Scripture Reading: S. S. 1:4a, 7a, 8a, 9, 12-16a; 2:2-4, 14, 16; 3:6; 4:1; Jer. 50:19; Micah 7:14
We have already seen many points about how to take Christ as our living Person in the Song of Songs. Many people have misused the Bible as a book of doctrine to form a Christian religion. A religion has doctrines, activities, programs, and works. For the works and activities, there is the need of power to accomplish them and the need of gifts as the ability to perform them. Christianity has mainly these four things: doctrines, activities, the power for the activities, and the gifts.
But strictly speaking, the Lord Jesus is not any kind of religion. The Lord Jesus is a living Person! Doctrines are needed with any religion, but not with a Person. A wife does not need a book of doctrines about her husband because he is a living person. If we are really in the presence of the Lord Jesus, we do not need doctrines. He is our living doctrine. So many hold the doctrine of sanctification, but they are not sanctified because sanctification is simply the Lord Jesus Himself. You may hold the doctrine of sanctification, and yet not have the reality of sanctification. But as long as you have Christ, though you may know nothing of the doctrine of sanctification, you have it! This is because the real sanctification is Christ as a living Person.
People today pay too much attention to doctrines, activities, power, or gifts. But what we need is a living Person! People can misuse some of the other books in the Bible, but they can hardly misuse the Song of Songs because this book is not of doctrine, activity, power, and gifts. It depicts a living Person! “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. For thy love is better than wine.” Anyone who speaks like this is absolutely out of religion.
Many people today are for religion, not for a living Person. But in the Lord’s recovery today, the Lord is not going to recover any religious matter. The Lord is recovering His living Person! It is not a recovery of doctrines, forms, or gifts.
When the Lord first came to earth, He was apparently only a little man from Nazareth. But actually He was also God. John 11 and 12 tell of His being in the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus in Bethany. Bethany means “house of the poor.” He was in the house of the poor, while all the Jewish leaders and priests were offering sacrifices and burning incense to God. They did not realize that the very God whom they were worshipping was in that little cottage. He was not in the temple receiving their worship; He was in the house of the poor ones at Bethany. The very God was there in the form of a little man. Those Jewish worshippers were diligently worshipping God, yet they never realized that God was not there. That was because they were for their religion and their fathers’ traditions.
The Lord Jesus came as God to recover His living Person to a group of young people. He never went to the temple and called any of the priests to come and follow Him. Instead, He went to the seashore of Galilee and called some rough, young fishermen. He did not even call their fathers. Moreover, all of those young fishermen left their fathers; they left all of the old traditions, and they followed Him. Today, the Lord Jesus is doing the same with the Christian religion as He did with the old Jewish religion.
The Song of Songs is not full of religion with doctrines, activities, powers, or gifts. All that we can find in this book is a loving relationship with a living Person! He is both God and man. He is our Creator, and He is our Redeemer. He is our Justifier, our Sanctifier, and our life. He is our Lord, our Person, and our everything. We should care for nothing except this living Person. As long as we have Him, we have everything. We may not know anything about justification, sanctification, and so many other doctrines. But as long as we have this living Person, we have all of the doctrines we need.
Suppose we have two men before us. One has a doctor’s degree; he has learned all the doctrines of justification, sanctification, etc. But when you talk with him about Christ as a living Person, he simply does not know what you are talking about. Although he has studied all the doctrines, yet he has not once touched the Lord in a living way. The other man has never gained much knowledge. He does not know any of the doctrines, and to him one doctrine is about the same as another. Yet he loves the Lord Jesus. He prays all the time, “O Lord Jesus, how I love You! You are my living Person. How I love to touch You!” Do you not believe that he has much more than the first one? It is not a matter of doctrines, teachings, or knowledge. It is a matter of fact. The Lord does not care for our doctrines, teachings, and gifts. He wants to be a living Person to us. May the Lord have mercy upon us that we may seek nothing except to gain more and more of Him.
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