After reaching the point where she is called to live in ascension, the seeker of Christ has reached her highest attainment. In her attainment she becomes four wonderful things as the consummation of her transformation: a garden, a sanctuary, the heavenly bodies, and a terrible army with the overcomer, the Shulammite, who is the reproduction of Christ, as the leader. Her becoming a garden is not as high or as deep as her becoming a sanctuary with a safeguard, that is, the holy city, Jerusalem. She becomes such a building which is God’s dwelling place with a city surrounding it to be its safeguard.
Song of Songs 6:4 says, “You are as beautiful, my love, as Tirzah, / As lovely as Jerusalem, / As terrible as an army with banners.” Tirzah eventually had a black background because at the division of the kingdom it became the capital city for the kings of Israel, the place of the king‘s palace (1 Kings 14:17; 15:21, 33; 16:6, 8-9, 15, 17). But Song of Songs mentions Tirzah in a positive sense as being noted for its beauty. Of course, a number of positive types and figures in the Old Testament have a black background. Adam was a type of Christ as the Head of man and had a background of failure. David was a type of Christ as the victorious King and also had a background of failure. Although Tirzah had a black background when the kingdom was divided, the seeker is praised for being as lovely as Tirzah, in a positive sense.
Through her living in Christ’s ascension as the new creation in resurrection, the lover of Christ becomes mature in the riches of the life of Christ so that she becomes not only a garden to Christ but also the sanctuary of God, signified by Tirzah, and its safeguard, signified by Jerusalem. To be mature in the life of Christ is a great thing. The seeker is likened to two buildings. One is the palace of the king. The other is the city surrounding the palace as its safeguard.
A garden cannot be compared with a palace and a city. A garden is just a visiting place for the king, but it is not the dwelling place where the king lives or the city that safeguards the king‘s palace. To be a garden is very good, but it is not sufficient. We have to reach the highest peak, the building of God.
To become a garden to Christ is to be flourishing in the element of Christ’s life with its unsearchable riches; to become the sanctuary of God is to be built up (related to the building of the Body of Christ) in the growth with the life of Christ with its unsearchable riches (Eph. 4:15-16). In the Old Testament the building of God is typified by Tirzah and Jerusalem; in the New Testament this building is the organic Body of Christ. The organic Body of Christ is also Christ’s wife (Eph. 5:25-32). Furthermore, the organic Body of Christ consummates, completes, the building of the New Jerusalem.
The Bible’s divine revelation is very consistent. It begins with the creation of man with a spirit, with the tree of life (Gen. 2:7, 9), and with a garden that has a flow of water with three precious materials—gold, bdellium, and precious stones (vv. 10-12). Eventually, a woman comes out of Adam, built to be his counterpart, his wife (v. 22). This woman is also the body of Adam. This gives us a complete picture as a map for our driving through the Bible.