Week 11 The Experience of Life
LESSON ELEVEN
FELLOWSHIP WITH THE LORD
Hymn 437
Scripture Reading:
S.S. 1:2-4 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine. Your anointing oils have a pleasant fragrance; Your name is like ointment poured forth; Therefore the virgins love you. Draw me; we will run after you – The king has brought me into his chambers – We will be glad and rejoice in you; We will extol your love more than wine. Rightly do they love you.
MAN BEING CREATED WITH A SEEKING HEART FOR GOD
God created us for the accomplishment of His eternal economy in His own image with the intention that we could become Him in life and nature but not in the Godhead. For this purpose He created us with a spirit to receive Him. Many people do not realize that God also created us with a seeking heart for Himself so that He could be our satisfaction.
Man fell away from God, and sin through Satan came in. to frustrate man from receiving God for his satisfaction. Yet the desire for God, the seeking for God, still remains in man’s heart. History tells us that over the past six thousand years many wise, great, philosophical, and thoughtful men have given the same testimony that nothing can fully satisfy man. Regardless of what they could get from the world, what they could attain, or what they could obtain, nothing can satisfy them because within them there is a seeking heart for God (Eccl. 3:11). This is why the wise King Solomon, after his many human experiences, concluded, “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity” (1:2). Everything under the sun is vanity of vanities if one does not have God.
PURSUING CHRIST
Song of Songs is a book in the Bible that tells us how we can be satisfied properly with God. There is no other way except by pursuing after Christ, because Christ is the very embodiment of the Triune God. He is the reality of God. He is God in reality, God’s embodiment, coming to earth to give people the opportunity to receive Him for satisfaction.
Paul told us in Philippians 3 that we have to pursue Christ to gain Him (vv. 12-14) because He is the most excellent way. All things other than Christ are dung (v. 8). Only Christ is excellent. Whatever we obtain or have obtained other than Christ is vanity. Paul says that it is dung. Do you like dung? But today many worldly people are gaining dung day after day. Dung is their food. Solomon says that they are pursuing vanity. Vanity of vanities is what they are eating. That is their food.
In this message our point is that we have to pursue Christ for satisfaction. Song of Songs opens in this way: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!” (l:2a). The seeker longs for kisses, not just one kiss. The most impressive thing about weddings in the Western world is the time of kissing. The bridegroom opens the bride’s veil to kiss her with his own mouth. He does not kiss the ears or the nose of the bride but her mouth. This is the most personal and affectionate thing. Here is a book in the Bible that opens in such a way: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.” This is what it means to pursue Christ.
According to the New Testament, God’s ordained way for man to receive Him in this kind of personal and affectionate way is first to believe in Him. To believe in Him is to receive Him as the divine life into us that we may have an organic union with God in the divine life…This is the first step.
Now that we have received Christ into us, what does God want us to do? Many Christian teachers teach people in the wrong way. They say that after one has believed in Christ, he should do many things. This is wrong. According to the New Testament, after we believe in Christ, after we receive Him as the divine life into us, we have to love Him (see I Cor. 2:9 and note 3—Recovery Version). Paul told us that the Lord’s grace superabounded to him with faith and love in Christ Jesus (I Tim. 1:14). Faith is to receive Christ, and love is to pursue Christ.
In her desire to be kissed with the kisses of His mouth, the seeker goes on to say, “For your love is better than wine” (l:2b). She does not say that His love is as good as wine but that it is better than wine. Wine cheers but Christ’s love cheers us in an unrivaled way. No wine can compare with His unrivaled love. Nothing is so cheering as Christ’s love.
Verse 3 says, “Your anointing oils have a pleasant fragrance; / Your name is like ointment poured forth; / Therefore the virgins love you.” Christ’s name signifies Christ’s person, His being, and Christ is the compound Spirit signified by the anointing ointment in Exodus 30. “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit” (I Cor. 15:45b). This indicates that Christ’s name as His person is the anointing onitment. An ointment is always a compound. Christ is compounded with God, with man, with His death, with the effectiveness of His death, with His resurrection, and with the power of His resurrection. At least these six things are compounded together to be the anointing ointment, signifying Christ in His resurrection as the compound Spirit. If someone says your name, you respond because you are the person of that name. Christ’s charming name, His person, is the all-inclusive, compound Spirit.
His love is attracting. His name is charming, and His person is captivating. He has drawn and captivated millions of His lovers to pursue after Him and is still doing the same today. Therefore, all His lovers would run after Him for their satisfaction. This is why the seeker prays, “Draw me; we will run after you” (S.S. l:4a).
THE NEED FOR A PERSONAL AND AFFECTIONATE RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST
God works in a personal and affectionate way, not in the way of a movement. …We do not want to have a movement in the Lord’s recovery. A person can be moved to join a movement and not have any personal contact with the Lord.
In these days I feel very much that there is a warm, intimate, close affection between me and my God. The seeker said, “Draw me.” She did not say, “Draw us.” Draw me is personal. We want a drawing from the Lord that is His personal and affectionate doing. We want Him to be with us in a personal and affectionate way. All the religions, including Christianity, present a portrait of God which is inaccurate. They portray God merely as great, almighty, sovereign, majestic, and even unapproachable; no one can or even dares to touch God. To say that God is majestic is not wrong, but that is only one attribute of the divine Being. Regardless of how great, sovereign, almighty, and majestic God is, when He wanted to build up His relationship with man He took the personal, affectionate way. He took the way of becoming a man. If the Lord Jesus had come to Peter in a majestic way, Peter would have felt threatened. But He did not come to Peter as the majestic, untouchable God. Instead, He came to Peter as his countryman. Peter was a Galilean, and Jesus was also a Galilean. This is personal and affectionate.
The apostle John could lie on the Lord’s bosom (John 13:23). How personal and affectionate that was! The very God, the very Lord whom we seek, sets up a feast and invites us to feast with Him (Rev. 3:20). We must have such a personal and affectionate contact with Him. If we mail someone a letter, that affects him in a certain way. But if we come to him with a personal visitation and an affectionate contact, that makes a great difference.
Only the face of tears that Peter saw, only the face of glory into which Stephen looked, and only the heart that wept with Mary can keep us away from the idols, the attractions, of this world. The Bible tells us that Jesus wept with Mary (John 11:35). Have you ever heard that God weeps? Many say that Jesus came to express God, but they mainly refer to the miracles He did, not to the tears that He shed.
We all need this kind of personal, affectionate, intimate contact with the Lord every day. This has become my habit. Every morning after rising up I go to my desk and the first thing I say is, “Lord Jesus, I love You.” I am not just a poor man praying to a merciful God, but I am contacting a Savior who is personal and affectionate to me, as I am personal and affectionate to Him. We all need to take heed to what the seeker says: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!” Right away her tone changes: “Your love is better than wine.” This is a personal, intimate prayer. “Draw me; we will run after you.” This is personal and affectionate. We need this kind of personal and affectionate seeking after Him, and we need to build up such a relationship with Him that is so personal and affectionate. (Crystallization-study of Song of Songs, pp. 12-16)
Reference: Crystallization-study of Song of Songs, msg. 1.
