Message Eight

Living in Ascension

Scripture Reading: S.S. 4:6-9

1. After the lover of Christ has experienced Christ in His sweet death and His fragrant resurrection, she determines to stay in the sweet death of Christ (the mountain of myrrh) and His fragrant resurrection (the hill of frankincense) until her Beloved comes back when the day dawns and the shadows flee away—4:6.
2. At this juncture her Beloved calls her to live in His ascension, as He called her to join with His cross in 2:14:
   1. To look from His ascension (Lebanon)—4:8a:
      1. Here is the truth, the reality, of the consummated Triune God, the all-inclusive Christ with His complete redemption, and the all-inclusive, compound, life-giving, sevenfold intensified Spirit (Amana).
      2. Here the fighting is over, signified by "soft armor" (Senir).
      3. Here is the destruction of all the enemies (Hermon).
   2. To look from the heavenlies (Eph. 6:12), signified by the lions’ dens and the leopards’ mountains—S.S. 4:8b:
      1. Here are Satan and his subordinates—Eph. 6:12; 2:2.
      2. Here the believers fight with Satan and his power of darkness—Eph. 6:12:
         1. By being empowered in the Lord and in the might of His strength—v. 10.
         2. By putting on the whole armor of God—vv. 11a, 13a.
         3. By standing against the stratagems of the devil—v. 11b.
         4. By receiving the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit (the word of God)—v. 17.
         5. By praying always in spirit—v. 18a.
         6. For the building up of the Body of Christ and the spreading of the gospel—vv. 18b-20.