THE salvation of a sinner consists essentially in the living spiritual union of that sinner with the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. This union is often described in the Word of God by the use of many and various similitudes: Christ the Vine, his disciples the branches; Christ the Shepherd, His followers the sheep; Christ the Redeemer, His people the redeemed, etc., etc. Each one of these descriptions has its own lesson to teach us. In the Song of Solomon, as is well known, the relationship most often recurring is that of the marriage union as between the Lord Jesus Christ, the Heavenly Bridegroom, and His earthly bride, the Church; and the language used to describe the relationship is often of the most sweet, intimate and endearing kind. In the fifth verse of the eighth chapter the Church and each gracious soul is described as “coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved”: a description full of suggestion for sanctified meditation. No doubt there is a reference in this verse to the Children of Israel on their journey from Egypt through the wilderness to the Promised Land. But that journey itself is evidently intended to set forth, in a typical way, the spiritual relationship and experience of the believer on his way from the city of destruction, through the wilderness of this world, to the Heavenly Home prepared by the Bridegroom, in his love and mercy, for His blood-bought Bride. “Coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved”: every spirit-taught soul will understand and appreciate the beauty and appropriateness of this description interpreted for each by the golden key of his own experience.
“The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” The Holy Spirit through the Word convinces the soul of sin, righteousness and of judgment, and there results a very real and painful sense of lostness: a conviction which transforms the world into a spiritual wilderness for the soul concerned. Not that any actual change comes upon the world; the change is upon the soul of the sinner convinced of sin and brought face to face with eternal realities—God, sin, heaven and hell: solemn realities from which he cannot escape. Under the tremendous impressions of these the world is spoiled of its pleasures; its pretensions, ambitions, pursuits and prosperity are
exposed as false and ensnaring and utter contempt is poured upon all its glory. “Should a man gain the whole world and lose his soul, what should it profit him?” In the searching and convincing light of God’s Word, Oh, what an empty wilderness the godless world comes to be: a world full of shadows which only mock and haunt the poor sinner. Lost on the way to eternity; lost in a wilderness wherein there is no way. How terrible the realisation, yet not more terrible than true! And this is just where Christ in the grace and power of the Gospel, and in the light of the Holy Spirit, finds the sinner. Even as the lost sheep wandering far from the fold, is sought for by the shepherd until it is found, and having found it he layeth it on his shoulder, rejoicing, for he has found his sheep which was lost. Oh, what a never-to-be-forgotten meeting is this: the sinner out in the wilderness of his own sin, guilt and misery, sought and found by the Saviour of the lost. Here is one spot in the depths of the wilderness which will never lose its heavenly fragrance. What place is this?
This is none other than that hill outside Jerusalem called Calvary—the hill with its cross of both shame and glory. Here it is that the poor bewildered sinner sees the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world, taking away his own sin. Bunyan describes it thus: “Now I saw in my dream that the high way up which Christian was to go was fenced on either side with a wall, and that wall was Salvation. Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run but not without difficulty because of the load on his back. He ran thus till he came to a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed off his shoulders and fell from off his back and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more. Then was Christian glad and lightsome, and said, with a merry heart, ‘He hath given me rest by His sorrow, and life by His death.’ Then he stood still awhile to look and wonder, for it was very surprising to him that the sight of the cross should thus ease him of his burden. He looked therefore, and looked again, even till the springs that were in his head sent the waters down his cheeks. Now as he stood looking and weeping, behold, Three Shining Ones came to him and saluted him with, ‘Peace be to thee.’ So the first said to him, ‘Thy sins be forgiven thee’; the second stripped him of his rags and clothed him with change of raiment; the third also set a mark on his forehead and gave him a roll with a seal upon it, which he bade him look upon as he ran, and that he should give it in at the Celestial Gate: so they went their way.
“Then Christian gave three leaps for joy, and went on singing: ‘Blest cross! Blest sepulchre! Blest, rather, be The Man that there was put to shame for me.’ Yes, from there he went on, going up from the wilderness, leaning on the Beloved, and a song, a new song, in his heart. Oh, what a wonder of grace that even in this the most
desolate part of the wilderness, there should be a cross, the glory of which, for the time being at any rate, transforms the desolation into the House of God and the Gate of Heaven. Here the Holy Spirit first meets with the sinner in the grace and power of the Gospel, takes of the things of Christ—the Cross and the open Sepulchre—shows them to one made willing and able to receive them, and there a union is effected never to be dissolved. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Can we be surprised if as a result of this union the whole attitude and outlook of the soul is altered? Nay, we would be very much surprised if they did not alter, for “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things pass away and all things become new.”
The actual locality of this meeting may differ widely in the case of different persons: with Jacob it was Penuel; with Moses it was the burning bush; with Mary it was her sister’s house in Bethany; with Paul it was the road to Damascus. Wherever it is and whatever the local name, the Cross of Jesus gives to each place for each individual concerned its real and abiding importance. Nevertheless, who among us would blame Abraham for thinking much of Mount Moriah, nor Jacob for Penuel, nor would we blame the woman of Samaria if we found her visiting Jacob’s well more often than was strictly necessary for the purpose of drawing water. The question for us is, has such a place ever figured in our own history? If there is such a place, then it is the cross that has invested it with all its hallowed importance.
There, in the sovereign grace and mercy of God our Saviour, the sinner willingly and joyously gives up his sinful independence, surrendering himself to a love that will take no denial. “We love him because he first loved us.” Henceforth, and for ever, the soul thus won by redeeming love, is united in bonds of closest spiritual union to the Redeemer; and what description could better interpret the daily experience and exercise of repentance, faith, love and trust than this “coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved”?
The Church leans on Christ for her spiritual life and activity. The risen Saviour, victorious over sin, death and hell, is the life of the Church. He who in dying gave himself an offering for sin, whereby He abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel, He ascended on high and lives after the power of an endless life. As Mediator He lives for the purpose of imparting that life to all His people, and evermore maintaining it in all its parts, qualities and exercises so that it is in very deed Eternal Life, life that will never, never end. By the simple practice of leaning all the inexhaustible resources of that life, which dwells in its divine fulness in Christ are made available as far as that is necessary and possible. To the living soul Christ says, “I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth in Me shall never die.” The believing soul
says, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ liveth in me, and the life that I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Thus we see how a living soul, still in the wilderness and surrounded on all sides by sin, death and destruction, nevertheless comes up step by step from the wilderness because that soul leans upon Eternal Life in the glorious Person of the Redeemer, the Beloved of the Church.
The Church leans upon Christ for justification unto life, and all the blessings which accompany it. Taught by the Holy Spirit, the gracious soul is not ignorant of the Divine mysteries of suretyship, substitution and imputation as these are set forth in the Scriptures in such portions as “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed,” and “He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” These portions and many others of like import are understood as signifying that way of salvation through the obedience, sufferings and death of Christ which meets every requirement of Eternal Law and satisfies every claim of Divine Justice to the glory of God. When taught of the Holy Spirit the soul not only understands but gives its wholehearted consent to this way of salvation, and willingly, humbly and lovingly appropriates for itself by faith the perfect righteousness therein revealed. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,” and on being received by faith He immediately becomes “The Lord our Righteousness.” This is the perfect and costly wedding garment which clothes the Bride, the King’s Daughter, with heavenly beauty—the beauty of the Lord. Her filthy garments, her rags of righteousness, her sins and iniquities are for ever cast aside, “I have blotted out thy sins as a thick cloud, and thine iniquities will I remember no more for ever.” And what a wealth of blessing follows! “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God,” “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; let not your heart be troubled.” Here then in a state of justification unto life and of reconciliation with God, the Bride comes up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved, who is one and the same with “the Lord our Righteousness.”
The Church leans upon Christ for sanctification and preparation for Heaven. The necessity for holiness and the earnest desire after it are features inseparable from the New Creation. The new birth is the beginning of that conformity to the image of God’s Son to which every elect sinner is predestinated; but though that is itself a mercy unspeakably precious, yet it is only a beginning. In regeneration the holy law of God is written in full on the new man, but as yet it is far from being in possession of the whole man. It is a very wide law, and spiritual and heavenly, a law that is even as the moral image of God restored to the soul. This law, and the soul’s delight in it and love for it, are in full accord with the solemn Gospel requirement,
“Be ye holy for I am holy,” and “Without holiness shall no man see God.” While the spiritually quickened conscience will give the soul no rest short of perfect holiness in heart and conduct, the affections earnestly seek for it, often with tearful longing “as the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God . . . My tears have been my meat day and night.” But not till death are the souls of believers made perfect in holiness, and here we are thinking of the believer still in the wilderness, though coming up out of it.
There are still the remains of the old corruption in the heart, corruption which refuses subjection and offers strong resistance to the law of holiness. In the seventh chapter of Romans we have the Apostle’s description of the conflict between these two: one a principle of evil belonging to the old nature, the other a holy principle of the very essence of the new man and born with it. “For I delight in the Law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members, O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Yes, through Jesus Christ our Lord, “who of God is made unto us . . . sanctification.” On Him the pilgrim soul leans and coming up from the wilderness progresses in that sanctification which is such a necessary and desirable preparation for heaven. So she leans on her Beloved for holiness—perfect holiness of heart and conduct. And in this she is not disappointed for when she shall see Him (in glory) she shall be like Him, and not only shall the King’s Daughter be clothed in garments of wrought gold, but she shall be all glorious within, and she shall enter in to the King’s Palace with gladness and rejoicing there to abide for ever.