Song of Solomon 2:16
"My Beloved is mine, and I am His."
The law is very cut and dry, precise, and clinical. It is not based on affection. Justice is blind to the lawbreaker; it doesn't matter if the lawbreaker is rich or poor, black or white, male or female—there is only retribution. Payment must be made. That is why the letter of the law spells death to all born in the flesh. The law requires their life, from Adam onward, for all the lives of his seed, because none satisfy the payment for his sin. We're all born dead, alienated from the life of God that is in Christ Jesus. "That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12).
Thank God that He determined to love the sinners He chose in Christ before the world began. But how could a Just God love any sinner? By paying the price of their sin with a perfect, righteous, sacrificial death. But none are innocent, none are righteous, so how could He accomplish this? By sending His Son, the God-Man, into this world to live a perfectly obedient life, and then shedding His blood unto death on the cross. "And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Philippians 2:8).
Each of God's elect died and rose in Him as their Substitute. The apostle Paul declared, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." The elect of God are so united with Christ in His person and work that if we are one of those for whom He died, we are His, and He is ours—one with Him; He is our Spouse. He washed us clean by His shed blood unto death, and by His Spirit, we are fed by Him and with Him in His everlasting love. "He brought me to the banqueting house, and His banner over me was Love" (Song of Solomon 2:4).
This is how God's love is revealed in those He, from all eternity, purposed to save by the doing and dying of the Lord Jesus. It is that union with Christ in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension that enables God to be just in loving them as redeemed and justified sinners. Because of Christ, the Substitute, God loves each of His chosen ones with the same love wherewith He loves His Son. The Lord Jesus prayed for His own to the Father: "I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me" (John 17:23).
So we rest in Christ, the Word. He is the Gospel of salvation. His Spirit makes us lie down in Him. "Behold, our bed is green" (Song of Solomon 1:16). "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures" (Psalm 23:2). The Word of God is our bed, our rest. All is accomplished by our Beloved Friend, "... This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend..." (Song of Solomon 5:16). "The Son of Man is come...a Friend of publicans and sinners" (Luke 7:34).
Once awakened, we cannot endure hearing of a "god" void of a just love for His people, or any Scripture that is void of our Beloved One, the Lord Jesus. The Spirit makes us continually aware of our need for His presence with us but also causes us to cry out for Him, our Beloved, to come to us again in refreshing, when we are made to feel that He has withdrawn: "Make haste, my Beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains..." (Song of Solomon 8:14). "He that testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus" (Revelation 22:20).
Comments