Life and Building as Portrayed in the Song of Songs

Life is not knowledge, not gifts, not power, but life is a Person. Life is Triune God Himself, and building is the expression of God as life in a corporative Body. Lief and building are the basic and central revelation of the bible. Gaining much knowledge of the bible is not life. Having power or gifts manifested in us is not life, either. We need to have a turn so that we may see that God Himself is life, and God desires to be life to us. if we want to have God as our life, we must first see that our natural life, whether good or bad, is not the real life. We need to have God, so that we have the zoe life, the real life, the divine and eternal life.

in the book Song of Songs, we can see 8 major figures:

1. a mare

2. dove's eyes

3. a lily

4. a dove

5. a pillar of smoke

6. Solomon's bed

7. Solomon's palanquin

8. Solomon's crown

from these 8 figures, we can see the seeker's progress in the stages of life. One of the most outstanding change in the seeker is her will. from figure 1 to 4, we can still see the characteristic of the seeker, but from the pillar of smoke, the seeker has lost her distinct characteristic. when the Lord first praised the seeker as a mare in Pharoah's chariot, her characteristic was still very strong. but as she loved and pursued the Lord, while the Spirit worked on her to transform her, then she lost her own charateristic and gradually became one with the Lord. this can be seen in the last figure, Solomon's crown, the seeker even lost herself and became one with Solomon as his crown, not just a vessel for Solomon to move, or a bed for Solomon to rest. This is as a result of the seeker's being subdued in her will, and the work of the cross on the seeker, while the seeker was hiding in the cleft of rocks. the book did not tell us how long the seeker was in that cleft before she became a pillar of smoke coming from the wilderness. during that time, the seeker was attracked and encouraged by the Lord as the young hard leaping on the mountains and hills, called by the Lord to rise up and come away. then the seeker was permeated with the myrrh and frankincense, and led by the Lord into His ascension, where the seeker was delivered from herself by the cross, and was one with the Lord in His ascension. after passing through the dealing of the cross to be conformed to the death of Christ, the seeker lost her personality and became identified with Christ. 

after these eight figures, there came the garden and the city. 

Song of Songs 4:12 A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride, / A spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

the Lord praised the seeker as an encloses garden, growing with all the spices and choice fruits. this is another great progress for the seeker. Before, the seeker was enjoying the Lord as a bunch of myrrh and a cluster of henna flowers, then the seeker went up to the mountai of myrrh, and then the seeker was permeated with the myrrh of the mechandise. but the seeker was never producing anything of the myrrh or other spices. here the seeker was mentioned by the Lord as a garden encloses, producing all the spices. and the Lord went into this garden to enjoy the produce of the garden. Before, only the seeker was enjoying and satisfied with the Lord, but now here the Lord was enjoying and satisfied with the seeker as the garden. the seeker has progressed from caring for her own enjoyment to caring for the enjoyment of the Lord and of others. 

but this is not the end. in chapter 6, we see that the seeker still progressed on to become a city. 

Song of Songs 6:4 You are as beautiful, my love, as Tirzah, / As lovely as Jerusalem, / As terrible as an army with banners.

here the Lord praised the seeker as the city. the city, the building is the purpose of the Lord. though the garden with all choice fruits seem very good, but not enough, not adequate. the Lord's goal is to gain a building, the city New Jerusalem, which requires all the materials to be built up. therefore, our own individual spirituality is not the end, and should not be our mere goal. we need to see that the Lord is after the building, the built up Body of Christ, the consumatted city New Jerusalem as His Bride. so our growth, our progess in life, should be with the view of the building up. 

from this book, we can see the purpose, the goal, and the destiny of our being chosen to be the sons of God, is the corporate building, consummating the New Jerusalem. This is unique building work that God is doing right now, in His recovery work, which is practiced in the proper church life today. one of the pracitcal way for us to be brought in and established in this building is to eat the Lord in His word, so that we can have a metabolic change. we need to eat, digest and assimilate the Lord for Him to be constituted into our being to become our every fiber. then we can be transformed for God's building.

Life and Building As Portrayed in the Song of Songs.