not even like to talk about the church because of all the complications and confusion with the denominations. The seeker says that her mother’s sons were angry with her. The mother signifies grace as the one who begot the seeker and her brothers (cf. Gal. 4:26). Her brothers born of the same grace persecuted her and pressed her to work in the vineyards while she neglected her own vineyard. Song of Songs 1:7 speaks of the flocks of the Lord’s companions. These flocks turn the seeker away from the Lord’s presence. As a result, the seeker says to the Lord, “Where do you pasture your flock? / Where do you make it lie down at noon?” The companions are the Lord’s companions, but their flocks are not His flock. Their flocks carried the seeker away from Christ Himself and from His feeding and shepherding.
All the founders of the denominations are Christ’s companions, His friends. But the so-called churches set up by them are not the church in the proper sense according to the apostles’ teaching in the New Testament. Many missionaries who went to China were the genuine companions of Christ, but they set up their own denominations. Hudson Taylor established the church of the China Inland Mission. A. B. Simpson established churches of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. They were Christ’s companions who went out for Christ but not to set up the churches of Christ. They were very good with respect to Christ, but they did something wrong with respect to the church life, because they set up their own flocks. Such companions of the Lord were positive, but unintentionally they established flocks that separated Christ’s real seekers from His presence with His shepherding and feeding.
Today there are many so-called churches, but to what extent are they really for Christ? The Catholic Church is condemned by Christ Himself. He called the Catholic Church “the great harlot” (Rev. 17:1). But even that Catholic Church who is a great harlot has brought some to the Lord. People were saved through them. Among the Catholics there are a good number of nuns who are very devoted. All the so-called Christian churches built up by Christ’s companions bring people to Christ but only to a certain extent. Some bring people to Christ to a very small extent. Others bring people to Christ to a great extent, like A. B. Simpson’s churches. Although they were very spiritual, they were still not up to the Lord’s standard according to the apostles’ teaching in the New Testament.
Our experience was that the more we stayed in the denominations, the more we lost the Lord’s presence. We left the denominations because we lost the presence of Christ. In the hardships, at noontime, we did not enjoy the shepherding of Christ. Christ was not with us, so we did not have rest and satisfaction. One day we met the Lord’s recovery and found out that, although it was not perfect, it was the highest place. The church is the place where Christ pastures, shepherds and feeds, His saints. We left the denominations because we had no rest, no satisfaction, and no real enjoyment of Christ. We may have been saved in a denomination, and that denomination may have helped us, taught us, and built us up to know Christ to a certain extent, but it was also that denomination that hindered us from going on to enjoy Christ with His rest and satisfaction. In today’s confusion of the divisions in Christianity, we should realize where to go. All of the Lord’s seekers should follow the footsteps of His flock.
The Lord instructed His seeker to follow the footsteps of the flock, which are the footsteps of all the faithful Christ-seekers throughout the centuries. After I decided to serve the Lord with my full time, I went to Shanghai to stay with Brother Nee, and he received me as his guest for four and a half months. At that time we did not have much work to do, so I went to him like a student to a professor. He took the chance to perfect me, to tell me the stories of the history of the church with the Lord’s seekers beginning from the church fathers and going on throughout the centuries. From those footsteps we found out the way to follow Christ.
The Lord also told the seeker to pasture her young goats by the shepherds’ tents (S. S. 1:8b). The shepherds here, of course, are the positive ones. In Christ’s proper church life there are shepherds helping others to know Christ, to enjoy Christ, and to receive the rest and satisfaction from Christ to the highest extent. The Lord charged His seeker not only to be in the place where He shepherds His flock but also to bring her small spiritual children to the shepherds’ tents, the dwelling place of the Lord’s shepherds, where they shepherd others to know Him. These tents are the churches in the proper sense. We must have our spiritual children stay in the places where these shepherds are; this is the best blessing to our children. Though the lover of Christ is seeking after Christ for her own satisfaction and rest, Christ, in answering her request and instructing her how to seek after Him, charges her to take care of her spiritual children, the members of the Body of Christ.
We also need to see that in the whole universe there are two kinds of worlds. One is the old world, the physical world. This evil world started from Cain. It developed into a kingdom with Nimrod in Genesis 10. Eventually, Egypt became a world power, and the children of Abraham lived there for more than four hundred years. Then Israel was brought into Canaan, and God charged them to destroy all the Canaanites. They did not carry this out absolutely, and eventually they themselves were brought into captivity, first by Assyria, then by Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. These are the kingdoms that controlled Israel for the past centuries. Today there is still a quarrel among the nations of the world concerning the land of Israel.
Those in the physical world do not know that on this earth there is another world being built up by God. This is the spiritual world. When we were saved, we were brought into another world. We were in the evil world of Satan, but Christ saved us and transferred us from that world to another world, from the kingdom of the world to the kingdom of God. In this world everything is spiritual. Today those in the United Nations know only the evil world, which is built up by Satan mingled with the fallen life of man. In one sense we are in this world, but in another sense we are not in it. We are in the spirit to build up the spiritual world.
When the Lord Jesus came to man, He came to the fallen world, so He came with a body as a physical person. He Himself was under the Roman Empire and was even sentenced to death and executed by the Roman Empire. Today this evil world knows only the physical Jesus. They do not know the very Christ whom we know today. The Christ whom we know today is the pneumatic Christ.
When I was at the end of my teenage years, the Lord regenerated me, and something new within me started. That was God’s new creation. In this universe two worlds are building up themselves. One is the evil world built up by Satan mingled with the fallen people. The other is the spiritual world, which is called by the New Testament the new creation. The building up of the new creation is going on with Christ as the Spirit and with us. Whatever is going on and whatever is done in the new creation is private and spiritual.
My classmates saw me change after I was regenerated, but they did not know what happened. In the spiritual world many unseen things take place in and with us that no one in the physical world can understand. We must realize that in the universe two worlds are going on. The first evil world will go to the lake of fire. Everything in the physical world from Cain through Nimrod and through Antichrist will be burned in the lake of fire. But we will be consummated in the city of water, not the lake of fire. This city of water is the New Jerusalem. Actually, the upcoming New Jerusalem will be our consummation.
First, God saves us; then the Lord leads us to know how to contact Him in our spirit privately and spiritually. Because we want to enjoy His rich presence with His rest and satisfaction, He tells us clearly that He is only with His flock, the church. The essence of the church is the organic Body of Christ, which consummates in the New Jerusalem. After we were saved, our concern was merely for our satisfaction, but Christ’s concern is God’s satisfaction — to have His eternal economy accomplished by having us as the members of the church, the essence of which is the organic Body of Christ, which ultimately consummates in the New Jerusalem. We have to learn to say that our concern is God’s concern for the church, for the Body of Christ, and for the New Jerusalem.
What I am doing is building the New Jerusalem and will be consummated in the New Jerusalem. My concern is not soul-winning, nor is it just for us to have satisfaction. My concern is for others to be brought into the church life through Christ’s private, spiritual fellowship. When we fellowship with Christ privately and spiritually, He will direct our feet to go forth on the footsteps of the flock. Then we will be in the church for the Body of Christ and for the consummation of the New Jerusalem.
