New Life Worship Ministries

Meditations on Solomon's Song of Songs by Char Scott

Summary | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | Index

The Ravished Heart of the Heavenly Bridegroom

by Char Scott

As we continue our study of the Song of Songs, we have seen how the Bridegroom, who represents the Lord, views the maiden as she responds to Him in obedience, no longer hindered by her fear. She has seen that she can completely trust Him, and it sets her free to follow Him in total abandonment. She is taking her place as His partner, as both a lover of God and a worshiping warrior. For the first time in the Song, He refers to her as His bride. Now Jesus begins to declare to her how He feels about her, to express the burning passion of His own heart for His beloved. He reveals how much He enjoys and desires her. Then He affirms her as a flourishing garden, which speaks of her godly life and her fruitful ministry. Finally she prays for His intervention in her life.

Let’s read together Song of Songs 4:9-5:1. “You have ravished My heart, My sister, My bride; you have ravished My heart with a single glance of your eyes, with one link of your necklace. How beautiful is your love, My sister, My bride! How much better than wine is your love, and the scent of your perfumes than all kinds of spices! Your lips, My bride, drip honey; honey and milk are under your tongue; and the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. A garden enclosed is My sister, My bride, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits, fragrant henna with spikenard, spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all the finest spices. You are a garden spring, a well of living water, and streams flowing from Lebanon. Awake, O north wind, and come, O south; Blow upon my garden that its spices may flow out. Let my Beloved come into His garden and eat its choice fruits! I have come into My garden, My sister, My bride; I have gathered my myrrh along with my spice. I have eaten My honeycomb with My honey; I have drunk My wine and My milk. Eat, friends; drink and imbibe deeply, O beloved ones.”

Jesus reveals His passion for His bride with this one phrase, “You have ravished My heart!” This one phrase summarizes the whole book. If we were to define the English equivalent of the Hebrew word used here for “ravished” it would mean something like this--“to overwhelm with emotions of delight and joy because of one who is unusually beautiful, attractive, pleasing, or striking.” This is how the Lord feels when He looks at you!! The glory of God’s kingdom is the person of Jesus Christ, and His heart is filled with extravagant passion for His people!

It is important to know what He has done for us on the Cross. It is important to know what He will do in the coming revival and even in eternity. However, none of this is enough. The knowledge of His emotional makeup is vital to a strong foundation in grace. The Holy Spirit wants us to know how He feels, and what He desires deep within His heart. He is a lovesick God gazing on us with burning desire! When we understand this revelation, it gives us insight into why He does the things He does. It is this passion that motivates everything the Lord has done in the past, what He is doing now, and what He will do in the future. Think about this--He wants us to understand why He does the things He does.

It is important that we have this revelation so we can come into agreement with this truth. Many of us find it difficult to truly believe that this is the way God Himself feels about us, to grasp this truth of the passionate grace of God. Paul encouraged the church to break strongholds of the mind in II Cor. 10:4-5. A stronghold in the mind is simply a collection of thoughts that are not in agreement with God, not in agreement with the truth of who God is and who we are to God. We destroy strongholds by agreeing with how God thinks and feels about us. False ideas about God damage our intimacy with God. This knowledge about God’s heart enables us to be passionate toward God, with extravagant love and gratitude.

At the Last Supper, Jesus was preparing His disciples to fervently love God under the pressures of disappointment, persecution, temptation, and service. He emphasized that the measure of God’s loving desire for them was no less than the measure of love that the Father has for the Son. Jesus prayed in John 17:23, “That the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You love Me.” As amazing as it seems, He is telling us that God, the Father, loves us with the same love He has for Jesus. This is what He is expressing when He declares that we have ravished His heart. We are beautiful to Him because of His own beautiful heart.

Let’s return to the Song. “You have ravished My heart, My sister, My bride.” The phrase “My sister” speaks of Jesus’ human nature. To call us His sister means we are in the same family. He could not call us this before the incarnation. He was not our brother until He took on the form of a man. Jesus endured incredible humiliation to partake of human nature, but this was necessary that He might be like His brothers in all things, as declared in Hebrews 2:11-17. He was not ashamed to fully identify with us and to endorse us before the Father. He called His disciples, His brothers and sisters in Matt. 12:49. We are His brothers and sisters. Again, He refers to the maiden as “My bride” in reference to her destiny, and ours, with Him.

“With one glance of your eye” indicates that Jesus honors every glance of devotion to Him. He counts every move of our heart toward Him. Every glance of our heart touches and moves Him. He cannot resist one look from the eye of even a downcast believer who is sincere to obey Him. Every time we glance His way, He is thrilled. This is His response to the redeemed who were once the foolish, weak, despised people of the world. No one loves us like God does!

“With one link of your necklace” refers to her submitted will. The neck is a symbol of the will and her decision to submit to His authority. The idea of “one link” means that every individual response of sincerity, every glimpse of her dedication, moves His heart. He remembers every movement of her heart toward Him. Jesus is so easily captured by those who sincerely love Him. Weak people capture His heart when they come to Him with a willing spirit. He knows this sincere desire to please Him will eventually grow and dominate the heart of His bride-to-be. He does not separate who she will be in full glory from who she is in her present weakness. God will not overlook even one act of devotion or obedience, no matter how small.

“How beautiful is your love!” His love beautifies the bride. Jesus is declaring to the human race, “You are all I want. How beautiful is your love to Me!” Jesus could have anything! Our love for Him is better than anything else He could have. He desires our love more than our work. He desires our love more than sacrifice. We are His divine treasure. We are the joy set before Him. This love causes the Bride to delight in Him and to pray for grace to be more pleasing to Him.

Jesus repeats the phrase “My sister, My bride” for emphasis. These two titles are significant for us to understand our identity. It is important that we see this double revelation,His sister and Bride.

“How much better than wine is your love.” Jesus turns around the phrase she used to describe Him in Song 1:2, and uses it to describe her. He looks at all the vast splendor of God in creation and declares to her that her love is more beautiful to Him than everything else He has made. He would rather have her heart moving toward Him than all of the worlds under His authority. Our voluntary love is His greatest joy and desire, better than anything else He could celebrate or enjoy. This love causes her to long after Him, to delight in him, and to pray for grace to be even more pleasing to Him.

“And the scent of your perfumes than all kinds of spices” refers to the qualities that are inside her and cannot be seen, but are discerned by Him. A perfume or fragrance is invisible, yet expresses the inner quality of the source. A divine aroma, actually the very fragrance of Christ, is released from her to God. Her thought life has the fragrance of divine revelation. Her thoughts concerning the revelation she is receiving of His love are releasing a beautiful fragrance to the Lord.

“Than all kinds of spices” indicates that this aroma is rare and valuable. Rare expensive spices were used as gifts exchanged between royalty. He has made us royalty, and we exchange the spices of the deepest places of our hearts with our King as He shares with us the fragrance of who He is and His affection for us.

“Your lips, My bride, drip honey” refers to her speech. Her words to God and to others are sweet as honey. Again the Lord calls her His bride. He notices every word that is spoken from the lips of His bride. This is an important part of loving someone. He listens with great care and interest. Jesus will reward the words spoken by His bride. He says her words “drip” as opposed to gushing. She speaks the right amount as opposed to excessive speech. This speaks of balanced, unexaggerated, prudent speech.

“Honey and milk are under your tongue” means she speaks words that nourish the young. Honey delights the heart and is sweet to the taste. Milk strengthens new babes in Christ.

“Are under your tongue” speaks of agreement between her words and her heart. What she speaks is what she thinks inwardly. She ponders truth in her heart before she speaks it out.

“And the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon.” Garments speak of acts of righteousness, as in Rev. 19:8, “And it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.” Her deeds, her garments, were like the fragrant cedars of Lebanon, in contrast to lives of selfish acts only that would have no sweet aroma to the Lord.

“A garden enclosed is My sister, My bride” speaks of the idea that her life is a source of pleasure to Jesus. The purpose of a king’s garden was to provide a place of pleasure, solitude, and rest. A king’s garden was costly and took much work to cultivate. Its fragrances made him very proud. His garden was something he showed to his friends with great delight. The Lord has cultivated his garden at great personal cost, and it is the garden of His great delight, a place of refreshment for Him.

The garden is enclosed or locked. A king would build a fence of stone around his garden to prevent strangers from entering. It was a private garden, not open to the public. The maiden’s heart was enclosed in two ways. First, she watches over her heart in great care to be holy to the Lord. She does not allow it to be defiled by the spirit of the world. She has set herself apart for the king’s pleasure. She is also an enclosed garden in the sense that the Lord is protecting her.

There is nothing more powerful that God could speak over a person to affirm their dedication than to call them an “enclosed garden.” He is blessed when our hearts are a place of refreshing for Him, and we keep them pure for Him. Job made a covenant with his eyes so that he would not gaze on anything that would bring immorality to his heart in Job 31:11. Job’s heart was an enclosed garden.

“A spring shut up” again speaks of her desire not to be polluted by the spirit of the world. Springs in Israel were rare and valuable so they were sealed or protected to prevent animals from polluting them. A stream is above the ground and a spring below. They provided extra water to make the garden grow abundantly. In Is.58:11, God promised to make His church a “well-watered garden” whose springs would not fail if she would pursue a life of full obedience with Him.

“A fountain sealed” refers to the pure emotions of the bride. A fountain is hidden water that is below the surface coming up. It is water that is hidden but still flowing. We are a holy and sacred fountain, which is to be reserved exclusively for Jesus. In Proverbs 5, a fountain speaks of the emotions of a man or woman. Jesus drinks from his own cistern, which is His bride. He wants a pure cistern to drink from. Jesus is watching over the heart of His bride with great care to protect her and provide for her.

Jesus seals the church with the Holy Spirit, spoken of in Ephesians 4:30. Later in Song 8, Jesus becomes the seal on the maiden’s heart. The seal speaks of the king’s authority to protect and provide. Again the bride is watching over her heart with great care to be holy to the Lord. She guards her heart and her gaze.

“Your plants are an orchard” speaks of a fruitful ministry with great abundance and diversity. He is saying her life is like a divine orchard filled with diverse plants. This is in contrast to the sparse greenery in a desert land.

“Of pomegranates” refers to the idea that her ministry is sweet to God. The pomegranate is very sweet fruit when ripe.

“With pleasant fruits” speaks of the pleasant impact her life has in the lives of others.

“Fragrant henna with spikenard” refers to the precious and costly work of God in her life.

“Spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon” speaks of the diverse graces seen in her life and ministry.

“With all trees of frankincense” refers to her ministry of prayer.

“Myrrh and aloes” refers to the cross and her death to her self.

“With all chief spices” speaks of grace flowing from this garden, her inner life. The fragrance of Christ flows from her life to others.

Now the Song begins a three-fold description of her ministry. Jesus declares the strength of her ministry as He describes three different sources of water that He sees in His bride.

“ A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams flowing from Lebanon.” First, there is the water that dwells in us, the fountain. This speaks of her inner life with the Holy Spirit. Christ dwells in us as a hidden fountain. She has an overflow of this inner life that flows out to edify others. The well refers to our stored up personal history in God. A well stores up water so we can draw on it when needed. This well supplies us in dry times. There is an abundant supply as we look back on our history with God and His past faithfulness to us. And finally, there are the streams coming from the high places. Streams speak of an outward flow of water which is available for all to come and drink. A stream is above ground and bubbles forth with an energetic flow of the water of life. Streams speak of an abundance of grace. This stream flows from Lebanon, a high mountain. This speaks of our water coming from “on high.” The grace which makes us fruitful comes from the Lord, not from ourselves.

The maiden is so encouraged by the Lord’s declarations of love that she has enough confidence in God’s goodness to offer this prayer. “Awake, O north wind, and come, O south!” First, she prays for the north winds of adversity. This speaks of the bitter cold wind of difficult circumstances. Some issues of God’s training in our lives can only be accomplished as the result of difficult things working is us. Hidden attitudes that we are not aware of are uncovered during times of pressure and stress. Her second prayer is that Jesus would send the refreshing winds of the south to bless her. These times of refreshing and blessing are equally necessary for her to reach maturity.

Both kinds of winds play a strategic role in her becoming a fragrant garden for God’s pleasure. She is welcoming even more training from the Lord because she has much confidence that His dealings will lead to greater life in her spirit. She wants her garden to breathe out life to others. She trusts His choices for her.

Jesus answers this prayer. He will send the right mixture at the right intensity of difficulty and good. Some think the more we suffer, the better. Others want only the blessings. God knows each of us so well He can determine with great skill how to produce maturity in us, and only God truly knows how to produce a life rich in love. When He promises us safety and protection, it means He will protect us from to sin. He will not allow us to get ensnared in sin, bitterness, and hatred. Joseph was in prison for many years, and David was in the wilderness for ten years being chased by Saul, but both came out of their trials with hearts tested and true.

“Blow upon my garden” is her cry for an anointing to empower her life and ministry. The Holy Spirit is referred to as wind in the scripture. It is His anointing that will enable her in ministry.

“That its spices may flow out” speaks of her desire for a life filled with God’s power and presence so that His fragrance fills it completely. This is the motivation for her prayer. She wants to grow in love to bring blessing to both the Lord and the church.

“Let my Beloved come to His garden.” There is a transition here. She is now His garden. It is no longer her garden she refers to. She now, for the first time, sees her life and ministry as belonging to Him, not as her own.

This is the dividing line of the book. For four chapters, it was her garden, and now for four chapters it will be His garden. He was her inheritance, and now she is His inheritance. She is completely abandoned to Him. Everything after this is His.

“And eat its pleasant fruits” refers to the fact that she wants Jesus to enjoy what the Spirit has worked in and through her as His bride. According to Ephesians 1:18, Jesus has His inheritance in the Church. She is now focused on living to be Jesus’ inheritance.

“I have come to My garden, My sister, My bride; I have gathered My myrrh with My spice; I have eaten My honeycomb with My honey; I have drunk My wine with My milk. Eat, O friends! Drink, yes, drink deeply, O beloved ones!” Nine times in this section, Jesus says, “My” to indicate His full ownership of her life.

We see five different activities of the Bridegroom King. He comes to His garden This is a season of nearness to God. He gathers His myrrh with His spice. He gathers what the Spirit has been working in her life, including both her embracing of the Cross and the grace of God in her life. He eats His honeycomb with His honey, which means He is feasting on the sweet fruit of the mature bride. He drinks His wine with His milk. Jesus is celebrating the love the bride has given him. Wine is for celebration. Milk is for strength. Finally, Jesus invites His friends to eat. He wants others to enjoy the fruitfulness of mature believers. We strengthen and nourish one another with the grace God has given us as individual members of His body. We deeply lack a dimension of grace until we eat and drink of it from other believers.

She is His pleasure, and He is celebrating the love that the bride has for him. She has become a sacrifice that the Lord Himself feasts on. She then feeds the rest of the church because of the reality she has in God. This is the Lord’s desire for each of us-- to come to this place of maturity and whole-hearted love where He fully delights in us and gladly invites others to come close and receive from us.

“ Lord, it is our desire to come to this place where we become truly your garden, your place of refreshing and pleasure, and where our lives can be poured out as a blessing to others that You love. Breathe on our lives with your Holy Spirit and create Your garden of delight in us.”

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