In this message we will begin to consider Psalm 45, the highest and the greatest of the one hundred fifty psalms. To enter into the significance of such a psalm is not easy. All seventeen verses of Psalm 45 are quite common, but the way this psalm presents Christ is very peculiar.
The title of this psalm tells us that it is a song of love. The word love in the title refers not to a father's love for his son but to the love between a male and a female. This is indicated by the fact that the Hebrew word for love here is in the feminine gender. Thus, the love in Psalm 45 is a feminine love.
In order to understand this psalm, we need to turn to the particular book in the Bible which is concerned with love—the Song of Songs. Psalm 45 is a psalm of love, and Song of Songs is a book of love. In that book the word love is used in both the masculine and the feminine gender. According to the English translation of Song of Songs, the Lord Jesus is called "the Beloved"; however, the Hebrew word is simply the word for love in the masculine gender. Likewise, when the Lord calls His seeker "My love," the Hebrew word for love is in the feminine gender. Moreover, Psalm 45:2a says, "You are fairer than the sons of men." This is similar to Song of Songs 5:10, where the seeker speaks of her beloved as "the chiefest among ten thousand." This is a further indication that Song of Songs helps us to understand Psalm 45.
In one of the life-study messages on Hosea 11—14, we pointed out that throughout Hosea Israel is depicted as the wife of Jehovah. However, when God's everlasting love is touched, Israel is called God's son (Hosea 11:1), indicating that Israel has the Father's life. God's everlasting love is not a love in affection, like the love of a husband toward a wife, but a love in life, like the love of a father toward a son. Love in affection does not transform, but love in life transforms people. It is in the Father's love, the love in life, that Israel is transformed. A husband who loves his wife in affection may spoil her, but a father who loves his son in life never spoils his son. Rather, a father's love in life perfects his son.
I am not suggesting that Christ's love for us as virgins, as those who are females in relation to Him (2 Cor. 11:2), is a love that can spoil us. According to the biblical truth, Christ's love does not spoil His believers. Nominal Christians, false Christians, do not know Christ's love. Genuine Christians, those who have a heart for the Lord, enjoy Christ's love, but they may enjoy it according to their own concept or feeling. As a result they are spoiled not by Christ's love itself but by their wrong application of Christ's love. For instance, if you speak to them concerning the kingdom truth, dispensational punishment, and the casting of certain believers into the outer darkness (Matt. 22:13; 25:30), they may say, "You are teaching heresy. Jesus loves me. He is not cruel, and He would not put me into outer darkness. As long as Jesus loves me, everything is all right." This indicates that even genuine believers have been spoiled by their mistaken application of the love of Christ.