Search
Scripture Reading: S. S. 1:4a, 7a, 8a, 9, 12-16a; 2:2-4, 14, 16; 3:6; 4:1; Jer. 50:19; Micah 7:14
We have already seen many points about how to take Christ as our living person in the Song of Songs. Many people have misused the Bible as a book of doctrine to form a Christian religion. A religion has doctrines, activities, programs, and works. For the works and activities, there is the need of power to accomplish them and the need of gifts as the ability to perform them. Christianity has mainly these four things: doctrines, activities, the power for the activities, and the gifts.
But strictly speaking, the Lord Jesus is not any kind of religion. The Lord Jesus is a living person! Doctrines are needed with any religion but not with a person. A wife does not need a book of doctrines about her husband because he is a living person. If we are really in the presence of the Lord Jesus, we do not need doctrines. He is our living doctrine. So many hold the doctrine of sanctification, but they are not sanctified, because sanctification is simply the Lord Jesus Himself. You may hold the doctrine of sanctification and yet not have the reality of sanctification. But as long as you have Christ, though you may know nothing of the doctrine of sanctification, you have it! This is because the real sanctification is Christ as a living person.
People today pay too much attention to doctrines, activities, power, or gifts. But what we need is a living person! People can misuse some of the other books in the Bible, but they can hardly misuse the Song of Songs because this book is not of doctrine, activity, power, and gifts. It depicts a living person! “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! / For your love is better than wine.” Anyone who speaks like this is absolutely out of religion.
Many people today are for religion, not for a living person. But in the Lord’s recovery today, the Lord is not going to recover any religious matter. The Lord is recovering His living person! It is not a recovery of doctrines, forms, or gifts.
When the Lord first came to earth, He was apparently only a little man from Nazareth. But actually, He was also God. John 11 and 12 tell of His being in the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in Bethany. Bethany means “house of the poor.” He was in the house of the poor, while all the Jewish leaders and priests were offering sacrifices and burning incense to God. They did not realize that the very God whom they were worshipping was in that little cottage. He was not in the temple receiving their worship; He was in the house of the poor ones at Bethany. The very God was there in the form of a little man. Those Jewish worshippers were diligently worshipping God, yet they never realized that God was not there. That was because they were for their religion and their fathers’ traditions.
The Lord Jesus came as God to recover His living person to a group of young people. He never went to the temple and called any of the priests to come and follow Him. Instead, He went to the seashore of Galilee and called some rough, young fishermen. He did not even call their fathers. Moreover, all those young fishermen left their fathers; they left all the old traditions, and they followed Him. Today the Lord Jesus is doing the same with the Christian religion as He did with the old Jewish religion.
The Song of Songs is not full of religion with doctrines, activities, powers, or gifts. All that we can find in this book is a loving relationship with a living person! He is both God and man. He is our Creator, and He is our Redeemer. He is our Justifier, our Sanctifier, and our life. He is our Lord, our person, and our everything. We should care for nothing except this living person. As long as we have Him, we have everything. We may not know anything about justification, sanctification, and so many other doctrines. But as long as we have this living person, we have all the doctrines we need.
Suppose we have two men before us. One has a doctor’s degree; he has learned many doctrines such as justification and sanctification. But when you talk with him about Christ as a living person, he simply does not know what you are talking about. Although he has studied all the doctrines, he has not once touched the Lord in a living way. The other man has never gained much knowledge. He does not know any of the doctrines, and to him one doctrine is about the same as another. Yet he loves the Lord Jesus. He prays all the time, “O Lord Jesus, how I love You! You are my living person. How I love to touch You!” Do you not believe that he has much more than the first one? It is not a matter of doctrines, teachings, or knowledge. It is a matter of fact. The Lord does not care for our doctrines, teachings, and gifts. He wants to be a living person to us. May the Lord have mercy upon us that we may seek nothing except to gain more and more of Him.
The Lord today is going to recover His living person. In the Song of Songs, we see one who sought the Lord, and by her seeking, she found Him. Having found Him, she began to have sweet fellowship with Him. All of this is in the first two chapters. In her fellowship, first of all, the seeking one had a real appreciation of the Lord. She appreciated the Lord as a bundle of myrrh within and as a cluster of henna flowers without. She sought the Lord, she found the Lord, and in her fellowship with the Lord, she began to appreciate Him. Following this appreciation, there was the enjoyment — she said that her beloved was like an apple tree. An apple tree is not only for appreciation but also for enjoyment. First of all, she had the appreciation, and then she came into the enjoyment of eating the fruit of the apple tree under its shadow. She enjoyed both the fruit and the shadow. After this, she was brought into the banqueting house, which means the house of wine. For her enjoyment, she had something to eat and something to drink. By enjoying the Lord, she began to partake of the Lord.
When we eat anything, it becomes a part of us. Whatever we eat enters into us; it is digested and assimilated into our blood stream. Then it becomes our cells and even our organic tissues. Suppose you eat some chicken for lunch. By your eating of the chicken, it gets into you. It is digested and assimilated to become cells in your blood; these cells then become your organic tissue and even your very element. It just becomes you. As we appreciate and enjoy the Lord, something of the element of the Lord is taken into us and eventually becomes us.
The Lord Jesus said, “I am the bread of life...He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (John 6:35, 57b). To enjoy the Lord is to eat the Lord, which means that we take something of the Lord into our being. Then, there will not only be the appreciation and the enjoyment but also the perfuming. To be perfumed means to be permeated with the Lord. This is why we must appreciate the Lord and begin to enjoy Him. By enjoying Him, something of the Lord will get into us to permeate us. This inworking of Jesus is the working of Himself into our being. Eventually, we will be mingled with Him. The Lord is recovering His living person to us so that He may be wrought into our being. This living person is nothing less than God Himself in incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. All these elements are included in His person.
Such a person is going to be wrought into us. He is not just for our appreciation and enjoyment; He must be wrought into us. Then, when the question is asked, “Who is she?” the answer will be that this is Solomon with the crown. We eventually become one with Christ.
To perfume or permeate any object without any life or personality is quite easy. A ball of cotton put into a bottle of red ink will soon be permeated with the red ink. This is simple. But suppose someone tries to put you as a living person into red ink. Surely you will fight against it. This is why the Lord has a hard time trying to permeate us with Himself. We have our own personality, our own will, and we do not want to lose them.
Therefore, we see in this book that the Lord first touched the emotions of the seeking one. “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! / ...Draw me; we will run after you.” The Lord touched her emotions, and she began to love Him, even though she was as strong as a mare. Then, as she came into the presence of the Lord and began to appreciate the Lord’s sweetness and beauty, she was transformed by the renewing of her mind. Her perceptions and her concepts were changed. The Lord first touched her emotions; then He renewed her mind. But this is not all. She still had a strong will. Her emotions were touched, and her mind had been transformed, but her will was still strong. It took a much longer time for the Lord to deal with her will. But eventually, her will became the locks as a flock of goats feeding on Mount Gilead. This was the complete subduing of her will by the cross. Then, in resurrection, her will became as strong as the tower of David to be the arsenal for God.
It was by dealing with the emotion, the mind, and the will that the Lord was able to work Himself into His seeking one. If we take this merely as a teaching, it will mean nothing to us. By His mercy we must realize that the Lord is speaking to us today. We must begin to love Him with our emotions. Then we will seek Him, find Him, and have sweet fellowship with Him. In the fellowship we will have the appreciation and the enjoyment of Him. Then something of the Lord will get into us to permeate us. This permeating work will transform us and subdue our will. Then we will be willing to let the Lord do whatever He wants. He will put us into the “red ink,” and we will be permeated and perfumed. We will be saturated until we have lost our character, our personality, and our will in Him. Then we will really have Him as our person.
A mare has an exceedingly strong personality, but the palanquin does not have any personality of its own, though it does have a personality. Its personality is just the living person it carries. This is why the Lord Jesus wants to work Himself into us to such an extent.
After reading these things, we must not try to work them out ourselves. We should not attempt to change our mind or subdue our will. We simply cannot do it. There is only one way to change our mind: by appreciating the Lord. The more we appreciate Him, the more our concept will be changed. Formerly, the movies and all the worldly things seemed attractive to us. Though they have not changed, we simply are not attracted to them anymore. They have not changed, but we have changed. Our concepts have been changed by our appreciation of Jesus. The sweetness and beauty of Jesus have changed our insight. The more we appreciate Him, the more our mind will be changed.
From appreciating the Lord, we must go on to enjoy the Lord. The more we take Him in, the more He will be the permeating element within us. In Him is the myrrh, the frankincense, the clefts of the rock, and the covert of the precipice. All these elements are in His person, and they will be wrought into us until we are transformed and our stubborn will is subdued. The more we feed upon Him and take Him in, the more He will saturate us until our will is completely subdued. This is why the Lord appraised her hair as a flock of goats “that repose on Mount Gilead.” Gilead is a place for feeding the flock. “Shepherd Your people... / The flock of Your inheritance, / ...Let them feed in...Gilead / As in the days of old” (Micah 7:14). “I will bring Israel back to his habitation, / And he will feed on Carmel and Bashan, / And...in Gilead / His soul will be satisfied” (Jer. 50:19). There is no other way that our will can be subdued except by feeding on the Lord.
We must not try to subdue our will by ourselves. We must simply learn to feed upon Christ. We must pray-read His Word in a living way, and we must tell Him, “O Lord Jesus, I love You! I take Your very element into me. I feed upon You as the living Word.” If we will do this, spontaneously the Lord will permeate our being and subdue our will. Our emotion will be touched, our mind transformed, and our will subdued. Then the Lord will have full freedom to saturate us with Himself. We will no longer be a mare but a palanquin and a crown. When anyone asks concerning us, the answer will be that we are simply Christ with the crown. We have been wrought into Jesus, and He has been wrought into us. We are fully one with Him for His move on the earth.
