“His cheeks are like a bed of spices, / Mounds of sweetly fragrant herbs; / His lips are lilies, / Dripping with liquid myrrh” (v. 13). His countenance is beautiful and sweet through His suffering of people’s smiting and despising, and His mouth is pure, releasing sweet words of grace based upon His redemption.
“His hands are tubes of gold, / Set with beryl; / His belly is an ivory work, / Overlaid with sapphires” (v. 14). His works are full of the divine binding power and are stable for the carrying out of God’s will. His inward parts (Phil. 1:8) are full of deep, tender feelings wrought through His sufferings under a clear heavenly vision (Exo. 24:10).
“His legs are pillars of white marble, / Set upon bases of gold; / His appearance is like Lebanon, / As excellent as the cedars” (S. S. 5:15). His standing and supporting strength is of the righteous standing based upon God’s divine nature, and His expression shows that He is a person who has ascended into heaven and whose excellency transcends all others.
“His mouth is sweetness itself, / And he is altogether desirable” (v. 16a). His taste of divine things is sweet, and He is altogether lovely and desirable.
“This is my beloved, and this is my friend, / O daughters of Jerusalem” (v. 16b). This is the impression of the Beloved as her Friend realized by the lover.
We might also be asked how much better our Christ is than others, that is, why our Christ is so sweet to us. Many of us may not be able to answer this question adequately. If you were to ask me, I would say, “My Christ is the all-inclusive One. His riches are unsearchable (Eph. 3:8). He is the preeminent One, the first in everything (Col. 1:17-18): the first in all creation (v. 17), the first in resurrection (v. 18), and the first in everything in my living. He is also the God-allotted portion to me for my enjoyment (v. 12). My Christ is the Son of God who became a man. He was flesh, but in His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Moreover, my Christ has seven eyes, which are the sevenfold intensified Spirit (Rev. 5:6).” We must forget about preaching other things and preach and teach only the all- inclusive Christ.
In Song of Songs 6:1 we have the second question of the ones whom the lover asks concerning her Beloved: “Where has your beloved gone, / O you most beautiful among women? / Where has your beloved turned, / That we may seek him with you?” Still considering that she is the most beautiful among females, they asked her where her Beloved has turned that they may seek Him with her, indicating that they had been attracted by her testimony concerning her Beloved. She was a pursuer after Christ, and her pursuit influenced, affected, and attracted others.
Verses 2 and 3 are her reply.
“My beloved has gone down to his garden, / To the beds of spices, / To feed in the gardens / And gather lilies” (v. 2). After seeking help from others, she realized that her Beloved is within her as His garden and in all other believers as His beds of spices, feeding in her and other believers as His gardens and gathering the pure and trusting ones.
Christ’s garden is in our spirit. In our spirit we grow all the beautiful, spiritual, divine, and heavenly things, which are sweet to His taste. This is possible only if we live in our spirit. The most precious thing for a believer is to live in the spirit. If we live in our spirit, our spirit becomes a garden. The Lord is feeding, shepherding, and pasturing us that we may grow all kinds of spices and fragrances to satisfy Him.
“I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine; / He pastures His flock among the lilies” (v. 3). She tells them, according to her faith, that she belongs to her Beloved and He to her and that He is now feeding His pure and trusting ones. Her word here indicates that she is now more matured in life than when she spoke the same word in 2:16.