When the old Puritan minister had delivered his discourse, and dwelt upon firstly and secondly and thirdly, before he sat down he usually gave a comprehensive summary of all that he had spoken. In these five words, the spouse here gives you her summary. Remember these words, and know their meaning, and you possess the quintessence of the spouse’s portion of the Song of Songs. This verse, has been translated in another way: “Heis all desires”; and so indeed Jesus is. He was the desire of the ancients, He is the desire of all nations still. To His own people He is their all in all; they are complete in Him; they are filled out of His fulness. But we will not dispute about translations, for, after all, with such a text, so full of unutterable spiritual sweetness, every man must be his own translator, and into his own soul must the power of the message come, by the enforcement of the Holy Ghost.
I. We shall consider three points of character which are very noticeable in these words.
1. The first which suggests itself is this: the words are evidently uttered by one who is under the influence of overwhelming emotion. The words are rather a veil to the heart than a glass through which we see its emotions. The sentence labours to express the inexpressible; it pants to utter the unutterable. Lost in adoring wonder, the gracious mind desists from description, and cries with rapture, “Yea, He is altogether lovely.” It has often been thus with true saints; they have felt the love of Jesus to be overpowering and inebriating. I believe those are the happiest saints who are most overwhelmed with a sense of the greatness, goodness and preciousness of Christ. Oh! to be carried right away with the Divine manifestation of the chief among ten thousand, so that our souls shall cry out in rapture, “Yea, He is altogether lovely.” This is one characteristic of the text: may it be transferred to us.
2. A second is this, and very manifest it is upon the surface of the verse--here is undivided affection. “He is altogether lovely.” Note that these words have a world of meaning in them, but chiefly they tell us this, that Jesus is to the true saint the only lovely one in the world. Our text means, again, that in Jesus loveliness of all kinds is to be found. If there be anything that is worthy of the love of an immortal spirit, it is to be seen in abundance in the Lord Jesus. He is not this flower or that, but He is the Paradise of perfection. He is not a star here or a constellation there, He is the whole heaven of stars, nay, He is the heaven of heavens; He is all that is fair and lovely condensed in one. When the text says, again, that Jesus “is altogether lovely,” it declares that He is lovely in all views of Him. It generally happens that to the noblest building there is an unhappy point of view from which the architecture appears at a disadvantage; the choicest piece of workmanship may not be equally complete in all directions; the best human character is deformed by one flaw, if not with more; but with our Lord all is lovely, regard Him as you will. Under all aspects, and in all offices and in relations, at all times and all seasons, under all circumstances and conditions, anywhere, everywhere, “He is altogether lovely.” I will close this point by saying, every child of God acknowledges that Christ Jesus is lovely altogether to the whole of Himself. He is lovely to my judgment; but many things are so and yet are not lovely to my affections; I know them to be right, and yet they are not pleasant: but Jesus is as lovely to my heart as to my head, as dear as He is good. He is lovely to my hopes; are they not all in Him? Is not this my expectation--to see Him as He is? But He is lovely to my memory too: did He not pluck me out of the net? Lovely to all my powers and all my passions, my faculties and feeling.
3. The third characteristic of the text is ardent devotion. It is the language of one who feels that no service would be too great to render to the Lord. I wish we felt as the apostles and martyrs and holy men of old did, that Jesus Christ ought to be served at the highest and richest rate. We do little, very little: what if I had said we do next to nothing for our dear Lord and Master nowadays? The love of Christ doth not constrain us as it should. Is Christ less lovely, or is His Church less loyal? Would God she estimated Him at His right rate, for then she would return to her former mode of service. Oh, for a flash of the celestial fire! Oh, when shall the Spirit’s energy visit us again! When shall men put down their selfishness and seek only Christ? When shall they leave their strifes about trifles to rally round His Cross? When shall we end the glorification of ourselves, and begin to make Him glorious, even to the world’s end?
II. Thus I have shown you the characteristics of the text, and now I desire to use it in three ways for practical purposes.
1. The first word is to you, Christians. Here is very sweetinstruction. The Lord Jesus “is altogether lovely.” Then if I want to be lovely, I must be like Him, and the model for me as a Christian is Christ. We want to have Christ’s zeal, but we must balance it with His prudence and discretion; we must seek to have Christ’s love to God, and we must feel His love to men, His forgiveness of injury, His gentleness of speech, His incorruptible truthfulness, His meekness and lowliness, His utter unselfishness, His entire consecration to His Father’s business.
2. The second use to which we would put the verse is this, here is a very gentle rebuke to some of you. You do not see the lowliness of Christ, yet “He is altogether lovely.” Now, you who have never heard music in the name of Jesus, you are to be greatly pitied, for your loss is heavy. You who never saw beauty in Jesus, and who never will for ever, you need all our tears. The Lord open those blind eyes of yours, and unstop those deaf ears, and give you the new and spiritual life, and then will you join in saying, “Yea, He is altogether lovely.”
3. The last use of the text is, that of tender attractiveness. “Yea, He is altogether lovely.” Where are you this morning, you who are convinced of sin and want a Saviour, where have you crept to? You need not be afraid to come to Jesus, for “He is altogether lovely.” It does not say He is altogether terrible--that is your misconception of Him; it does not say He is somewhat lovely, and sometimes willing to receive a certain sort of sinner; but “He is altogether lovely,” and therefore He is always ready to welcome to Himself the vilest of the vile. Think of His name. It is Jesus, the Saviour. Is not that lovely? Think of His work. He is come to seek and to save that which was lost. This is His occupation. Is not that lovely? Think of what He has done. He hath redeemed our souls with blood. Is not that lovely? Think of what He is doing. He is pleading before the throne of God for sinners. Think of what He is giving at this moment--He is exalted on high to give repentance and remission of sins. Is not this lovely? Under every aspect Christ Jesus is attractive to sinners who need Him. Come, then, come and welcome, there is nothing to keep yon away, there is everything to bid you come. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The loveliness of Christ
I. In the spotless purity of His nature.
II. In His unrivalled perfections.
III. In His varied offices of prophet, priest, and king.
IV. In His temper and spirit. Love, meekness, tenderness and benignity marked His whole earthly career. (J. N. Norton, D. D.)
The best beloved
I am not about to speak of Christ’s loveliness after the flesh, for now after the flesh know we Him no more. It is His moral and spiritual beauty, of which the spouse in the Song most sweetly says, “Yea, He is altogether lovely.” The loveliness which the eye dotes on is mere varnish when compared with that which dwells in virtue and holiness; the worm will devour the loveliness of skin and flesh, but a lovely character will endure for ever.
I. This is rare praise. What if I say it is unique? For no other being could it be said, “Yea, He is altogether lovely.” It means, first, that all that is in Him is lovely, perfectly lovely. There is no point in our Lord Jesus that you could improve. To paint the rose were to spoil its ruddy hue. To tint the lily, for He is lily as well as rose, were to mar its whiteness. Each virtue in our Lord is there in a state of absolute perfection: it could not be more fully developed. He is altogether lovely at every separate point, so that the spouse, when she began with His head, descended to His feet, and then lifting her eyes upward again upon a return voyage of delight, she looked into His countenance, and summed up all that she had seen in this one sentence, “He is altogether lovely.” This is rare praise. And He is all that is lovely. In each one of His people you will find something that is lovely, in one there is faith, in another abounding love; in one tenderness, in another courage, but you do not find all good things in any one saint--at least not all of them in full perfection; but you find all virtues in Jesus, and each one of them at its best. In Jesus Christ--this, moreover, is rare praise again--there is nothing that is unlovely. You never need put the finger over the scar in His case, as Apelles did when he painted his hero. Nothing about our Lord needs to be concealed; even His cross, at which his enemies stumble, is to be daily proclaimed, and it will be seen to be one of His choicest beauties.
II. As this is rare praise, so likewise it is perpetual praise. You may say of Christ whenever you look at Him, “Yea, He is altogether lovely.” He also was so. As God over all, He is blessed for ever, Amen. When in addition to His Godhead, He assumed our mortal clay, was He not inimitably lovely then? He is lovely in all His offices. What an entrancing sight to see the King in His beauty, with His diadem upon His head, as He now sits in yonder world of brightness! How charming to view Him as a Priest, with the Urim and Thummim, wearing the names of His people bejewelled on His breastplate! And what a vision of simple beauty, to see Him as a Prophet teaching His people in touching parables of homely interest, of whom they said, “Never man spake like this.” Man I Let Him be what He may--Lamb or Shepherd, Brother or King, Saviour or Master, Foot-washer or Lord--in every relation He is altogether lovely.
III. Though this praise is rare praise and perpetual praise, yet also it is totally insufficient praise, Say ye that He is altogether lovely? It is not enough. It is not a thousandth part enough. No tongue of man, no tongue of angel, can ever set forth His unutterable beauties. “Oh,” say you, “but it is a great word, though short; very full of meaning though soon spoken--altogether lovely. I tell you it is a poor word. It is a word of despair. The praise of the text is insufficient praise, I know, because it is praise given by one who had never seen Him in His glory. It is Old Testament praise this, that He is altogether lovely: praise uttered upon report rather than upon actual view of Him. Truly I know not how to bring better, but I shall know one day. Till then I will speak His praise as best I can, though it fall far short of His infinite excellence.
IV. This praise is very suggestive. If Christ be altogether lovely it suggests a question. Suppose I never saw His loveliness. This world appreciates the man who makes money, how ever reckless he may be of the welfare of others while scheming to heap up riches for himself. As for this Jesus, He only gave His life for men, He was only pure and perfect, the mirror of disinterested love. The vain world cannot see in Him a virtue to admire, It is a blind world, a fool world, a world that lieth in the wicked one. Not to discern the beauties of Jesus is an evidence of terrible depravity. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.
Christ the Beloved, and the Friend of His people
I. Christ the beloved of his people.
1. They love Him for His own great and glorious perfection. In Him all beauty centres. In Him, whatever qualities excite admiration, or engage esteem, whatever excellence adorns, dignifies, or endears the character, unite without diminution or alloy.
2. They love Him for His suitableness to their necessities. Are they in a lost and perishing condition? Christ is a Saviour and a great one. Are they blind and ignorant? In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Are they tied and bound with the chain of their sins? Christ proclaims liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prisons to them that are bound. Are they weak and helpless? Christ will give strength to His people. He is a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in distress. In a word, Christ is a remedy exactly suited to every want.
3. They love Him for the special benefits which He hath conferred upon them.
(1) They have experienced the freeness of His love.
(2) They have experienced the efficacy of His pardoning mercy.
(3) They have experienced the power of His sanctifying grace.
(4) They have experienced the faithfulness of His Word. They have trusted in Him and have been holpen. They have called upon Him and have been delivered.
II. Christ is the friend of His people.
1. Christ is a Friend, who tenderly loves His people, and is cordially attached to their interests.
2. Christ is an all-powerful Friend. The kingdoms of nature, of providence, of grace, are under His control.
3. Christ is an unchangeable Friend.
4. Christ is a seasonable Friend. The friend who ministers to our support, when other friends forsake us, and when we stand most in need of his support, pre eminently shows himself to be a friend. Such a friend is Christ to His people.
III. Some marks, by which you may judge whether you love Christ or not.
1. If you love Christ, you love His cause. That His kingdom may come, is your prayer. That His kingdom will come, is your joy.
2. It you love Christ, youlove His people. The faithful in Christ Jesus you will account the truly honourable on earth; the excellent, in whom is all your delight.
3. If you love Christ, you love His ordinances.
4. If you love Christ you love to do His will. (E. Cooper, M. A.)
Christ the Friend of His people
I. Because of what he undertook and what he has accomplished for them.
1. When their cause was desperate with God, He engaged to remedy it--to answer every charge to which they were liable, and He did it.
2. He purchased their persons, that He might be free to bless them as He saw meet.
(1) Having them as His own, it is His delight to enrich and honour them to the utmost.
(2) Having them as His own, He strips them of their filthy garments--He washes them from their sins.
(3) Having them as His own, He reveals Himself to them. He cures the blindness with which the God of this world had afflicted them.
(4) Having them as His own, He puts His law in their hearts and writes it in their minds. With their whole soul they consent unto it as “holy, just, good.”
3. He has gone before to the place of final rest, there to appear for them, thence to hold communication with them, and thither to take them at last.
II. The character of His friendship.
1. It is an indissoluble friendship. It is not a friendship which, having viewed its object at first, through the false and delusive medium of an absorbing passion, has been deceived in it, and, on discovery of the deception, cools, fades, falls away, until it ceases altogether, or sinks into indifference, bearing proportion in its extent to the blind ardour that once raged. But it is a friendship based on intelligent, holy, as well as affectionate choice; He that led to it, that formed it, being the Father who so loved us that “He gave His only begotten Son, that we might live by Him.” It never wearies of its object, for it is never disappointed, never deceived. It grows, it increases continually. On Christ’s side it is perfect from the beginning, as existing in His heart; but the manifestations of it to us multiply every day.
2. It is marked by uniform constancy. Christ is a Friend that “loves at all times.”
3. It is distinguished by unswerving faithfulness. (A. Beith.)
This is my Friend
I. The need of this Friend. This will be evident if you reflect upon the sad state and condition in which all mankind are involved by sin.
II. Some proofs and instances of Christ’s friendship towards us.
1. His engaging in our cause as our Surety in the everlasting covenant, which is ordered in all things and sure, and entered into between the Persons of the Trinity, is a manifest proof and indication of His friendship towards us.
2. He has not only undertaken to do all this, but He has done what He undertook to do. He has paid the very last farthing for us.
3. He has proved Himself to be our Friend by having wrought out a righteousness for us, a righteousness which ensures us against all the demands both of law and of justice; a righteousness which shall be for ever, a salvation which shall not be abolished.
4. He has proved Himself to be our Friend by His dying in our stead, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
5. He has proved Himself to be our Friend by His having purchased our persons, and procured all things needful for us. Look at the price which He has paid, His own blood.
6. He has proved Himself to be our Friend by His having risen again in our behalf; by His having ascended to His Father and to our Father, to His God, and our God; by His taking possession of heaven for us.
7. He has proved Himself to be our Friend by interceding for us.
III. Some of the properties of this friend. Christ is a nonsuch; there is none like Him; none to be compared to Him. He is the chiefest among ten thousand, He is altogether lovely. He is all desires, and the Desire of all nations, “Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee.”
1. He is a rich Friend. Such an one is often useful and needful. A man may have a friend that has the heart to help him, but who has not got the means; but Christ as He is willing, so also He is able.
2. He is a faithful Friend. You may safely trust Him with your all. He is faithful to the Father, having perfectly fulfilled HIS covenant engagements with Him, in fulfilling the law and suffering the penalty. And He is faithful to Ills people in giving them eternal life.
3. He is a tender-hearted Friend. He sympathizes with His people in all their afflictions, their trials, their difficulties, their disappointments, their sicknesses.
4. He is an unchangeable and unchanging Friend. We may grow cold to Him. He grows not cold towards us. He is ever the same.
5. He is an everlasting Friend. A man may have a friend and he may die, and then all his dependence upon him is gone; but Christ ever lives to be the Friend of His people. Death separates friends, but over Christ it hath no power.
IV. Who that individual is that can claim Christ as his or her friend. And here we observe, that no person in a state of nature can make this claim, since Christ is neither beloved by such, nor are they acquainted with that friendship which dwells in His breast towards all those whom He has redeemed with His most precious blood. And as they are unacquainted with His friendship, they cannot claim Him as their Friend. Neither is it the privilege of every one who is called by grace to claim Christ as his Friend. Although every regenerate person has faith, yet every regenerate person may not have the full assurance of faith. When faith does rise to this full assurance, the possessor thereof can say as Paul did, “He loved me and gave Himself for me.” Such can say with holy Job, “I know that my Redeemer liveth” not the Redeemer, but my Redeemer; “and that He shall stand, etc. Such can say as Thomas did, “MyLord and my God” Such can say as the Church does, “This is my Beloved, and this is my Friend.” (W. D. Long, M. A.)
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Our Friend
To have a true friend is a blessing beyond all price. I wish to show that there is a loving Friend for all mankind.
1. Who is our Friend? Men have always been asking, Who is God? In reply, the Lord our God appeared in a human body, called Jesus, and showed that He is the Friend of Man.
2. Our Friend sees all our trouble. O friendless one, tossed about on the sea of life, our Friend sees you, and is at hand to comfort you.
3. Our Friend is always present with us.
4. Our Friend can help us all times.
5. Our Friend is our Mediator, who saves us from the result of our sins.
6. Brothers, love our Friend! And, like Him, love the friendless!
7. Let us also show friendship to all creatures which God has made. (W. Birch.)
