Christ in Song of Songs 4:1-5:1 – The King’s Beautiful Bride

You are absolutely beautiful, my darling,
with no imperfection in you.

(Song of Songs 4:7, HCSB)

In this text we see a bride whose husband views her as perfect, flawless, “with no imperfection” (4:7). If only such a bride really existed. The fact is, however, she does! She exists in the people of God called the Church, a people God has redeemed and “purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28). Made new in Jesus Christ, her divine Bridegroom, she knows He is committed “to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word,” and that He is doing this “to present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless” (Eph 5:26-27).

This is how our Bridegroom sees us through His imputed righteousness, and this is who we are predestined to be when our marriage is consummated at “the marriage feast of the Lamb” (Rev 19:9, cf. Rom 8:30). On that day we will “be glad, rejoice, and give Him glory, because the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has prepared herself. She [will be] give fine linen to wear, bright and pure. For the fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints” (Rev 19:7-8).

The love this Shepherd-King has for his bride is beautiful and precious indeed. However, as Robert Saucy says so well, “The love of Christ for His bride far surpasses anything known in the human level… Never has a husband loved as Christ loved the church. For Christ did not love those worthy of love, but sinners and enemies (Rom 5:8-10)…‘Christ loved the church not because it was perfectly lovable but in order to make it such.’”[1]

Indeed the extent of His love is seen in the price He paid to make us perfect, with no flaw at all. We are indeed His beautiful bride, his darling. This is how Christ sees us! This is what He has made us!

[1] Robert L. Saucy, The Church in God’s Program (Chicago: Moody, 1972), 45. The latter portion of this quote comes from Brooke Foss Westcott, Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), 84.