2025-01-22A
THE GROOM CONTINUES TO PRAISE HIS BRIDE’S BEAUTY.
THE GROOM: 9 You have stolen my heart, my sister-bride, you have stolen my heart with one gleam of your eyes, with one chain of your necklace.
To steal, is to take another person’s property secretly, without his permission, without legal right and with the intention of not returning it. A thief may distract the attention of an owner of a cellphone by striking up a conversation and, while conversing, stealthily pocket his cell phone from his desk. This is more or less what the Groom “accuses” the Bride of: “Hey, Girl, while you were looking into My eyes and waving your necklace in front of me, you stole My heart! And now that you have it, of course, I will never see it again!”
How shocking: that the all-knowing Son of God’s most precious possession, his heart, could be stolen by a mere human being and He would just raise up his hands and accept the injustice. What was it that had captured his attention so completely?
Well, first of all, certainly the love and reverence for Him that shone from his Bride’s eyes:
…delight yourself in the LORD; and He will … . (Psa 37:4a).
When your contact with Him is more enjoyable, more pleasurable to you than anything else you can think of: a seven-layer cake, each layer different from the other; apple pie with flavored ice cream dripping from it; a flight to Mars and back with Elon Musk’s newest spacecraft; walking barefoot across the ocean; soaring like an eagle over the highest mountains, … if you enjoy Him more than you would enjoy anything like that, then you steal his heart with one glance of your eyes because then his heart will be safe in your hands.
Secondly, there is also the golden necklace that you swing before Him. And what is this? In 1Pet 3:3-5 we read of such a golden necklace:
Your adornment should not be external: braiding the hair and wearing gold jewelry or putting on clothes, 4 but the hidden person of the heart in the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God . 5 For in this way, too, the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, submitting to their own husbands, as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. And you have become his children if you do what is right and do not fear any terror. (Emphasis added.)
Although this text applies primarily to women in an earthly marriage, the precious truth it contains is meant for each and every one of us. Let those words sink deep into our hearts: a gentle and quiet spirit, submission , obedience. These are necklaces of pure gold. They are expensive, very expensive. We buy them by going on our knees and washing the feet of those who sit at table or recline sideways, chatting and not paying attention to the servant down below. It is to that lowly place that Jesus stoops to drape the golden necklace onto us—the work of art piece of heavenly jewelry the Holy Spirit Himself prepared for us. In these the Father, the Son, and Spirit see their own handiwork in us.
THE GROOM: 10 How pure is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine! The smell of your perfumes is better than all spices! 11 Your lips drip with honey, my bride! Honey and milk are under your tongue! The smell of your garments is like the smell of Lebanon! 12 My sister, my bride, is a garden enclosed, a spring enclosed, a fountain sealed.
Regarding the physical bride: her love is pure, it is not lust-driven. It is love from heart to heart, not from body to body; it is love that puts her groom as a total person first in everything; puts his interests above hers; this continues year by year; it does not fade like lust. In fact, in verses 9 to 12 the word “sister bride” appears three times. Her love is like that of a sister to a brother.
Physical intercourse is excluded for the time being. They are only engaged, not married. The later carnal intercourse will be the result of the present spiritual bond, not the other way round. She is a “closed garden, a closed spring, a sealed fountain”. She guards her virginity with great care. She guards it for her bridegroom. They guard it together for their wedding day.
What has just been said about the physical bride, can equally be applied to the relationship between Jesus and his spiritual Bride. “Sister bride” may also allude to the incarnation of Jesus through which we in our humanity, are his brother or sister.
However, it may rather indicate the quality or content of their relationship: it is spotlessly pure. Without detracting from the contextual meaning of Rev. 14:4,5, we can also see the connection with the text under discussion:
These are they which have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins; these are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth; these were bought from among men, as firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God.
We also think of a text like James 3:17:
But the wisdom from above is first pure , then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and without hypocrisy. (Emphasis added by author.)
Let’s move on to verse 11. Here we are talking about milk and honey. Canaan, the promised land, was presented to Israel as a land flowing with milk and honey (Ex3:8). To them it was the symbol of a dream land; the best there was.
Honey is sweet and healing, and milk is nourishing for young and old. Both are God’s thoughts, his creations, not man’s ideas or artificially manufactured substitutes. He makes milk from specially adapted glands, stores it, and makes it available to man and beast, when and where needed. To produce honey, He uses hundreds of tiny bees that must fly many kilometers to find the right pollen, collect it in one hive, and convert it into yellow, sweet, shiny, honey syrup – also something that man cannot do. We can only take the rich combs from the hives, fan the warm honey into a dish, and carry it home. When Jonathan was faint after a fierce battle, he stretched out his staff, dipped it into honeycomb, put it to his mouth, and his eyes sparkled with delight (1 Sam 14:27).
Such are the Bride’s words: gathered from a multitude of beautiful studies of His Word and by listening to the teaching of His Bible studying messengers. Over a long period of time she gathered these and processed them into useful, healing, comforting, edifying words with which she delights her Bridegroom and refeshes her listeners. The Spirit of God who equipped her Bridegroom after his humanity for the task He had to accomplish on earth also lives and works in her:
The Lord GOD has given me a trained tongue, that I should know how to sustain the weary with a word; He wakens morning by morning, He wakens my ear to hear like the learned. (Isa 50:4)
How wonderfully a glass of cool spiritual milk of words can refresh the weary spiritual traveler on his earthly journey to eternity and make his steps brisk and cheerful again. All this is an operation of the Spirit of God to which man can add nothing.
THE BRIDEGROOM: 13 Your streams are a garden of pomegranates with precious fruits, henna flowers with spikenard, 14 spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all kinds of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all kinds of precious spices. 15 You are a fountain of gardens, a well of living water, flowing from Lebanon.
Let us take a look at Eden, the first Garden God himself planted:
And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it was divided and became four heads. (Gen 2:10)
Usually, the streams that flow from higher mountainous regions gather into streams that merge again to form a river, but in Eden it was the other way round: God first gave a river (possibly from a powerful spring) and caused it to divide into streams that irrigated the entire garden. This depicts Him as the Source and we are the channels through which He irrigates His gardens.
By the water that irrigates every corner of her life, the Bride created a park, not for her own enjoyment but for her Bridegroom to stroll around in, admire the lovely plants and fruits like the life-giving pomegranate, and enjoy the most exotic scents.
We will stop for a moment at the “Garden of Pomegranates”. This fruit was very much sought after in Israel from early times. When Joshua’s spies returned from Canaan, this was one of the examples of fruit they brought with them as proof of the fertility and richness of the land (Num 13:23). We also read that Aaron’s garment was hemmed with bells and golden images of pomegranates (Ex 28:34). In and around the temple there were also hundreds of such images of pomegranates. The pomegranate was therefore a symbol of life and health for the people of that time.
What do modern dieticians say about it? “Pomegranates are low in calories and fat but rich in antioxidants, fiber and a variety of vitamins and minerals. They may even counter cancer, increase endurance during exercise and fight harmful germs .” We cannot confirm or deny this statement, but it at least explains why earlier generations held it in such high regard and Solomon mentioned it several times in his Song. That brings us to the importance of this verse: The Bride planted a whole PARK or GARDEN of pomegranate trees/bushes/shrubs for her Groom! He of course inspired her to do so because:
… I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10).
A park, a heart, abounding in supernatural Life!
And now we walk with the Two/two of them through their love park of perfume. Can you identify and distinguish the scents of the plants mentioned here; namely the scent of spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all kinds of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, and also all kinds of other precious spices? No? Neither can I. Perhaps one here and there. Some readers of Scripture may have even less knowledge of this. Why then did the Lord allow the wise Solomon to insert the names of all these strange plants into Scripture, when they mean nothing to us?
Here is a possible reason: He wants us to realize that the spiritual beauty He wants to grow in our garden is beyond all understanding. Even the glory of a single spiritual plant is so breathtaking that we cannot comprehend it! For example, just think of the fruit of peace in the midst of tremendous trial:
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:7) .
How much less can we comprehend the combined glory of all the spiritual plants that the heavens can root in your heart.
We think, for example, of Paul and Silas, with their backs ripped open and their feet in stocks, lying in the pitch darkness of the Philippian jail awaiting their next day’s further trial. But at midnight the wind of God’s Spirit began to blow through their park and spread the sweet fragrance of their hymns to every cell. The effect it had on the Heavenly Bridegroom was so great that He shook the building until the doors swung open, the stocks fell off the prisoners’ feet, and the jailer was so seized with emotion that he also surrendered his heart as a garden to the Son of God (Acts 16:19-34).
Then, of course, there was also the spiritual pomegranate garden of Stephen, which stretched from the temple in Jerusalem to outside the walls of the city. There, the sweet fragrance of his powerful preaching drove the Jewish leaders to a frenzy, so that they condemned him to death and stoned him. But when the stones rained down on him, his Bridegroom opened the heavens so that he saw Him standing at the right hand of His Father. This opened up his heart so much the more that the Holy Spirit could sweep through him and spread the sweet fragrance of forgiveness by praying for his murderers: Lord, do not hold this sin against them! (Acts 7:60). With these words, he fell asleep. Thus he entered into complete, eternal union with his Bridegroom.
And so the sweet fragrance of martyrs’ sacrifices continued throughout the ages to refresh the Bridegroom. These are sacrifices that most of us will never make, and therefore we cannot describe their fragrance (the experience of the martyr) in words; therefore spices are mentioned with which we are not familiar. The honour of offering that sweet fragrance to the Bridegroom is only for those for whom He has destined it. It could be you or me, but we will only know when the moment for it arrives.
THE BRIDE: 16 Awake, north wind, and come, south wind, blow through my garden, let its spices flow forth! Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat of its choice fruits.
After the Bridegroom had spoken at length, embroidering on the loveliness of his Bride’s garden, she responds with an exclamation of prayer to the Spirit of God to blow more strongly and from all sides through her garden so that its fragrance would go forth and attract her beloved to her garden, which she had dedicated to Him.
We are talking about the movement of the Holy Spirit. After forty days of prayer, the mighty rush of the Wind of God’s Spirit blew through the upper room and brought completely new life and direction to the lives of those present and of the people of Jerusalem (Acts 2). So powerful was the fragrance that emanated from there, that a multitude flocked to it and the news of the supernatural working of God spread like wildfire through Jerusalem and from there throughout the world. The slumbering embers in the hearts of thousands of believers flared up and the sweet fragrance of the Good News of Salvation for humanity was eagerly inhaled by many.
Where the Spirit is, there is movement and there is life. When the Spirit of God began to hover over the dark waters of the earth, everything was ready for the birth of a new world; then the Bridegroom could cry out, “Let there be light!” and there was light, and the creative process gained momentum (Gen1:2,3).
When the Jewish-born disciples wanted to appropriate the Messiah for themselves, the Spirit of God lowered a sheet with unclean animals down to Peter, who was sitting on the roof praying, and drove him out to take the Message to the house of the pagan Nicodemus.
As the Christians gathered comfortably in their rapidly growing, prosperous congregation in Antioch, the Spirit came and blew in their midst, carrying Paul and Barnabas away to the waiting heathen fields of Europe.
When the Spirit stops blowing and we keep the delicious aromas of Salvation and the new life in Christ just to ourselves, our little family, circle, church, cultural group, we quickly stagnate. Pollen, fragrance and water are meant to spread. Are you spreading? When was the last time there was a powerful outpouring of the Word from you, from your midst, to new fields?
The fountain of Living water God opened in your garden must, as verse 15 says, be a fountain for many other gardens. It must be a well of living water; a well dug deeply, opening up a mighty vein thrusting water up above the surface, causing streams to cascade down to lower-lying, thirsty gardens.
The Bride’s motto should always be: “I am here to give: firstly to my Bridegroom and then to the community, the multitudes all around my garden”.
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