The Beauty God Gives

The longing for beauty is universal. What person does not want to be seen and noticed? It's inherent in our youth, and in marriage, we can kill a relationship when we no longer notice one another's individual beauty that attracted us to them in the first place. For this reason, the Song of Solomon is filled with edification from lover to lover of the captivating beauty they beheld in each other. 

Song of Solomon 4:1 (ESV) Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead.

The king will not simply tell her she is beautiful, he will describe her beauty in poetic fashion, drawing allusions to the animal kingdom, industry and architecture of their world. The picture is of a bride from Earth loved and seen for all she is.

The descriptions may seem funny to us. Some of them seem rude. But all of them are chosen and thought out for the original author. One key element that repeats is the mention of his lovers' veil. 

Song of Solomon 4:3 (ESV) Your lips are like a scarlet thread, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil.

He sees her but not without separation. So too, we experience Christ and His beauty toward us and for us, but not without the veil of separation that is our flesh and sin. One day the veil of sin is removed forever and we enjoy His glory for eternity. 

Song of Solomon 4:4 (ESV) Your neck is like the tower of David, built in rows of stone; on it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors.

Here the king describes not just her natural beauty but perhaps the chains of necklaces that we have seen in ancient imagery on women where stacks of jewelry stand on one another. 

Song of Solomon 4:5 (ESV) Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that graze among the lilies.

Comparing a woman's breasts to dear seems funny. But the emphasis is on their youth. The woman is young and in the prime of her beauty. 

Song of Solomon 4:7 (ESV) You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.

In the finality of the description, Solomon declares her perfect in his sight. This is a woman who has prepared and adorned herself for the king. And it's a picture of the bride of Christ adorned for Him. 

How are we adored? We are clothed in His righteousness. 

Isaiah 61:10 (ESV) I will greatly rejoice in the LORD;... he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Remember Jesus' parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22. One guest arrived without the provided garments and was cast out immediately. The lesson was simple. We do not come to God's house without the apparel of perfect righteousness found in Him. 

Through our good works and mutual submission to one another regardless of roles, we adorn the Gospel of the Lord. 

Titus 2:9–10 (ESV) Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

The King is so enamored with her beauty that he moves from observing to calling.

Song of Solomon 4:8 (ESV) Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; come with me from Lebanon. Depart from the peak of Amana, from the peak of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards.

This is a picture of not just husband and wife enjoying each other's beauty, it's a picture of the work of Christ on our behalf. We put away our old life and adorn ourselves in His truth. We are made new and brought to completion through His grace. We are given beauty for ashes (Isaiah 61:3).

In effect, the Gospel does not simply get us to heaven, it makes us beautifully prepared for heaven here on Earth.