Song of Songs 1:4-5
Rightly do they love you.”
5 “I am black but lovely,
O daughters of Jerusalem,
Like the tents of Kedar,
Like the curtains of Solomon.”
“Rightly do they love you” Love to the king was rightly so” ( so now think about the kingdom and people loving Solomon and rightly adoring him, think of all the proverbs he would be telling, how he made peace everywhere by his love and wisdom. You put yourself in a kingdom context which is during the reign of Solomon in order to illustrate the Greater Kingdom. It was not something improper for them to love their king and honor and adore him but it was right for the upright to adore him. Your getting a grasp how the rightness of adoration to a deserving king.
This is an earthy example. Something we can see but we can’t see our submitting to God/Jesus or King. We do actions yes but do we see Christ? No. Do we see an earthly human king loving an enemy slave girl in marriage. Ruling the kingdom of God from Jerusalem with righteousness and justice. And great high priestly work in the temple in intercession and substitutionary atonement. So there is the illustration of a King rightly being adored in a kingdom were righteousness and justice reigned. This is the lesser kingdom. Solomon’s kingdom and his glory is only a type or reflection of God’s Kingdom in the new heaven and earth is the greater glory when Christ will reign as King.
Solomon is trying to help us see the stark contrast there is between your sinfulness and His Holiness, your nothingness and He is your all and all. Your evil dark tent is repulsive morally rejected like a prostitute wanting to enter the Kingdom of God. This contrast is more clearly understood in the light of seeing it right for all the upright to worship and adore the King. Rejoicing in his love and just the mention of his name, Solomon, brought joy to those who heard it. Your greater understanding of his majesty increases your valuing of Him as a Husband who loves God. Yet you are dark like the darkest tent, really this is your sin in a picture. How great is our moral inability apart from Christ.
“Tents of Kedar”
Tens of Kedar where dwelling tents of really evil people. The bride, when she see’s the remaining sinful part of herself, compares it to that of a dwelling place of the worst evils. What the bible calls “flesh” in Romans. The believer has a new heart like the bride 8:6, therefore there heart is not only evil all the time.
What is true sorrow from a true penitent sinner? He must sorrow for sin from love to God from a sense of God’s excellency and Grace. He must forsake sin freely of choice.
There is holiness in the heart of the believer. This holiness is lovely to the believer. They like the fact that they have a holy heart, which consists in love to God. So She is not only Dark, but lovely with holiness on her heart. She is beautiful on the inside and out 1:9-10.
So picture your sin, all your sin from birth til now. All your sin is this dark tent you dwell in. Think of all your sin, sins of the mind and heart. Sins of anger. Sins of lust. The wages of sin is death. Separation from experiencing Special Love and Grace of God in Christ. Separation from God and not union with Him is felt when our sin’s separate us from Him. This sin is dark very dark keep always thinking yourself more worthless than before, more wicked and prideful than before See your pride in the light of the Humility of Christ.
See your dark tent in stark contrast to Christ’s holiness glorious like Solomon’s curtains. See your sin next to His Holiness and you get a righter more true view of yourself provided the light was brighter than before. More knowledge of God and love to Him communicated to the believer. To the degree of the Glory of God revealed in the soul.
Think “Miserably dark am I like the darkest tent, yet beautiful like Solomon’s curtains.” Your moral excellency in you is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of Love and Truth and Holiness. So truth in the mind and holiness and love in the heart is the work of His Spirit in me. You are beautiful in the Eyes of God only because His Beautiful Image is in you.
Christ is your righteousness. You are dark. Yet lovely. But what is lovely or morally excellent about her. His righteousness in her is beautiful to Him.
The caterpillar becoming a beautiful butterfly is a lively illustration of only Dark was I, but now, “Dark am I, yet lovely in Christ”.
35. The silkworm is a remarkable type of Christ, which, when it dies, yields us that of which we make such glorious clothing. Christ became a worm for our sakes, and by his death finished that righteousness with which believers are clothed, and thereby procured that we should be clothed with robes of glory. Vid. [no.] 46. See 2 Samuel 5:23–24 and Psalms 84:6; the valley of mulberry trees.
Higher thoughts of Christ and lower views of self.
See the stark contrast when in His Presence
His Beautiful Holiness in contrast to your ugly deformity.
His Love next to your hate.
His Authority to your servitude.
His Self-sufficency and your dependance.
How Great He is to how little we are. And so on with all the other attributes. Humbling yourself in His presence, and oh how beautiful you look to Him with your head so low before your King and Bridegroom.
A true penitent may be influenced to forsake sin from the terrors of the law. But if he is, this not true repentance. Its the influence that the discovery of the glory and grace of God in the Gospel has upon him to make him mourn for sin and forsake it that renders it genuine and truly gracious.
When the law brings in its indictments against you. The law says, “Here there are so many debts to be paid,” and it demands satisfaction. Acknowledge the debt, but turn it all over to your Husband, Christ. It is a maxim in law that the suit must not go against the wife, as long as the husband is living. Tell Satan when he accuses you, “It is true that the debt is mine, but go to my Husband, Christ; he will discharge it.” If we took this course, we might relieve ourselves of much trouble. By faith we turn over the debt to our Husband. Believers are not in a state of widowhood but of marriage. Satan will never go to Christ – he knows that justice is satisfied and the debt book cancelled – but he comes to us for the debt so that he may perplex us. We should send him to Christ and then all lawsuits would cease. This is a believer’s triumph. When he is guilty in himself, he is worthy in Christ. When he is spotted in himself, he is pure in his Head. Thomas Watson
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Dark am I, yet lovely in Christ
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