Going On To Perfection

SONG OF SOLOMON 5:2 + 6:9

THE SHULAMITE awakes and speaks (5:2)

I sleep, but my heart is awake;
It is the voice of my beloved!
He knocks, saying,
“Open for me, my sister, my love,
My dove, my perfect one;
For my head is covered with dew,
My locks with the drops of the night.”

THE BELOVED replies (6:9)

My dove, my perfect one,
Is the only one,
The only one of her mother,
The favourite of the one who bore her.
The daughters saw her
And called her blessed,
The queens and the concubines,
And they praised her.

For me, The Song of Solomon (The Song of Songs) is a book that continually speaks afresh to me. Along with John’s Gospel, these are books that I turn to again and again. Both, I believe, take as their inspiration something of the Tabernacle pattern for our walk with God as was given to Moses in the book of Exodus. (Exodus 25-31 and 35-40)

In Song of Solomon that expression My dove, My perfect one is used twice — the first time by The Shulamite as a voice she reports as having heard, meaning that The Holy Spirit spoke to her, and as she represents those of us chosen by Him, born again, and baptised in the Holy Spirit we can be reassured that it is the call to come up higher and go on with Him unto perfection.

The second time, it is The Beloved who speaks. And what this says to me, is that God calls us His dove, His perfect ones at all times, because that is how He sees His chosen. We are already perfect in His sight. He sees the end from the beginning.

In the first passage the Shulamite’s heart — her whole being, her spirit, her soul is awakening to The Beloved, even while her body sleeps. At this point, she hears His voice as in a dream. He knocks…

Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears My voice and opens the door,
I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
[Revelation 3:20]

But then The Beloved repeats His name for The Shulamite maiden — and that repetition, that witnessing, reinforces that this is the name that He has given to His people. This is our new name at the rebirth; this is the new nature that He puts in us by His Holy Spirit, for He can only relate to us if we are like Him. We become the favourite of the one who bore her — the mother church; the Church of Christ Jesus.

My eyes shall be on the faithful of the land,
That they may dwell with me;
He who walks in a perfect way,
He shall serve me.
He who works deceit shall not dwell within my house;
He who tells lies shall not continue in my presence.
Early I will destroy all the wicked of the land,
That I may cut off all the evildoers from the city of the LORD.
[Psalm 101:6-8]

‘Perfect’ here carries the meaning of without blemish, upright, uprightly, whole, sincerely or complete. We are made complete ‘in Him’. Our problem, of course, is that He grants us free will, so that when The Beloved knocks, He May find that we are not receiving visitors. We can go out as well as in to His presence. Pray that we go no more out.

Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.
He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more.
I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God.
And I will write on him My new name.
[Revelation 3:11-12]

MEDITATE ON THESE THINGS…

Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ,
let us go on to perfection,
not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God,
of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead,
and of eternal judgment.
And this we will do if God permits.
[HEBREWS 6:1-3]

FOR ALL THAT YOU’VE DONE I WILL THANK YOU — The Lloyd Family Singers

PRAYER REQUIRES WONDER…

IN THIS MANNER, therefore, pray. How blessed it is to begin at the beginning, spiritual minors, stripped of our rich and verbal devotional language, and impoverished into receptive teachableness. Let our minds, made fertile by reason of genuine humility, receive the ideas our Lord presents in this familiar pattern prayer; receive in wonder and reverence the simple idea of God's personal relationship to us.
Our Father gathers us near Him in the secret place alone with our fears and apprehensions and foolishnesses and aspirations, and He rewards us. When we talk about the fatherhood of God, let us remember that the Lord Jesus is the exclusive way to the Father. That is not an idea to be inferred, but to be received: "No one comes to the Father, except through Me.
[from ‘Christian Discipline Volume 2 by Oswald Chambers]

LISTEN TO THIS MEDITATION HERE…

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COMING NEXT… #524 THE LINES HAVE FALLEN TO ME IN PLEASANT PLACES