THE MARRIAGE OF THE LAMB
(continued)
“Let
us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself
ready. And to her was granted that
she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the
righteousness of saints. And he saith
unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of
the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These
are the true sayings of God” (Rev. 19:7-9).
I
have heard great stress laid upon the fact that the bride of Christ consists of
a body corporate, not of the individual; and
therefore that we cannot, without irreverence and impropriety, personally
experience Jesus Christ as the spiritual Husband of the individual soul. I readily admit the fact, but I demur to the
inference. It should be obvious that the
church, though a body, is made up of individuals;
and it is as an aggregation of individualities,
each containing its own individuality, and not
a unit — in which individuality is sunk and
the individual
absorbed — that the church is to be presented to Christ. We no more believe in the absorption of the individual in the church
than we entertain the notion espoused by the eastern religions of the absorption of all things into God in
such a way that all personal identity is lost.
The
body of Christ is now multiplied by thousands, tens of thousands, yea untold
millions, and it is not just one little
girl that Christ receives but a corporate bride composed of a vast multitude of
individual
members. The point is just this: all
that happens to the corporate body must be
experienced by each member — it is first
and foremost the experience of each member that finally constitutes the
experience of the whole. By way of
example, in school each year you have a graduating class. The “class” is a corporate body, but the corporate expression can only
exist when each member of that body has completed the same courses with essentially the same
grades. Each individual member must have had a like
relationship with the school, the teacher, and the work required. Thus, it is the corresponding experience of
each member that finally constitutes the experience of the whole. In just that way, if I do not know the Christ
personally
as my Bridegroom, it is impossible for me to be a part of that
corporate body which is joined into experiential union with Him. Let us by all means remember that we are to
be perfected in One; but let not this check the outflow of our individual affection to
Him with whom, in some strange way, we are to be thus closely related. The thought of this most intimate
relationship loses all its warmth, and even its reality, when we miss or
eliminate the personal element in it. We
teach the sinner to see in “God so loved the world,” that God loved ME. Surely we can’t be wrong in seeing in “Christ
so loved the church,” that Christ loved ME!
It
is a precious experience when any child of God begins to understand personally
something of the import of these prophetic words: “In that day thou
shalt call me no more Baali (that is,
my lord, master); but thou shalt call
me Ishi (my husband)” (Hos.
2:16). The grammar of that prophecy is
both singular and personal. And there
are moments when His voice seems to sound in our ears, as though we heard Him
say personally to each of us, “Hearken,
O daughter, and consider…forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house;
so shall the King have pleasure in thy beauty: for He is thy Lord God; and
worship thou Him.” He is the Bridegroom
of the corporate bride, but our love and relation to Him is to be as gloriously
personal as though to each of us He had made this revelation of Himself, and to
no other. Let it be the one work of our
lives to fit ourselves for the enjoyment of this wondrously close relationship
with Him. Let all lower affections be
dominated by this one, and all that is unworthy of this be renounced.
We are espoused to Christ! We are
called and chosen and separated to be presented as a chaste virgin to Him! Oh, let us be true to His claims upon us, for
with His own blood He has paid the dowry for us! Let us gladly sacrifice all that keeps us back
from full self-surrender to Him! So
shall the King of glory have pleasure in us, and we shall find our crown of
eternal fulfillment in HIM!
In
our text the
cry is, “…the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself
ready!” This addresses the heart. It is not an historical event. Nor is it merely a future dispensational
event. It is a spiritual experience! The
marriage of the Lamb is that revelation of the Christ that causes us to know
that we are united to Him; it is the
conscious knowledge and the experiential reality. We cannot understand the relationship of the
bride with the Lamb Bridegroom until we know UNION.
We cannot be in that particular concert with Christ which the name bride or
wife expresses until we yield ourselves to be made ONE IN HIM. And that is not something which happens
someday when Jesus comes crashing down through the clouds. Oh, no!
This is a present reality! When I
know that I am united with the Christ I am so identified with His name, His
person, His presence, His life, and His interests that they are paramount with
me. Few know it! A wife is one who has reached maturity, fully
developed in mind and body, her hormones have kicked in, and she has given
herself in a mature relationship completely and unreservedly for her lover; one
who has lost her own name, residence, and self-identity to take his. She has left all to follow him! The result of such a union is described by
the inspired apostle in these words: “…that we should be married to another, even
to HIM who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God”
(Rom. 7:4).
It
was to the church which is His body that Paul
wrote, “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall
be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak
concerning CHRIST AND THE CHURCH” (Eph. 5:31-32). It was also to the saints that Paul addressed these
significant words, “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law
by the body of Christ; that ye should be married
to another, even to HIM…” (Rom.
7:4). Again it was to the elect of the
Lord that Paul
explained, “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to ONE HUSBAND, that I may
present you as a chaste virgin to
CHRIST” (II Cor. 11:2).
In
our consideration of the Bridegroom and the bride we need to remember that
first of all these precious realities are fulfilled within each of us
personally! Christ is not just in some
far-off heaven somewhere; for us He is our life, our reality, and our only hope
of glory; and that hope of glory is neither Christ in heaven nor Christ coming
again — it is CHRIST IN YOU! This is a
phrase of inexhaustible wonder — “Christ in
you, the hope of glory.” “I am
crucified with Christ: nevertheless
I live; yet not I, but CHRIST LIVETH IN ME” (Gal. 2:20). “For He abideth with you, and SHALL BE IN
YOU” (Jn. 14:17). “He shall be IN you.” In these simple words our Lord announces the
wonderful mystery of His indwelling
which was to be the fruit and the crown of His redeeming work. It was for this that man had been
created! It was for this, God’s
incarnation in flesh, that the Spirit had revealed God unto men! It was for this that Jesus had lived and was
about to die. Dwelling in them, He would
prepare them to receive Himself as their true life and identity — as
Bridegroom! We can never understand the deep mystery of the
Bridegroom and the bride until we know that Christ is the Bridegroom and that
Christ lives in us. All who
give godly consideration to these simple truths cannot avoid the conclusion
that the BRIDEGROOM IS WITHIN OURSELVES.
There is deep within the inner
sanctum of each of us a place where the Bridegroom dwells and He comes out of
that place and woos us into intimacy of fellowship and vital union with
Himself! Isn’t it wonderful!
Suppose
someone wants to visit me. He must first
find where I live! If he cannot locate
my home, he will have to forfeit his visit.
Some years ago a precious brother from Kenya,
East Africa was on a mission to the United Nations in New York.
While here in our country he boarded a bus and traveled from New York City to El Paso, Texas
to visit us. He failed, however, to
contact us ahead of time and make the necessary arrangements to see us. When he arrived in El
Paso he was unable to locate us
and had to get back on a bus and make the long journey back to New York. Although there is much talk about Christ
living in us, the vast majority of Christians have absolutely no idea where
it is that He dwells in us! They
are searching, looking for the Christ, and cannot find Him because they do not
know His address. We can never know Christ the
Bridegroom, or union with Him, until first we know where He dwells! A wonderful clue is found in these
words: “The Spirit of God dwelleth in you…and if Christ be in you, the body is dead…but the spirit is life” (Rom. 8:9-10). Roman 8:9 refers without doubt to the Holy
Spirit of God, but verse 10 refers to the human spirit. “The body
is dead…but the spirit is
life.” Of course, the Holy Spirit cannot
be compared with our body. The contrast
is between what is true in OUR BODY and what is true in OUR SPIRIT. If Christ is in us our body (the earth man)
is dead, but our spirit (the new man) is life, quickened and energized by HIS
INDWELLING LIFE!
Ah
— Christ is in us, but where within us is He?
In what part? What is His address? Is He in our brain? Is He in our liver? Is He in our solar plexus? Is He in our bloodstream? It is abundantly clear — Christ today is in
our spirit! There is no need to be vague
like many who say, “Oh, the Lord is in you and the Lord is in me.” The Holy Spirit has definitely revealed that
Christ is in our spirit. “The Lord be
with thy spirit” (II Tim. 4:22). The
preposition “with” is from the Greek sun
which denotes “union.” The Lord is in
union with our spirit! There is a mighty
working taking place within God’s elect — no more to have that duality — our
spirit, His Spirit, but to be so fully merged into one with Him that HIS Spirit
is mine, and MY spirit is swallowed up into His. “There is but ONE SPIRIT,” says the
apostle. And the great truth is that
that one spirit is neither the Holy Spirit nor our spirit — it is His Spirit joined to our spirit — for the testimony
of scripture is irrefutable and
immutable: “He that is joined to the Lord
I-S
O-N-E S-P-I-R-I-T!”
It
is a blessed day for any man when he makes the amazing discovery that Christ
Himself is the Bridegroom; that this Christ is in our spirit; that the
Bridegroom (the Lamb) is thus in our spirit, His place of residence; that the
coming of the Bridegroom is WITHIN! It
should be obvious to every spiritually thinking mind that if the Bridegroom is
within, the bride is likewise to be found within! Marriage is the conjunction to two into
one. When these two enter into union,
they are called one. It is no longer
Miss Jones and Mr. Brown; it is Mr. and Mrs. Brown. There is, therefore, a part of our being
which must be wooed by Christ in our spirit and brought into relationship
and oneness in Him. Bride in Hebrew is kallah meaning “the completed one” or “the perfected one.” It reveals the concept of a woman being
completed once she is married to her husband — and, as Paul so beautifully expresses it, “YE are
complete IN HIM!” In order to identify
this bride within we must understand what part of us it is that must be
completed and perfected. The bride is a
woman, a female. THE BRIDE IS THE FEMALE
PART OF YOU! Your soul is the female part of your being; therefore your soul is the
woman or the bride of the Lamb who is in your spirit. For a clear picture of this truth I now call
your attention to the awe-inspiring words of Adam
and Eve in the garden
of Eden!
The
story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden
is the greatest parable in the Bible. I
do not mean by that that there was no literalness to the garden or to Adam and Eve in it, for
literal things always serve as parables of
spiritual realities! The record of Adam and Eve in the Garden is supremely
important because it explains the real nature of life here on earth. It tells us about ourselves, it portrays in
vivid imagery our true state of being, our testings, our fall and redemption,
and our destiny in God. It is the
blueprint of spiritual anatomy. Once we
thoroughly understand Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden
we then understand the nature of God, the nature of man, and the ground-plan
for the outworking of the purposes of God through the ages. There is one thing about which the Lord’s
people must be perfectly clear. The
Bible is not primarily intended to teach history, or biography, or geography,
or natural science. It is intended to
teach divine principles and spiritual realities!
On
a day in the long ago the inspired apostle
Paul penned
these telling words: “For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have
espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But
I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled
Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the
simplicity that is in Christ” (II Cor. 11:2-3).
In this significant passage Eve in the garden of Eden
is contrasted with two things: the bride
of Christ and the mind. The mind is a function of the soul! In fact, the Greek word psuche is often used interchangeably for
both mind and soul. In a broader sense the
four-fold function of the soul as
revealed in scripture is the mind, the
will, the emotion, and the desire. It was in the soul that Eve was beguiled! It was in her mind, in her will, in her
emotions, and in her desires. The vision
of the bride of Christ pervades the whole of scripture, from Eden onward,
with ever-increasing clearness. Eve, the
mother of the human family, is the first type of this great mystery. Let us not underestimate this remarkable
woman from whom the whole human race has sprung!
In
that ancient shadow Adam stands as a type of the
spirit, Eve is a type of the soul, and the garden
of Eden
serves as a type of the body where both dwell, which Adam was to “dress and keep.” Thus we see our tri-partite being
symbolically portrayed in the Adam-Eve-Garden
story! The Garden was the earth, the
land, the locale; and Adam
and Eve were its inhabitants, in the same way that our spirit and soul are the
inhabitants of the physical body. It is
through our “Eve,” our soulical faculties of mind, will, emotion, and desire,
that we who have been espoused to Christ the Bridegroom in our spirit, can be
“beguiled” and turned from our single and pure devotion to Christ, entering
instead into intimate but illicit
associations with the flesh, and the fleshly systems of the world and religious
Babylon, thus disqualifying ourselves from being presented to Christ as a pure
and holy virgin. Paul speaks of the “simplicity” that is in
Christ; that is how the King James Bible renders it. The Greek word denotes not simplicity but singleness.
A bride is to have a singleness
of eye, of desire, of heart, of love for her husband. Paul
shows that just as Eve was beguiled from her singleness to God and her husband,
so those espoused to Christ can be corrupted in their minds or in their
souls from their singleness to
Christ in our spirit!
“Let
us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready.”
When God created man in His own image he was ONE, not separated in the
beginning into two persons. This reveals
to us the nature of God Himself who is both male and female, both Father and
Mother, both Begetter and Nurturer, both the Propagater of sons and the Mother
Hen who gathers her chicks under her wings (Mat. 23:37). Thus Adam remained until the Lord separated
the feminine from the masculine, making Adam
and Eve, man and woman, to exist separately.
Within the one man’s nature were both masculine and feminine
characteristics, all the possibilities of both male and female, all the
potential of fruit and power, wisdom and love,
strength and nurture. The spiritual man,
being a son of God, possessed that perfect chaste virgin within himself and could have replenished the whole earth with his
kind in God’s image and likeness simply by a word of power!
It
was not the burning self-desire of Adam
that caused Eve to come forth, but the purpose of God! It was God Himself who initiated the whole
process, for the record states, “And the LORD GOD said, It is not good for the man to be alone; I WILL
MAKE him an help meet for him” (Gen.
2:18). Eve was God’s idea! “Meet” in the expression “help meet” is an
old English word meaning “suitable,
fit, proper, corresponding.” The whole flavor of the word
“meet” is to fit, join, agree, be compatible, be in union, be together. No hostility here! No war between the sexes! No men from Mars and no women from Venus! And no division. God made a helper to properly and suitably and equally fit, join, combine, agree, be in
union with, yes, to be ONE with Adam,
and he ONE with her!
When
Eve had been built by the skillful hand of the Creator we read that He “brought
her unto the man” (Gen. 2:22). I cannot
conceive of anything more exquisite and meaningful than that beautiful
type! I say to every soul reading these
lines, Have you been brought to Christ where Christ is? If you do not know union with Christ in your spirit, you will never know union with Him in the sky nor in
any heaven anywhere in all God’s vast universe.
And know this, oh man; you cannot become “spiritual” by any
self-effort! Many seek to be spiritual
by doing something: by prayer,
reading the Word, devotedness, keeping the commandments, paying tithe, doing
good works, keeping the traditions, attending meetings; but spirituality is not
found in any of those things! The only
pathway to spirituality is to be brought by the Spirit to realize union with
Christ! One can only be spirit-ual by union with spirit!
Union! What was Eve’s thought when her eyes first
rested upon Adam? Do you suppose she immediately questioned
within herself if somewhere there might just be another man even more handsome and
desirable than he? Perhaps she should
wait a while? Ah, I doubt not that she
was immediately and completely overwhelmed, truly fell in love at first sight, was at once drawn by irresistible
cords of love and passionate desire to find union
with him!
Let
us meditate deeply upon the soul-bride that Eve reveals to us. I must remind every reader of these lines
that there is an essential
and radical distinction between the spirit and the soul. God is the Father of spirits, but He is the Former or Builder of
souls. “And the rib (Hebrew: side,
chamber), which the Lord God had taken from man, built He a woman…” (Gen. 2:22).
I know not why this has been forgotten by the church world, and I know
not why men claiming to be Christian scholars have never told you that the soul is not the
spirit, and the spirit is not the soul.
It seems to me a remarkable thing, that that which God has so clearly
revealed, the distinction between the soul and the spirit, men have, through
their ignorance and devotion to a false platonic philosophy, been unable to
see. If you read your Bible carefully,
starting with the first chapter of Genesis, you will find that what the apostle
says in the epistle to the Hebrews is true; that the word of God is living and
powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing asunder, separating soul
and spirit. It is not the philosophy of Socrates
or Plato that does this! They confound
soul and spirit, not recognizing any difference. It is not the philosophy of Kant or Hegel or Strauss that does
this! It is not the philosophy of the
Hindu or the Buddhist or the Transcendentalist that does this — but it is the Word of God that separates between soul
and spirit! What a marvelous thing! In the same way that God separated Eve from Adam, the Spirit of God
separates between the soul and the spirit of man.
What
is this thing called spirit? How can we
know the spirit? How can we touch the
spirit? To speak of the body is very
easy, because we can see it and touch it.
To speak of the soul is also not difficult because we can discern it,
feel it, and know it by its functions and actions, such as thinking, reasoning,
determining, being pleased, angry, fearful, seductive, vindictive, sorrowful,
or joyful. But it is not as easy to
understand and speak of the spirit.
Romans
chapter eight speaks of the spirit and gives us a wonderful clue. In verse two the apostle refers to “the spirit of life.” In verse six he says, “to be spiritually minded is life.” In verse ten he adds, “the spirit is life…” In these three statements he shows us that
the spirit is the spirit of life, the spirit is related to life, contains life,
and belongs to life. If we desire to
have true spiritual growth in life we must be able to discern what is the
spirit and what is the soul, and what is spiritual
and what is soulish. Paul
has declared without equivocation, “For we have received, not the spirit of the
world, but the spirit which is of God;
that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God…but the
natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned” (I
Cor. 2:12,14). These inspired words
speak of two classes of men: one is the soulish
man (the Greek words for “natural man” are “soulish man”), and the other is
the spiritual man. This reveals to us the great truth that
man can live by and belong to either of these two distinct realms, the soul or
the spirit. Man can either live by the
soul, thereby becoming a soulish man; or he can live by the spirit, thereby
becoming a spiritual man.
The
soul is our individual
human personality, our natural consciousness, our ego; therefore the soul is
our natural Self. That which is included
in the soul, analytically speaking, is the mind, the will, the emotion, and the
desire — these four parts. The mind is the organ of man’s consciousness
and thinking. It is what we usually
think of as the brain; physiologically it is the brain, but psychologically it
is the mind. It is the dominant aspect
of the soul. Man’s thinking, reasoning,
memorizing, are all functions of the mind in the soul. The will
in the soul is the organ of man’s conscious, deliberate decision making and action as
well as the process of exercising this power or faculty of choice, volition,
judgment, acceptance, rejection, determination, and self-control. These are all functions of the will in man’s
soul. The emotion in the soul is the organ of man’s love, hatred, sorrow,
joy, fear, contentment, etc. Man
rejoices, mourns, is excited or depressed — these are all functions of the
emotion in man’s soul. There are many
people who are emotional, easily stirred to be ecstatic or sad, animated or
depressed. They often deal with matters
by their emotion rather than by knowledge or careful deliberation. The desire in man’s soul is the organ of
man’s wishing
for, longing for, craving, wanting, and coveting of things either tangible or
intangible. The desire in man’s soul is
both his biological and psychological appetite of various kinds. These four parts are present in every man,
for every man possesses the quality of soul.
Regardless
of whether a man is functioning in the mind, the will, the emotion, or his
desire, he is soulish. Every man that
lives only by these natural senses apart
from the spirit, is a soulish man.
Therefore it is very easy to discern whether a man is
soulish! I would be remiss if I did not
point out that the soul can be moved upon to act religiously — and what a fine
act it is able to perform! But forget
not for one moment, precious friend of mine, that in spite of its “religious”
appearance, it is still the soul! The
soul can be taken into a meeting where a religious atmosphere is created by a
man at the podium; with a suave and dynamic personality he directs you to
stand, sing, clap your hands, raise your hands, praise the Lord, say Amen,
etc. Often with peppy choruses, hand
clapping, and rhythm your soul is stirred and takes on the appearance of
spirituality. Now, there is nothing
wrong with standing, clapping, singing, raising the hands and praising the
Lord. The real issue, however, is the source of these things! Are they instigated by the spontaneous
outflow of HIS LIFE IN THE SPIRIT, or are they merely contrived actions of the
soul? If the soul is responding only to
the command of man, there is nothing of the spirit or spiritual about it. I know many people who prefer peppy songs and
clapping because it creates a good feeling.
These often don’t appreciate a slow, worshipful chorus, because this
doesn’t stir their soul. They are not worshipping in spirit and in reality — they
are merely praising the Lord in the soul.
Ah, better that the soul praises the Lord than that it becomes upset or
angry and utters vulgarities! Better
that it sings the songs of Zion,
than the perverted music of the world!
But we do not want to mistake that which is soulish for that which is
spiritual. If none of these “good”
things are motivated from within by the spirit, it is still naught
but the vanity of the flesh!
If
we can recognize what kind of person is soulish, it is not difficult to realize
what kind of person is spiritual. Since
a soulish person lives by the mind, will, emotion, and desire, a spiritual
person is one who does not live by
these. A spiritual person must live
in the spirit, act by the spirit, speak out of the spirit and not the
soul. These allow the spirit, the power
of the inward spiritual mind, will, emotion, and desire of the indwelling
Christ, to be the master and source of all their action and
behavior. The spirit, the living
presence of Christ, in them occupies the pre-eminent position; it is the source of their behavior and the
starting point of their action. The soul
in them is in the position of submission, under the government of the spirit
and controlled by the spirit. They are
not like soulish persons, who let the soul be master in everything; they deny
the pre-eminence of their own mind, will, emotion, and desire. They do not stand, sing, clap, speak, praise,
or do anything simply at the command of man or their own volition; they do any
or all of these things and more only
when the command comes from within, out of the moving of the spirit deep within
themselves. They allow the spirit to BE
LORD in them! They allow the spirit to
direct their whole being so that they become the expression of the spirit. Whenever they encounter a situation they do
not draw from their mind, will, emotion, or desire to deal with it; rather they
draw from the divine wisdom
and power in their spirit first to understand and comprehend it, seeking first
in the spirit for the Lord’s mind and purpose in the matter. THESE ARE SPIRITUAL, living by the life of
the spirit, and the soul is but a vehicle of expression for the spirit. Praise God!
It is the ONE SPIRIT that becomes the Bridegroom within which ultimately
is fully joined to the bride-soul within — the spirit becomes the master of the
soul and receives the soul into union with itself. This is the marriage of the Lamb and His wife within ourselves — and that is
the mystery!
The
allegory of lover and beloved, bride and groom, marriage and union, gives to us
the highest example of the oneness which
we desire to share with Christ, which we seek within ourselves, the union of our soul with our
spirit. We are weary of the sense of
duality and separation! We are
frustrated with the unending warfare between the flesh and the spirit! We are tired of speaking in tongues one
minute and flying off the handle the next!
From the time we were awakened to Christ in our spirit we have struggled
with this dualness — our mind often pulled in the direction of the flesh, while
yet our soul truly yearns for that
life from above which alone would satisfy.
Thank God! The spirit of Christ
within is gaining the ascendancy as He woos the soul and the soul becomes more
and more subdued. But the prayer
remains, “that they all may be ONE…”
Long
millenniums ago the aged prophet-king of Israel articulated the deepest cry
of the soul-bride for her Beloved, saying, “As the hart panteth after the water
brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul
thirsteth for God, for the living God…” (Ps. 42:1-2). As a woman yearns for union with her husband,
so the soul longs for union with Christ.
The natural mind cannot comprehend what fearful loss befell the man in Eden
when the woman was severed from him. All
the female qualities of tenderness, patience, long-suffering, intuition,
nurturing, gentleness, submissiveness, and succor were separated from his bosom
and embodied in Eve. But consider also
what the woman lost in strength, wisdom,
courage, bravery, energy, stamina, and much more. Nature has created the fundamental urge of every human being
for re-union with its counterpart — to find itself again in WHOLENESS.
This complement of the sexes one with the other, and the need for union
to find wholeness and experience fulfillment — and the ecstasy that brings — is
the greatest proof that the Genesis record of how the woman was taken out of
the man is absolutely true and reliable!
Just as there is the natural drive for union with the opposite sex,
there is also within the soul the intense thirsting for union with God! The truth is, this urge exists not only within the soul — it is
just as powerful in the spirit! This is
the meaning of the mystery of “the way of a man with a maid,” the mystery that
every human being, male and female, goes through a “mating season.” We call it dating, courtship, and
engagement! In the natural, it is the
man who courts the woman and is the aggressor.
It is most often the boy who chases the girl! The bride of Christ (the soul) has now
entered a great “mating season” of reunion with God. In His appointed times the Christ within our
spirit initiates the courting in His own subtle yet divine way as He woos the
soul, drawing our desires and affections unto Himself. There is to be a unification within, so that
all our soul realm is swallowed up into
the life of the indwelling
spirit of Christ, bringing us eventually into the personal experience of THE
MARRIAGE SUPPER OF THE LAMB!
Nowhere
is this beautiful truth presented more clearly and powerfully than in the Song
of Solomon. Nowhere in scripture does the unspiritual mind tread upon ground
more mysterious and incomprehensible as in this book, while the saintliest men
and women of the ages have found it a source of pure and exquisite delight. The story is written as a dramatic play
having six distinct scenes. Hear now a
sample of the interplay between the Bridegroom and His bride…
“My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise
up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better
than wine” (S. of S. 2:10; 1:2).
“Behold, thou art fair, my love: behold,
thou art fair…thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast
ravished my heart…how fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better
is thy love than wine!” (S. of S. 4:1,9,10).
In
the Song of Solomon you have two key symbols: a male and a female. And it is a story that depicts the way by
which the two are brought to each other in the union of love. What is significant for us to understand is
that the story is as important for her as it is for him. The young maiden, the Shulamite, is a type of
many things — not the least of which is that this story is a picture of heaven
being joined to earth. It is also a
picture of Yahweh and Israel
under the Old Covenant. It is furthermore a picture of
Christ and the church. And most
importantly for us today, on the individual
plane, it is a picture of how the spirit is wedding your soul. And why is that important? Because the soul is what you are in your
human consciousness. The soul is more
than something you have, the soul is you in
all your earthly identity. When God breathed into Adam the breath of life, man became a living soul. When that fact is repeated in the New
Testament the term “living soul” is expressed in the Greek as zoe psuche.
Zoe is the word always used in the New Testament for the divine,
incorruptible life of God. Psuche,
on the other hand, is the word for the human soul. The great truth the Holy Spirit would make
real to us here is just this — man is
both divine and human, zoe and psuche, spirit and soul — truly a LIVING
SOUL! There can’t be anything more
outstanding than being a living soul!
The story of the Song of Solomon is
the story of how she, the soul, comes
to know Him, the spirit, and how He comes to know her. Few of the Lord’s
people have this kind of experience with God!
We have a religious experience where we learn of God and worship God
along with others in the group in an external kind of way. THAT’S NOT THE SONG OF SOLOMON! Solomon’s Song bespeaks a personal and intimate encounter.
Solomon’s Song is a personal awakening and personal journey into
God. And the thing we are awakening to
is not God out there someplace, but God in you, one with your soul, joined as
one spirit, God in you as you! We must awaken to the value that God is in
us, and God in us is part of us. You can
never truly
serve someone out of obligation — but out of love and respect you can
serve. You cannot serve anybody out of
laws. God does not want you to serve Him
faithfully out of obligation — He desires you to rise to your true nature,
dignity, and stature. He wants you to
become equal to Him so He will have a counterpart, a help meet, a help equal to
Him — a bride! Can you not see
the mystery? To accomplish this God has
devised a very special plan that revolves around His firstborn Son, Jesus the
Christ. That plan is revealed again and
again through the various dynamics of scripture, but ultimately it is no more
beautifully portrayed anywhere than in the mystery of this divine romance
between the “Shulamite” and her “Beloved.”
For in this drama we have a clear representation of how the invisible,
holy God is pursuing us, awakening us, and wooing us to Himself by bringing us
into His own high places where we may experience Him as He is.
The Song of Solomon begins for you
when you find your personal love for God not merely as Saviour, Healer,
Baptizer, and Blesser, but as the Lover of your soul, your Beloved, your
Bridegroom. The Song of Solomon begins for you when you have
experienced Christ enough to know that’s
what I want to explore and experience in the most personal, intimate, complete, and powerful way!
“One thing have I desired
of the Lord, that will I seek after…that I may dwell in the house of the
Lord…to behold the beauty of the Lord…when
Thou saidest, Seek ye my face; my heart
said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord will I seek” (Ps. 27:4,8). You aren’t in the Song of Solomon until you have zeroed in on THE
ONE. If you’re still skipping about from
revival to revival, from preacher to preacher, from movement to movement, from
group to group, from church to church looking for “the One” — that’s not the
Song! But the day will come when you,
too, will exclaim, “Oh! the Song of Songs! Let
Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth: for Thy love is better than wine — I’ve
found Him! Now that I’ve found Him I
can’t live without Him — I want Him!” I
don’t know where you are today, my friend, but He’s calling you to come out of
that place and “Rise up, my love, my fair
one, and come away with me!” Oh,
yes!
Do you know what the Song of Solomon
is all about? It is called “The Song of
Songs, which is Solomon’s.” Just as the
“holy of holies” was the holiest of
all places, just as the “heaven of
heavens” is the highest heaven of all the heavens, so the “Song of Songs” is above and beyond all the
songs that have ever poured from the human heart and human lips. This is the Song that is above all other
songs, a Song sent down from the courts of heaven, from the throne of God and
of the Lamb, a strain from the celestial choir.
“Song” in the symbology of scripture means “a message.” So the Song of Songs is the Message of
Messages, the Word of Words, indeed, the Revelation of Revelations! Yet, I could teach you every single verse in
this Song and if your soul is not awakened you would miss the point. The awakening of the soul is your most
precious experience in life! The only
time the Song of Songs can become the Message of Messages is in your heart of hearts. “The voice of my Beloved! behold, He
cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills” (S. of S. 2:8).
Ah, the voice of my Beloved upon the
mountains and upon the hills, out of the high places of God in the spirit! “My Beloved is like a roe or a young hart”
(S. of S. 2:9). He is like a warrior,
powerful, quick, strong, fast, and furious. The voice was leaping, the voice
was skipping, experiences were occurring, remembrances of previous blessings
and dealings, of past revelations and unfoldings of Himself, the voice of the
Lord coming and breaking
through — ah, and suddenly she hears a new sound, a fresh word, “My
beloved spake, and said unto me…” As
you learn to remember your experiences in God, with all His divine
interventions in your life, and the levels of growth and development He has led
you through, the voice of the Lord will come leaping and skipping upon the
hills, and suddenly the voice of the Beloved will speak, and say, “Rise
up my love, my fair one, and come away!”
Have you reached a plateau, have you been in a place where nothing
much is happening in your experience?
The word of the Lord is for you
today, “Come away my love, come on…I want to lift you up, I want to take you
away, I want to bring you into new and greater and higher dimensions in
me!” Release yourself, trust the word of
God, and take a journey. For those of us
who have walked with God for a while the voice of the Lord still comes leaping
upon the mountains and skipping upon the hills, entreating, “Come
away, my love!”
“My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up my
love, my fair one, and come away. For
lo, the winter is past, the rain is over
and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is
come…” The winter is past, the
season when the heavens appeared as brass and the voice of the Lord seemed a
million miles away, is ending, the dark ages are over, and a new season has
dawned. Sure, you have problems and face
challenges and difficulties, but the real winter is past, the real night of darkness
when you could not sense His presence or His unfailing love, is gone, and His
love has appeared and remains and abides still and shall shine brighter and
brighter with radiant beauty unto the ages of the ages in a people whom He has
called unto Himself, unto union with Him in the high places of His Spirit; yes,
rise up and come away, for the winter is truly past, saith the Lord!
“The rain is over and gone…” The seasons of showers of blessings have
ended, and the great “Latter Rain” of the Spirit has also come to an end. Looking back at the “glory days” of the great
movings of the Spirit of the Lord, there is no need to mourn their departure,
nor any need to pray, “Lord, do it again!” because God is not going to repeat
the former visitations — THE RAIN IS OVER AND GONE. “The flowers appear on the earth.” Don’t you see the flowers appearing? There have been flowers for ages and
ages. Peter the apostle was a flower. Paul
was a flower. All through history the
flowers do appear — these new manifestations of His life, these fresh forms of
His beauty, these pristine expressions
of the indwelling
Christ do appear. His Spirit, His life is in the earth, and now
His voice is heard, saying, “Rise up my love and come away, for lo, the winter
is past, the rain is over and gone: the
flowers appear on the earth!” We
have seen flowers appear, we have seen saints of the most high, we have seen
the goodness of God, we have beheld the beauty of the Lord, He has shined the
glory of His grace and power through many vessels down through the ages, but
now the winter is past, the seasons of refreshing have gone, the voice of the
Lord is heard anew from out of the high places
of the spirit, the virgin bride is called to arise and ascend into the
deepest and fullest union with her Beloved, proclaiming that this marriage of
the Lamb unfolds THE SEASON OF THE FLOWERS; the earth shall break forth with
beauty and glory everywhere as the glorious
company of God’s sons appear in the earth! Oh, yes!
The sons of God are the flowers appearing on the earth, appearing
out of our union with Christ! Great is
the mystery!
The following words from Joyce
Morris give precious insight into God’s great purpose in our union with the
Lamb.
She writes, “The Father has shown me
in glimpses that He has an order in which the marriage of the Lamb must take
place. He also spoke very clearly and
said, ‘My sons must become the
Lamb.’ To become the Lamb, you must
first marry and have a union with the Lamb!
As God swallows up your soul to where all that is left is Him, you
become the Lamb because you are one. In order for you to become the Lamb, you
must also eat ALL
the parts of the Lamb. Just as with Israel before leaving Egypt, they had to consume the
whole lamb and nothing could remain uneaten.
You have to eat the hind parts.
You have to eat the head. You
have to eat the inward parts. You have
to eat all the uncomely parts of the Lamb.
In other words, you have to eat
the Word, and the Word is the Lamb!
“John 1:14 says, ‘And the Word was
made flesh and dwelt among us…’ Then in
chapter six we read, ‘Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man,
and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.
Whosoever eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and
I will raise him up at the last day. For
my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink
indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my
blood, dwelleth in me, and I in
him. As the living Father hath sent me,
and I live by my Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is the bread
which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever…it is the spirit
that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: THE WORDS THAT I SPEAK UNTO YOU,
THEY ARE SPIRIT, AND THEY ARE LIFE.’
“‘These are they which follow the Lamb
whithersoever He goeth…’ (Rev. 14:4). In
other words, THEY LIVE BY THE WORD! But
there are many parts of the Word that your flesh doesn’t want to eat — so your
self-will pops up its head and says, ‘Well, that part is not for me. I don’t need to walk that out. That part isn’t for me, it’s for that person
over there — look at what they’re doing.
I don’t have to eat that. I can
do what I want, say what I want, and think what I want. Nobody is going to tell me what I can or can’t
do. I don’t want to love that
person. I don’t want to forgive that
person. God, I’ll give you this part of
my life, but I want to keep that part for myself.’ The reason so many parts of the Word are
uncomely and displeasing to the flesh, is because if you eat and digest those
parts of the Word, then your soul will
have to change and die out to its self-will!
The more you eat of the Lamb, the more your soul will be swallowed
up. And when God has swallowed up
everything in you that is not like Him, you
will have become the Lamb. You will
be totally one! You will have entered
into a place in Him where you will go
out no more, and He will be all-in-all in every area of your life. There will be no more temple within, because God
will have filled the whole house, ‘…for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are
the temple of it.’
“The marriage of the Lamb is all
about God’s sons (and eventually all creation) becoming the Lamb, or taking on
the nature of the Lamb through union with Christ. It is all about two becoming one, and as you
continue to go deeper and deeper in your relationship with Christ — your union
is producing a Son. As you walk in
oneness with the Lamb, He is causing you to BECOME THE LAMB. In Isaiah 4:2 we read, ‘In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and
glorious.’ Why shall the branch be
beautiful and glorious? Because the
branch abides in the vine and from their union they bear the nature of
God! The branch has been thoroughly
purged, or pruned, and now yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness. In this way the bride of the Lamb has been
clothed in the glory of the Son. She has
been arrayed in fine linen, clean and white.
She has put on the new man which is
Christ and has come into the nature of the Lamb! This is the way it is when you are married to
the Lord! When you keep your
relationship with Him first, and take time each day to go within and commune with Him, people actually see the glory of the
Lord upon you!” — end quote.
It is a great blessing to our hearts
to understand the true order of union in
the kingdom of God. “God created man in His own image, in the
image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
And God blessed them, and
God said unto them, Be fruitful and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue
it; and have dominion over every
living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Gen. 1:27-28). My reader will observe the change from “him”
to “them.” We are not presented with the
actual fact of the formation of the woman until chapter two; but even here we
find God blessing “them,” and giving “them” JOINTLY THE POSITION OF UNIVERSAL
GOVERNMENT. All the inferior orders of
creation were set under their JOINT DOMINION.
As Andrew Jukes has somewhere pointed out, Eve received all her
blessings in Adam:
in him, too, she got her dignity and position and power. Though not yet called into her individual identity, she
was, in the purpose of God, looked at as part of the man. Universal dominion was not given to the male
characteristics of Adam
alone; it was not said, “let him have
dominion,” but “let them have
dominion!” There was no other creature so near to Adam and Eve, because no other creature was part of himself. What affection Eve had for Adam!
What nearness she enjoyed! What
intimacy of communion! What full
participation in his thoughts and in all his powers! In all his dignity, and in all his glory, wisdom, and authority,
she was entirely one! He did not rule over her, but with her. He was lord of the whole creation, and she
was ONE WITH HIM! They were the king and
queen of the universe!
There is neither time nor space to
consider the myriad ghastly consequences of the fall of man, but I would draw
your attention to one disastrous result.
The curses reaped caused the
inequality between the sexes so prominent in the human family. “Unto the woman He said…thy desire shall be
(subject to) thy husband, and he shall rule
over thee” (Gen. 3:16). Can we not
see by this that the headship of man over woman was not God’s intention for
them, but is an integral part of the curse
of sin and death! The primeval
beauty and equality of man and woman in the garden of Eden
disappeared in their sense of separation. Strife, guilt, shame, discord, competition,
and pain took over — the way of the flesh held sway! This bespeaks of the separation of soul and spirit within ourselves, making every man indeed bi-polar! And this is the re-union God is effecting
through redemption and restoration in the experience of every son of God! The wonderful goal is not just our mind, our
will, our emotions, and our desires submitted to Christ in our Spirit,
but for our mind, our will, our emotions, and our desires to be so MADE ONE IN
HIM until there is only ONE MIND, ONE WILL, ONE
EMOTION, ONE DESIRE — the marriage union of the Lamb and His wife restoring one new creature — Christ and us,
spirit and soul — UNITED IN ONE! It is not His mind “controlling” our mind, but just ONE NEW MIND! It is more than a “fill me” with more of God,
but a being swallowed up into Him, that henceforth it is only the GOD-MAN!
This is perfect man, the image of God, male and female, spirit and
soul dwelling in unity and oneness in the Garden of a redeemed body, united in
one, given dominion over all things. “Let us be glad and rejoice…for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and
His wife hath made herself ready.”
Oh, the mystery of it!
To
be continued… J. PRESTON EBY
