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"Thou art all fair, my love."
-- Song of Solomon 4:7
The Lord's admiration of his Church is very wonderful, and his
description of her beauty is very glowing. She is not merely fair, but
"all fair." He views her in himself, washed in his sin-atoning blood
and clothed in his meritorious righteousness, and he considers her to
be full of comeliness and beauty. No wonder that such is the case,
since it is but his own perfect excellency that he admires; for the
holiness, glory, and perfection of his Church are his own glorious
garments on the back of his own well-beloved spouse. She is not simply
pure, or well-proportioned; she is positively lovely and fair! She has
actual merit! Her deformities of sin are removed; but more, she has
through her Lord obtained a meritorious righteousness by which an
actual beauty is conferred upon her. Believers have a positive
righteousness given to them when they become "accepted in the beloved"
(Eph. 1:6). Nor is the Church barely lovely, she is superlatively so.
Her Lord styles her "Thou fairest among women." She has a real worth
and excellence which cannot be rivalled by all the nobility and royalty
of the world. If Jesus could exchange his elect bride for all the
queens and empresses of earth, or even for the angels in heaven, he
would not, for he puts her first and foremost-"fairest among women."
Like the moon she far outshines the stars. Nor is this an opinion which
he is ashamed of, for he invites all men to hear it. He sets a "behold"
before it, a special note of exclamation, inviting and arresting
attention. "Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair"
(Song of Sol. 4:1). His opinion he publishes abroad even now, and one
day from the throne of his glory he will avow the truth of it before
the assembled universe. "Come, ye blessed of my Father" (Matt. 25:34),
will be his solemn affirmation of the loveliness of his elect.
-C. H. Spurgeon
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