“My Beloved Is Mine and I Am His”

My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether. of Bether...: or, of division - Song of Solomon 2:16-17

    “My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies. Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.”

    Someone said of verse 16, “This is the happiest verse in the Bible.” I think I might have to agree — “My Beloved is mine and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies.”

    Those words reflect a heart full of peace, assurance, contentment, and joy. But the very next verse casts a shadow over the scene. There is a cloud in the sky. “Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my Beloved, and be thou like a roe, or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.”

    These two verses together reflect a state of mind with which many of God’s saints in this world are very familiar. They are believers. They do not doubt their saving interest in Christ. They are confident that God has saved them by his almighty, free grace. They know that Christ is theirs. Still, they do not always enjoy the light of his countenance.

    Do these words describe your condition? You know that he is yours; but your soul does not always feed upon that blessed fact. You are, in your heart, assured that you have a vital saving interest in Christ; but you do not sense that his left hand is under your head and that his right hand embraces you. There are times when the believer sings tenor and bass at the same time. We sing with great delight…

    “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,

    Oh what a foretaste of glory Divine!

    Heir of salvation, purchased of God,

    Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.”

    “How tedious and tasteless the hours

    When Jesus no longer I see;

    Sweet prospects, sweet birds, and sweet flowers

    Have all lost their sweetness to me.”

    It may be that there are some saints who are always at their best, who never lose the light of the Savior’s face, and whose communion with him is never disturbed. I am not sure that such people exist, though I acknowledge the possibility. But those believers with whom I am most intimate have a different experience. And those people I know who always boast of their constant bliss are not the most reliable people I know.

    For myself, my own heart’s experience is this. — I have always had a mixture of joy and sorrow. Every year of my life has had a winter as well as a summer. Every day has its night. I have seen the clear shining of the Sun of Righteousness. And I have felt the heavy rains, the bite of frost, and the freeze of winter sleet in my soul. I have walked in the warm breezes of a summer’s evening. And I have made my way through the snowy blizzards of winter’s night.

    Believers are like the oak tree. The sap is always present; but it is not always flowing freely. We do, at times, lose our leaves. We have our downs, as well as our ups. We have our valleys, as well as our mountaintops. We are not always rejoicing. Sometimes we are in heaviness through our manifold temptations. We are grieved by the fact that our fellowship with Christ is not always full of rapturous delight. At times, we have to seek him, crying, “Oh, that I knew where I might find him!”

    This appears to me to be the sense of these two verses. They are a song of both joy and sorrow. It is the sweet song of assurance; but it is mingled with an earnest longing for fellowship. Though we may experience times of spiritual trial, when our fellowship and communion with Christ is broken, the assurance of our hearts that we are accepted in the Beloved need not be broken.

    Assurance is based upon Christ’s finished work for us. Fellowship and communion with Christ vary with our daily experiences. I do not always enjoy the company of my wife, because we are at times separated by many miles; but I always enjoy the assurance of her love. And I do not always enjoy sweet fellowship with Christ; but I do enjoy this blessed assurance, —“My Beloved is mine; and I am his.”

    Assurance

    I want every child of God to know that it is possible for us to enjoy the assurance of our personal interest in Christ. I do not suggest that every believer has this assurance. But I do say that every believer should and can have an assurance of his personal, saving interest in Christ. These are the words of confident faith and blessed assurance, “My Beloved is mine, and I am his.”

    Most people look in the wrong places when they seek assurance. They try to find assurance in their experiences; but no experience will give assurance. Believers are honest. We know that our most spiritual experiences are shot full of pride and sin. Many seek assurance based upon their devotion to Christ; but no amount of devotion will give assurance. Believers know that their devotion to Christ is unmentionable, because our best devotion is horribly untrue. Others, following the counsel they have been given, seek assurance based upon their personal righteousness; but no amount of personal righteousness will give assurance. Believers recognize that all our righteousnesses are filthy rags.

    If we want assurance, we must stop looking at ourselves and look away to Christ. Look not to your experience, but to his expiation. Look not to your repentance, but to his ransom. Look not to your faith, but to his faithfulness. Look not to your works, but to his worth. Look not to your feelings, but to his fulness. Look not to your prayers, but to his promises. Look not to your righteousness, but to his righteousness!

    Look to Christ alone. And look to Christ for everything! “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him” (Col. 2:6). How did you first come to Christ? Did you bring anything with you? No. You came as an empty handed beggar, a naked, wretched sinner, looking to him alone for all your righteousness, all your acceptance with God, all your atonement for sin, all your hope of life. Do not ever hope to rise above that level. To walk in the Spirit is to walk by faith in Christ, looking to him for everything. All who so trust Christ may with confident assurance and joy declare, “My Beloved is mine, and I am his.”

    “My Beloved” — Do you not delight to call Christ your Beloved? Certainly, he should be beloved by you. Who has done so much for you as Christ? Who has lavished you with such gifts? Who has shown you such love? If you do not love him, you are a lost soul, yet under the wrath of God (1 Cor. 16:22). All who are redeemed by his precious blood and saved by his matchless grace love him (1 John 4:19).

    If you know him, you love him. I would not have you to be presumptuous. But I would have all of you who know Christ to call him “My Beloved.” He deserves this title in your heart. He redeemed you with his own precious blood. He adopted you into his family. He saved you by his matchless grace. He loved you with an everlasting love.

    There was a time when he became the Beloved One of your heart. In “the time of love” he revealed his love to you and created love in you for him. We are bashful about this and prefer never to speak to others of our love for Christ. When we hear others sing, “Oh, how I love Jesus,” our hearts cry, “Oh, how I wish I could love him as I should!” Still, in the teeth of all our sin, in the teeth of all we know we are, we confess with Peter, “Lord, thou knowest all things. Thou knowest that I love thee.” “We love him because he first loved us.” His love for us preceded our love for him eternally. His love for us exceeds our love for him infinitely. And his love for us is the cause of our love for him. But we do love him. — Not as we want! — Not as we ought! — Not as we shall! But every believer honestly confesses, “We love him because he first loved us.” How our hearts rejoice to look upon the Son of God and say, “My Beloved is mine!” C. H. Spurgeon wrote, “Every heart that has been renewed by sovereign grace takes Jesus Christ to be the chief object of its love.

    “My Beloved is mine, and I am his!” — We are his by the bands of his eternal love. We are his by the grace of his sovereign, eternal election. We are his by the blood of his special purchase. We are his by the power of his almighty, irresistible grace. We are his by our own willful, deliberate choice. Are you a believer? If so, then Christ is yours, and you are his. You are the sheep of his pasture. You are the object of his love. You are the member of his body. You are the branch of his root. You belong to him. You are Christ’s, totally, unreservedly his. You belong to him. You are not your own. He bought you with his blood.

    Perhaps you think, “I would do anything to have such assurance.” Would you do nothing? The basis of assurance is not what you do, but what Christ has done for you. The Holy Spirit requires that we “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear” (1 Pet. 3:15). What is the basis of this assurance? How can a person be assured that he has a saving interest in Christ? How can I know I am my Beloved’s and that he is mine? I trust him. That’s all. The whole of my assurance is faith in Christ. It is written, “He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life!”

    His place

    All who know Christ know where he is, where he reveals himself and makes himself known. The soul, being assured of its personal interest in Christ, longs to be where he is. “He feedeth among the lilies.” The lilies are his people (v. 2). In this world they are lilies among thorns. Still the Lord Jesus feeds among them. The lily patch in which the Son of God feeds is the assembly of his saints (the house and temple of God) for public worship (Matt. 18:20; 1 Cor. 3:16-17). Here he feeds his people upon his grace by the Word of his grace.

    The church of God has many critics, but no rivals. This is the family of God, the kingdom of heaven, the temple of the Holy One, the place where Christ manifests forth his glory, spreads his table, and meets with his people. Blessed beyond description are those people who are privileged to be a part of this family! Truly, as Paul puts it, this is “a habitation of God through the Spirit!”

    Our desire

    It is the desire of every believer to know the conscious presence and fellowship of Christ. This is what is expressed in verse 17. — “Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.”

    This is our nighttime. Soon our day will break. On that great day, all the shadows of darkness and ignorance will be forever gone! When the gospel day broke forth the shadows of the law fled away. The mountains which separate us from our Lord, he can overcome. They are too high for us, but not for him. Our hearts earnestly desire the conscious awareness of his presence, ever crying, “Turn, my Beloved” (See Psalm 42:1 and 84:2).