Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 431
“A garden enclosed is My sister, My spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.” “A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters and streams from Lebanon.” Song of Solomon 4:12,15.
OBSERVE the sweet titles with which Christ, the Husband, addresses His Church the bride. “My sister,” one near to Me by ties of nature. My next of kin, born of the same mother, partaker of the same sympathies. My spouse, nearest and dearest, united to Me by the most tender bands of love—My sweet companion, part of My own Self. My sister, by My Incarnation, which makes Me bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. My spouse, by heavenly betrothal in which I have espoused you unto Myself in righteousness. My sister, whom I knew of old and over whom I watched from her earliest infancy. My spouse, taken from among the daughters, embraced by arms of love and affianced unto Me forever.
See, my Brethren, how true is it that our royal kinsman is not ashamed of us, for He dwells with manifest delight upon this twofold relationship. Be not, O Beloved, slow to return the hallowed flame of His love. We have the word “My” twice in our version. As if Christ dwelt with rapture on His possession of His Church. “His delights were with the sons of men,” because those sons of men were His. He, the Shepherd, sought the sheep, because they were His sheep. He lit the candle and swept the house, because it was His money that was lost. He has gone about “to seek and to save that which was lost,” because that which was lost was His long before it was lost to itself or lost to Him.
The Church is the exclusive portion of her Lord’s—none else may claim a partnership, or pretend to share her love. Jesus, Your Church delights to have it so! Let every believing soul drink solace out of these wells. Soul, Christ is near to you in ties of relationship! Christ is dear to you in bonds of marriage union and you are dear to Him. Behold, He grasps both of your hands with both His own, saying, “My sister, My spouse.” Mark the two sacred holdfasts by which your Lord gets such a double hold of you that He neither can, nor will, ever let you go. Do you say in your heart this morning, “My Brother, my Husband?” Seek to be near to Him in nature—to be like your Brother, an eon of God. And to be near to Him in fellowship—that you may know Him and have fellowship with Him, being conformable unto His death.
Leaving this porch of cedar, let us enter the palace. Observe the contrast which the two verses present to us. I think that the Spirit of God intends that the verses should be understood as we intend to use them this morning. But even if we should be mistaken as to the precise interpretation of the passage in its connection, we shall not err in enlisting so beautiful a string of metaphors in the service of the Truth of God.
You know, Beloved, there are two works of the Holy Spirit within us. The first is when He puts into us the living waters. The next is when He enables us to pour forth streams of the same living waters in our daily life. Our blessed Lord expressed what we mean, when on that great day of the feast, He cried, saying, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. This spoke He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive.”
The Spirit of God first implants in us the new nature. This is His work—to regenerate us, to put into us the new principle, the life of God in Christ. Then next, He gives us power to send forth that life in gracious emanations of holiness of life, of devoutness of communion with God, of likeness to Christ, of conformity to His image. The streams are as much of the Holy Spirit as the fountain itself. He digs the well and He afterwards, with heavenly rain, fills the pools. He first of all makes the stream in the desert to flow from the flinty rock, and afterwards, out of His infinite supplies, He feeds the stream and bids it follow us all our days.
I was pleased to find a quotation the other day, from one of the early fathers, which contains in it views I have frequently expressed to you—“The true Believer is composed of body, soul, and the Holy Spirit.” After the greatest research, eminent mental philosophers have given up all idea of a third principle which they can discover in man, as man.
They can find nothing but the body and the soul. But, rest assured that as there is a certain something in the vegetable which we call vegetable life, as there is a sensitive substance which makes animal life, as there is a mysterious subsistence developed as mental life, so there is some real, substantial, Divine principle forming spiritual life.
The Believer has three principles, the body, the soul, and the indwelling Spirit, which is none other than the Holy Spirit of God, which abides in the faithful continually. Just such a relationship as the soul bears to the body, does the spirit bear to the soul. As the body without the soul is dead, so the soul without the Spirit is dead in trespasses and sins. As the body without the soul is dead naturally, so the soul without the Spirit is dead spiritually.