Union And Communion - J. Hudson Taylor (free novel reading sites .txt) 📗
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How much anxiety and care the children of God would be spared if they learned to act in this way! Is it not too common to make the best plans that we can, and to carry them out as best we may, feeling all the while a great burden of responsibility, and earnestly asking the Lord to help us? Whereas if we always let Him be our Instructor in service, and left the responsibility with Him, our strength would not be exhausted with worry and anxiety, but would all be at His disposal, and accomplish His ends.
In the little sister, as yet immature, may we not see the elect of God, given to Christ in God's purpose, but not yet brought into saving relation to Him? And perhaps also those babes in Christ who as yet need feeding with milk and not with meat, but who, with such care, will in due time become experienced believers, fitted for the service of the Lord? Then they will be spoken for, and called into that department of service for which He has prepared them.
The Bridegroom replies:—
We will build upon her battlements of silver;
And if she be a door,
We will inclose her with boards of cedar.
In this reply the Bridegroom sweetly recognizes His oneness with His bride, in the same way as she has shown her conscious oneness with Him. As she says, "What shall we do for our sister?" so He replies, "We will build ... we will inclose," etc. He will not carry out His purposes of grace irrespective of His bride, but will work with and through her. What can be done for this sister, however, will depend upon what she becomes. If she be a wall, built upon the true foundation, strong and stable, she shall be adorned and beautified with battlements of silver; but if unstable and easily moved to and fro like a door, such treatment will be as impossible as unsuitable; she will need to be inclosed with boards of cedar, hedged in with restraints, for her own protection.
The bride rejoicingly responds, "I am a wall"; she knows the foundation on which she is built, there is no "if" in her case; she is conscious of having found favour in the eyes of her Beloved. Naphtali's blessing is hers: she is "satisfied with favour, and full with the blessing of the Lord."
But what is taught by the connection of this happy consciousness with the lines which follow?
He let out the vineyard unto keepers;
Every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver.
My vineyard, which is mine, is before me:
Thou, O Solomon, shalt have the thousand,
And those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred.
The connection is, we believe, one of great importance, teaching us that what she was (by grace) was more important than what she did; and that she did not work in order to earn favour, but being assured of favour, gave her love free scope to show itself in service. The bride knew her relationship to her Lord, and His love to her; and in her determination that He should have the thousand pieces of silver, her concern was that her vineyard should not produce less for her Solomon than His vineyard at Baal-hamon; her vineyard was herself, and she desired for her Lord much fruit. She would see, too, that the keepers of the vineyard, those who were her companions in its culture, and who ministered in word and doctrine, were well rewarded; she would not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn; a full tithe, nay a double tithe, was to be the portion of those who kept the fruit and laboured with her in the vineyard.
How long this happy service continues, and how soon it is to be terminated, we cannot tell; He who calls His servants to dwell in the gardens, and cultivate them for Him—as Adam of old was placed in the paradise of God—alone knows the limit of this service. Sooner or later the rest will come, the burden and heat of the last day will have been borne, the last conflict will be over, and the voice of the Bridegroom will be heard addressing His loved one:—
The companions hearken to thy voice:
Cause Me to hear it.
Thy service among the companions is finished; thou hast fought the good fight, thou hast kept the faith, thou hast finished thy course; henceforth there is laid up for thee the crown of righteousness, and the Bridegroom Himself shall be thine exceeding great reward!
Well may the bride let Him hear her voice, and, springing forth in heart to meet Him, cry:—
And be Thou like to a roe or to a young hart
Upon the mountains of spices!
She no longer asks Him, as in the second section:—
Upon the mountains of Bether [separation].
Very sweet is the presence of our Lord, as by His Spirit He dwells among His people, while they serve Him below; but here there are many thorns in every path, which call for watchful care; and it is meet that now we should suffer with our Lord, in order that we may hereafter be glorified together. The day, however, is soon coming in which He will bring us up out of the earthly gardens and associations to the palace of the great King. There His people "shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."
Surely I come quickly.
Amen; even so, come, Lord Jesus!
APPENDIX THE DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM
They are clearly not the bride, yet they are not far removed from her. They know where the Bridegroom makes His flock to rest at noon; they are charged by the Bridegroom not to stir up nor awaken His love when she rests, abiding in Him; they draw attention to the Bridegroom as with dignity and pomp He comes up from the wilderness; their love-gifts adorn His chariot of state; they are appealed to by the bride for help in finding her Beloved, and, stirred by her impassioned description of His beauty, they desire to seek Him with her; they describe very fully the beauty of the bride, but, on the other hand, we never find them occupied with the person of the Bridegroom; He is not all in all to them; they mind outward and earthly things.
Do they not represent those who, if not actually saved, are very near it; or, if saved, are only half-saved? who are for the present more concerned about the things of this world than the things of God? To advance their own interests, to secure their own comfort, concerns them more than to be in all things pleasing to the Lord. They may form part of that great company spoken of in Rev. vii. 9-17, who come out of the great tribulation, but they will not form part of the 144,000, "the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb" (Rev. xiv. 1-5). They have forgotten the warning of our Lord in Luke xxi. 34-36; and hence they are not "accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man." They have not, with Paul, counted "all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord," and hence they do not "attain unto" that resurrection from among the dead, which Paul felt he might miss, but aimed to attain unto.
We wish to place on record our solemn conviction that not all who are Christians, or think themselves to be such, will attain to that resurrection of which St. Paul speaks in Phil. iii. 11, or will thus meet the Lord in the air. Unto those who by lives of consecration manifest that they are not of the world, but are looking for Him, "He will appear without sin unto salvation."
[1] Loves = endearments, caresses.
[2] The pronoun here and in chapter iii. 5, and viii. 4, should not be "he" as A.V., nor "it" as R.V., but "she."
[3] See note on p. 26.
[4] The Church of Popular Opinion, as pointed out by the Rev. Charles Fox in an address at Keswick, as the Church of Philadelphia is the Church of Brotherly Love.
[5] See note on p. 26.
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