Morning By Morning #69

He is altogether lovely.

Song of Songs 5:16

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

The unsurpassed beauty of Jesus is all-powerful in its attraction, yet it should not so much be admired as loved. He is more than superficially pleasing to look upon—He is truly lovely. Surely the lofty word lovely can be fully justified by the people of God, for He is the object of their warmest love, a love based upon the inherent excellence of who He is and the perfection of His nature.

O disciples of Jesus, look at your Master’s lips. Can’t you say, “His mouth is sweetness itself” (Song 5:16)? Don’t His words cause you to say, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road” (Luke 24:32)? You who worship Immanuel, look at His head of “much pure gold” (Ps. 19:10). Can’t you say to Him, “How precious to me are your thoughts” (Ps. 139:17)? Isn’t your adoration for Him sweetened as you humbly bow before Him whose “appearance is like Lebanon, choice as its cedars” (Song 5:15)? Isn’t there an innate attraction to His every feature, and isn’t His entire being fragrant “like perfume poured out” so that it’s “no wonder the maidens love [Him]” (Song 1:3)!

Is there even one member of His glorious body that is not attractive, one part of His person that does not continually offer guidance for our souls, or one office He fills on our behalf that doesn’t strongly bind Him to our hearts? Yet our love is not simply a seal binding us to His heart of love alone, but it also fastens us to His arm of power as well, for there is not a single part of Him that does not fasten itself to us. We anoint His entire being with the sweet perfume of our fervent love for Him.

We should imitate Him in the entirety of His life and His total character should be reflected by us. Every other person is lacking in some respect, but in Him we find complete perfection. Even the best of His chosen saints have stains on their garments and wrinkles upon their brows, yet He is nothing but loveliness. All earthly “suns” still have their sunspots, and even this world—as beautiful as it is—still has its wilderness. Thus, we find ourselves unable to love in its totality even the very loveliest of what this world has to offer.

Christ Jesus, however, is gold without impurities—light without darkness—glory without clouds. “He is altogether lovely”!

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

Although our Lord “is altogether lovely,” Isaiah tells us: “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isa. 53:2). What a glorious teaching that true beauty is inner beauty! Yet how many of us describe beauty only outwardly, and how many men today seek a spouse based primarily on outer appearance though God’s Word says, “Beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” (Prov. 31:30)?

Remember God’s words to Samuel when he was sent to anoint Israel’s next king and had one of David’s brothers standing before him: “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7).

“One thing I ask:…to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD” (Ps. 27:4). “Let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us” (Ps. 90:17 KJV).