Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Best Beloved (Solomon's Song 5:16) | Charles Spurgeon

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The Best Beloved (Solomon's Song 5:16) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  So when you look around the world, or you know, when you
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  look at the people in your life, how do you define beauty?
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  That is a big question to start with.
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  Yeah, it really is. But I want you to think about
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  what makes someone genuinely beautiful to you.
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  I mean, is it perfect physical symmetry?
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  Right, like having the right features arranged in flawless
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  proportions. Yes, precisely that.
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  Or is it something else entirely?
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  Something unseen, you know, something spiritual.
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  Something that radiates from their character and just
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  completely bypasses their physical appearance.
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  That is a massive distinction to make.
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  It is, and well, welcome to Reform Thinking.
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  We are thrilled to have you with us for today's Deep dive.
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  It is great to be here. We have a really fascinating
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  session ahead of. Us.
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  We absolutely do. Our mission for this deep dive
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  is to analyze an intense, highly poetic text by the 19th century
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  preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
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  He was such a vivid communicator.
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  Oh, unmatched. And he is looking at a single
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  line from the Song of Solomon chapter 5, verse 16, which
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  simply says, yeah, he is altogether lovely.
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  It is a very short sentence. Right.
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  But from that one short sentence, we are going to
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  investigate the vast difference between appreciating what
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  someone does for you versus adoring them for who they
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  intrinsically are. That is a critical shift in
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  perspective. Yeah, and we will be using
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  Spurgeon's breathtaking descriptions of Jesus Christ as
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  our prime subject. But I want to warn you right up
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  front. The warning, yes, a warning to
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  you listening right now. Spurgeon's text is going to
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  challenge your very perception of what makes someone genuinely
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  attractive. It definitely will.
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  It turns our usual standards upside down.
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  It really does. So we have a lot of ground to
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  cover. Let us set the stage for the
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  text we are looking at. Well, it is a remarkable piece
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  of literature, and you know Spurgeon is doing something
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  quite extraordinary with it. How so?
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  He is taking a single ancient sentence of poetry and using it
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  to synthesize an entire theological framework regarding
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  the perfection of Christ's character.
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  Which is a huge task for one verse.
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  It is, and at the same time he is demonstrating the absolute
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  limits of human language to capture that perfection.
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  Language really does when you get to this level.
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  It does now he starts by drawing a sharp line between gratitude
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  for salvation and a genuine, consuming love for the person of
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  Christ. Let's break that down a bit.
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  Sure, Spurgeon notes that believers often start by loving
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  Jesus because he first loved them and provided salvation.
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  Right, because of the benefits. Yes, and he calls this an unripe
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  fruit. Unripe fruit.
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  I like that imagery. Now, he's not saying this
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  gratitude is bad or false. It is a genuine fruit.
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  It is real, but it is immature. Because it is focused on what
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  you get out of the deal. Precisely.
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  You are loving Christ simply for the benefits you have received
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  from him. But then he contrasts this with
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  what he calls the mellow fruit. And what brings about this
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  mellow fruit? He says it is brought forth by
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  the summer sun of fellowship. The summer sun of fellowship.
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  That is such a vivid phrase. It is beautiful.
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  This ripened fruit represents loving Christ for His
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  superlative excellence and His intrinsic goodness, entirely
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  apart from what He has done for you.
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  So loving him just for who he is.
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  Yes, and to explain this maturation process, Spurgeon
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  categorizes Christ's work into 3 distinct roles.
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  Let's go through those. First, he looks at Christ as the
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  Mediator, standing in humble obedience under the law.
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  OK, mediator, that makes sense. Then he views him as the
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  substitute placed on the altar of sacrifice before the
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  foundation of the world. Substitute.
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  And finally, he sees him as the advocate, standing in the place
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  of highest honor at the right hand of majesty.
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  So, mediator. Substitute advocate.
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  Right. And Spurgeon makes a crucial
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  distinction here. He says we prize his gifts, we
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  value the work he accomplished in those three roles.
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  But we worship him as a person. OK.
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  Let us unpack this because those 3 roles sound like very
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  technical theological terms. They do, but they carry massive
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  weight in Spurgeon's argument. They really do.
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  Let us break them down for you listening.
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  When Spurgeon says mediator, he is talking about someone who
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  stands between two warring parties to broker a peace.
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  Right. Bringing two sides together.
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  Absolutely. Humanity broke the law, God
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  demands justice, and Christ steps into the middle to fulfill
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  the law perfectly. He bridges that massive gap.
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  He does. Then the substitute is the one
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  who actually takes the penalty. That is the imagery of the
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  altar. The sacrifice.
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  Right. The sacrifice, taking the blow
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  that was meant for the guilty party.
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  And then the advocate is the defense attorney, the one who
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  stands in the highest courtroom of heaven and argues on your
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  behalf. It is a very comprehensive legal
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  and relational picture. It is, but Spurgeon is saying
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  you can be incredibly grateful for the mediator, the substitute
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  and the advocate and still miss the actual beauty of the person
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  performing those roles. Which is a sobering thought.
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  It really is. I think bringing this down to a
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  human level makes his distinction incredibly clear.
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  I agree an analogy helps here. OK, so imagine you have a spouse
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  and the only reason you love them is because of the financial
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  security they provide. Right.
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  Or maybe the social status they give you in your community.
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  Yeah. They pay the bills, they keep
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  the house comfortable, they provide a certain standard of
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  living. A very comfortable arrangement.
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  Sure, but if someone asks you why you love your spouse and
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  your only answer was a list of those benefits, anyone listening
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  would immediately recognize that love is immature.
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  It sounds entirely transactional.
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  Yes, transactional. You do not actually love the
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  person you love. The perks of being associated
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  with. It you love what they do for
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  you. Right.
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  So what happens if that spouse loses their job?
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  What happens if the money disappears?
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  The relationship would shatter. It would absolutely fall apart
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  if your love was only based on the benefits.
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  There is nothing left holding it together.
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  That makes perfect sense. And Spurgeon is applying that
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  exact relational logic to the divine.
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  He is saying that if your affection for Jesus is based
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  entirely on the fact that he forgave your sins and gave you a
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  ticket to heaven. You were treating him like the
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  wealthy spouse, yes. Yes, you are treating the
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  creator of the universe the same way a person treats a wealthy
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  spouse they married for money. You are enjoying the perks, but
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  you are completely missing the person.
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  That analogy strikes right at the core of the issue.
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  It really challenges you, doesn't it?
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  It does. Spurgeon is challenging you, the
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  listener, to examine your own religious motives.
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  Because it is easy to hide those motives.
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  Oh, very easy, You have to ask, Is your affection purely
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  transactional? Is it based entirely on the
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  alleviation of your own guilt and the promise of future
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  rewards? And if it is?
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  Because if it is, your religion is still entirely centered on
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  yourself. You are only looking at Jesus as
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  a mechanism to solve your problems and secure your
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  comfort. Which is a very common way
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  people approach religion. It is the default human mode.
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  But Spurgeon argues that the highest degree of devotion, the
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  real goal of the Christian life, is the adoration of the person
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  of Christ. Adoring him for who he is.
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  Yes, he writes that all blessings flow from Christ, so
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  all love should return back to Him.
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  That's a great way to put it. He pushes the reader to move
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  beyond the transaction of salvation and step into the
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  sunlight of actual fellowship. To move from the unripe fruit to
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  the mellow fruit. Exact.
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  I mean precisely. This is where the believer's
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  spiritual taste matures. You stop looking at the gifts
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  and start looking at the giver. But there is a catch here.
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  What is that? To do that, to actually love
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  Christ for His beauty, you first have to understand what true
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  beauty actually is. And that is not easy.
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  No, it is a massive philosophical hurdle because our
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  natural definition of beauty is entirely corrupted by our
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  physical senses. We are so tied to the physical
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  world. We are, And that brings us to
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  Spurgeon's philosophical struggle to define loveliness.
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  He spends quite a bit of time on this.
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  He does. I will paraphrase a bit of
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  Spurgeon's attempt to define it, because it is quite striking.
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  He completely rejects the idea that beauty is just fitness.
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  Fitness in what? Sense like functional fitness?
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  Yeah, he says. There was a lot of fitness in
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  the world that remains incredibly ugly.
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  Right, like a machine. Yes, a machine might be
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  perfectly fit for its task. It does its job well, but it is
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  not necessarily beautiful. Function does not always equal
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  loveliness. True.
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  Then he rejects the idea that beauty is simply proportion.
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  Which is interesting because that is how classical art
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  defines it. It is.
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  He acknowledges that harmony and proportion are desirable.
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  You know you want features to be well balanced.
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  Nothing exaggerated, nothing dwarfs.
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  Sure, nobody wants a disproportionate face.
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  Right, but he says you can have perfect proportion and still
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  lack true loveliness. And he uses a very specific
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  example for this, doesn't he? He does.
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  To illustrate this, he points to a specific piece of art in the
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  Vatican, and the history behind this statue adds a lot of weight
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  to his argument. Yes, Spurgeon brings up the
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  Antinus statue. Can you give us some historical
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  context for that? Absolutely.
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  Antinus was a young man favored by the Roman Emperor Hadrian.
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  When Antinus died tragically, the grief stricken emperor
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  commissioned thousands of sculptures of him.
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  Thousands. That is a massive undertaking.
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  It was an obsession, he demanded.
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  They reflect absolute idealized physical perfection.
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  So he wanted the statues to be flawless.
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  Right, and the specific statue Spurgeon references, which is
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  located in the halls of the Vatican, is renowned for
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  possessing perfect harmony. Mathematically perfect.
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  Yes, the sculptor achieved perfectly balanced features and
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  ideal proportions. From a purely mathematical and
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  structural standpoint, it is flawless.
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  You could measure every angle of the face and find absolute
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  symmetry. You really could.
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  Yet Spurgeon argues that the statue lacks expression.
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  Because it is just stone. It is a piece of materialism so
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  carefully measured, so meticulously carved out, that it
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  completely lacks a soul. It is dead.
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  It is. No one could ever be truly
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  enchanted by it or feel genuine affection for the form it
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  represents, because it is entirely, entirely cold.
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  It cannot love you back. No, it cannot weep with you, and
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  it possesses no moral character. So physical perfection isn't
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  enough. Right.
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  Spartan concludes that true beauty does not consist in mere
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  harmony, nor in just balancing physical features.
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  There has to be something more, a living essence that captures
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  the heart. I'm so glad he brings up
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  physical symmetry, because our modern society is completely
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  obsessed with that kind of symmetrical, airbrushed physical
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  perfection. We really are.
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  It is everywhere. It is.
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  Think about it. We have social media filters
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  designed to mathematically balance our facial features in
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  real time. To make us look like the antenna
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  statue. Yes, we have magazines filled
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  with people who have been digitally altered to remove any
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  possible flaw or asymmetry. We're constantly chasing that
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  flawless marble. It is an endless pursuit.
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  We spend billions of dollars on cosmetics and surgeries to
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  achieve a mathematical proportion that Spurgeon is
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  saying is essentially dead. Dead and cold, right?
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  And, you know, we all know people who might possess that
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  flawless physical symmetry. Beautiful on the outside, yes.
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  Yet when they open their mouths, or when you observe how they
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  treat a waiter at a restaurant, all of that physical
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  attractiveness vanishes in an instant.
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  Because their character shows through.
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  Right. They become incredibly ugly
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  because their character is ugly. The symmetry of their face
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  cannot hide the cruelty of their soul.
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  That is a very profound, well, a very striking observation.
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  So if true beauty is not physical symmetry, how do we
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  visualize the beauty of Christ? Because historically we do not
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  have a physical description of Jesus.
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  We don't. The Bible gives us 0 details
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  about his height, his facial features, or the color of his
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  eyes. Nothing.
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  And that absence of physical description is entirely
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  intentional. It is the pivot Spurgeon make.
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  OK, tell me about that pivot. He highlights the assertion that
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  Christ's beauty is mysterious and fundamentally spiritual.
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  Spiritual beauty. Right.
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  Spurgeon suggests that Jesus likely had a well proportioned
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  physical form, but he quickly points out that every artist who
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  has ever tried to paint the face of Christ has failed.
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  Why do they fail? He uses a brilliant phrase.
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  They fail because they cannot photograph the sun.
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  Wow. Cannot photograph the sun.
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  That is incredible. It is the loftiest conceptions
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  of the greatest painters fall utterly short because they are
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  trying to capture a spiritual reality with physical pigments.
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  You cannot paint light itself. No, you cannot.
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  But the theological implication goes far beyond physical
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  appearance. How so?
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  Spurgeon says that Christ's true loveliness is actually seen in
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  his marred visage. His marred visage, the wounds.
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  Yes, this is a striking paradox. We think of beauty as the
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  absence of flaws, the absence of pain, and the absence of
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  suffering. We think of beauty as youth and
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  vitality. Right, but Spurgeon leans into
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  the prophecy of Isaiah, which says he had no beauty or majesty
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  to attract us to him, and that his appearance was so disfigured
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  beyond that of any human being. So on the outside in that
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  moment, he was not beautiful at all by our standards.
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  No, but Spurgeon argues that this very anguish gave Jesus a
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  loveliness he otherwise would not have reached.
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  The suffering created the beauty.
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  Yes, his passion. The bloody sweat in the Garden
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  of Gethsemane, the immense grief of being betrayed by his
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  friends. The physical scars from the
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  crucifixion. All of that.
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  Yes, those things put the finishing touch on his beauty.
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  I love this concept because it turns our entire aesthetic value
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  system completely upside down it.
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  Really shifts the paradigm. It does.
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  Genuine sacrifice creates a beauty that untouched marble
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  could never achieve. An earned beauty, yes.
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  Think about a parent who works double shifts for 20 years in a
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  physically demanding job to provide for their children.
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  That is grueling work. It is.
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  Their hands might be heavily calloused.
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  Their face might be lined with stress.
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  Their posture might be stooped from years of Labor.
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  They do not look like a flawless marble statue.
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  Not at all. They would not be on the cover
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  of a fashion magazine. But to those children who
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  understand the sacrifice, who know that every line on that
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  face and every callus on those hands was earned for their
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  survival. Those hands are beautiful.
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  Yes, those hands are the most beautiful hands in the world.
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  To them the physical wear and tear is the visible proofs of
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  their love. That is a wonderful way to
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  understand it. That is what Spurgeon is getting
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  at with the marred visage of Christ.
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  The wounds, the grief, the suffering.
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  They are not blemishes to be hidden away.
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  They are the ultimate proof of his character.
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  They are the visible manifestation of His total self
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  giving love, and that makes Him infinitely more beautiful than
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  any untouched, pristine figure sitting safely in heaven.
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  His scars are his glory. Yes.
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  That is a phenomenal way to frame it.
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  The scars are the vocabulary of his love.
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  I like that the vocabulary of his love.
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  Now, having established that this beauty is moral and
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  spiritual, Spurgeon moves to his first major argument regarding
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  the phrase from our source text. The phrase yay, he is altogether
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  lovely. Right, he says.
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  This phrase is rare praise. Rare in what way?
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  It is unique because it means everything in him is perfectly
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  lovely and he contains all that is lovely.
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  All of it, nothing left out. Nothing to explain this.
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  Spurgeon uses some vivid analogies.
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  Let us hear them. He says if you take the best
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  virtues of every St. throughout history, OK.
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  Gathering all the best traits. Right.
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  If you take the faith from 1, the courage from another, the
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  tenderness from 1/3, the zeal from a fourth, and you combine
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  them all, you find them all perfectly realized in Christ.
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  So he is the ultimate collection of virtue.
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  He calls Christ the Posey or the bouquet, binding all the
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  separate beauties of the garden together into one perfect
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  arrangement. That is a great image.
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  He also compares Christ to a ring setting that holds a
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  sapphire, a Ruby, a diamond, and an emerald all in one place.
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  All shining together. Right, with each gem heightening
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  the other's brilliance. You know, it is so difficult to
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  wrap my mind around that kind of character.
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  Why is that? Because if we look at human
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  beings, strong virtues almost always come with negative side
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  effects. We are incredibly imbalanced
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  creatures. We struggle to hold traits and
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  tension. We do.
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  If you know someone who is exceptionally bold and
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  courageous, chances are they are also prone to being rude,
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  aggressive, or steamrolling over other people's feelings.
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  Their boldness lacks tact. Right.
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  On the other hand, if you know someone who is incredibly
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  amiable, gentle, and eager to keep the peace, they are often
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  passive. Or they avoid necessary
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  conflict. Yes, they struggle to stand up
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  for themselves and speak the truth when it really matters.
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  Their sweetness lacks a rigid spine.
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  It is true we tend to lean too far one way or the other.
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  Way can we try to be perfectly honest?
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  We end up being cruel if we try to be perfectly compassionate.
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  We compromise on truth. We have these virtues, but they
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  are always mingled with corresponding flaws.
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  Though Spurgeon is claiming that Christ somehow bypasses this
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  basic human defect entirely. That is absolutely what he is
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  claiming. Spurgeon points out that Christ
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  has no redundant or overgrown traits.
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  No overgrown traits. There is an absolute perfect
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  equilibrium in his character. His boldness never crosses the
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  line into arrogance or cruelty. He can overturn the table in the
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  temple. Yes, with fierce zeal and in the
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  next moment he can gently welcome young children into his
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  arms. Without contradicting himself.
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  His gentleness never devolves into weakness or compromise.
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  Spurgeon stresses that there is nothing unlovely in Christ that
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  needs to be excused. That is so rare.
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  It is. You never have to pull someone
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  aside and say, well Jesus is wonderful, but you have to
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  ignore this one rough edge. Because there are no rough
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  edges. Right.
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  Every virtue is present, and every virtue is held in perfect
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  tension with all the others. This is why the praise is rare.
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  In any other historical figure, you find overgrown virtues that
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  become vices. But in Christ, the balance is
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  flawless. Let us talk about how we handle
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  the flaws of historical figures, because Spurgeon shares some
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  fascinating historical anecdotes about this.
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  He brings up some great examples.
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  He notes that when we describe human heroes, we almost always
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  have to hide things. We have to curate their image.
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  We have airbrush history. We do.
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  He brings up the ancient Greek painter Appells, who was tasked
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  with painting his hero, King Antigonus.
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  And there was a physical problem with the king, right?
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  Right. The problem was that Antigonus
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  had lost an eye in battle, so to preserve the King's dignity,
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  Appel's painted him in profile. He essentially put a finger over
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  the scar to hide the disfigurement.
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  Yes, he hid the ugly part. Spurgeon also mentions the
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  English military and political leader Oliver Cromwell.
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  Cromwell is a very famous example of this.
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  He is, Cromwell famously demanded to be painted worse
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  than at all. He refused to have his physical
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  blemishes airbrushed out by the artist.
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  Because he knew he was flawed and demanded honest
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  representation. But Spurgeon's point is that
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  believers never have to put a finger over a scar or apologize
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  for Jesus. There is nothing to hide.
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  We never have to hide a part of his life, his actions or his
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  teachings. He stood unmoved by the pressure
• 19:21
  of the world. And Spurgeon points out that
• 19:24
  slander falls blunted from the shield of his perfection.
• 19:27
  You. Do not have to leave anything
• 19:29
  out to make him look good. You can look at him from any
• 19:31
  angle in any situation, and the loveliness holds up.
• 19:34
  And that flawless character is not just a static historical
• 19:37
  fact locked away in the 1st century it.
• 19:39
  Extends beyond that. It does, Spurgeon argues.
• 19:42
  It is visible across all of time and through every changing
• 19:45
  circumstance. So it is perpetual praise.
• 19:48
  Exactly this brings to the chronological timeline of
• 19:51
  Christ's beauty that Spurgeon maps out.
• 19:54
  Let us trace that timeline. He.
• 19:55
  Traces this loveliness from the babe lying in the Manger in
• 19:59
  Bethlehem to the youth growing in wisdom in Nazareth.
• 20:02
  From the very beginning. Yes, then, to the man healing
• 20:06
  the leper and weeping at the grave in Bethany.
• 20:08
  This Earth 3 ministry. He sees this beauty in the
• 20:10
  bloody sweat of Gethsemane, in the staggering act of
• 20:13
  interceding for his murderers while hanging on the cross.
• 20:17
  Even in death. Right then, in the glory of his
• 20:20
  resurrection morning and looking forward to his future return
• 20:23
  with the angels. It covers everything.
• 20:26
  It does. Spurgeon also breaks down the
• 20:28
  specific imagery of Christ's theological offices to show this
• 20:32
  comprehensive beauty. What images does he use?
• 20:35
  Well, he describes him as the king wearing his diadem of
• 20:38
  sovereignty. The ruling king.
• 20:40
  Then he describes him as the Prophet teaching in parables
• 20:43
  with such authority that the crowds declared Never man spake
• 20:48
  like this man. The ultimate teacher.
• 20:50
  And then he describes him as the priest wearing the Urim and
• 20:53
  Thummim, carrying the names of his people on his breastplate.
• 20:57
  Oh wait, I have to stop you right there.
• 20:59
  Urim and Thummim. It is an unusual phrase.
• 21:02
  It sounds like something out of an ancient fantasy novel to a
• 21:04
  modern year. I know it is an Old Testament
• 21:07
  reference, but what is Spurgeon actually talking about and why
• 21:09
  does it matter for this argument about Christ's beauty?
• 21:13
  It is a vital piece of imagery. You really have to understand
• 21:16
  the context. Will you explain it for us?
• 21:18
  In the Old Testament, the high priest wore a specialized
• 21:21
  garment called an ephod. OK, a special priestly garment.
• 21:24
  Right, which included a breastpiece.
• 21:27
  This breastpiece had 12 precious stones, each engraved with the
• 21:32
  name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel.
• 21:34
  So the people's names were literally on his chest.
• 21:36
  Yes, and inside this breastpiece were the Urim and Thummim, which
• 21:41
  translate roughly to lights and perfections.
• 21:44
  Lights and perfection. They were sacred objects used to
• 21:47
  determine God's will. When the high priest entered the
• 21:49
  holy Place, he literally carried the names of the people over his
• 21:52
  heart. Over his heart.
• 21:54
  That is very intimate. It is Spurgeon is applying this
• 21:57
  ancient imagery to Jesus as the ultimate high priest.
• 22:01
  Jesus does not just perform religious rituals.
• 22:03
  He carries the names of his people.
• 22:05
  Right. He carries the names of his
• 22:07
  people on his heart into the presence of God.
• 22:10
  The beauty here is his constant, brilliant, perfect
• 22:13
  representation of his people. He does not forget them.
• 22:16
  Never. He wears their names as precious
• 22:18
  stones. That completely changes the
• 22:20
  picture. He is not a distant ruler, he's
• 22:23
  intimately carrying his people. It is a very comforting thought.
• 22:26
  It really is, and I want to connect this directly to you,
• 22:29
  the listener and your own changing circumstances.
• 22:32
  Because it is highly applicable today.
• 22:34
  It is because Spurgeon does not just leave this in the realm of
• 22:38
  ancient history or high theology.
• 22:40
  He brings it right into the living room of the believer.
• 22:43
  He makes it personal. He asks if Christ was beautiful
• 22:47
  to you in times of prosperity. When things are going well.
• 22:51
  Yeah, when your family was growing, when your wealth
• 22:53
  multiplied, when your career was taking off and everything was
• 22:55
  going your way. It is easy to praise him then.
• 22:58
  It is, but then he flips the script.
• 23:01
  He asks if Christ is still beautiful when sickness strikes.
• 23:04
  When the bottom falls out. Right.
• 23:06
  Is he beautiful when you lose your job, when your bank account
• 23:09
  is empty, or when you're down in the absolute depths with Jonah
• 23:14
  at the bottom of the sea, surrounded by darkness?
• 23:17
  That is the real test. The beauty of Christ is tested
• 23:20
  by the shifting circumstances of the person looking at him.
• 23:23
  And to illustrate this resilience of vision, Spurgeon
• 23:25
  brings in a striking historical reference.
• 23:27
  The Scottish Covenanters, right? Yes, the Covenanters.
• 23:31
  To understand this, you need to know a bit of 17th century
• 23:34
  history. Set the scene for us.
• 23:36
  The Covenanters were Scottish Presbyterians who faced severe,
• 23:41
  brutal persecution from the English crown for their
• 23:43
  religious convictions. They refused to compromise.
• 23:46
  Right. They refused to accept the King
• 23:48
  as the spiritual head of the church.
• 23:50
  Because of this, they were driven out of their towns and
• 23:53
  homes. Into the wilderness.
• 23:54
  Yes, forced to hide in the lonely, freezing, mossy Glens
• 24:00
  and harsh hills of Scotland. Which is a brutal landscape in
• 24:03
  the winter. Absolutely brutal.
• 24:05
  They were haunted like animals by government troops,
• 24:07
  specifically by a ruthless military leader named John
• 24:11
  Graham of Claverhouse and his dragoons.
• 24:13
  So they are freezing, starving and being hunted.
• 24:16
  It was a bleak, terrifying, and physically miserable existence.
• 24:20
  They held their church services in secret out on the damp Moors,
• 24:24
  constantly watching the horizon for soldiers.
• 24:26
  That level of fear is unimaginable.
• 24:28
  Yet Spurgeon notes that in the midst of that horrific
• 24:30
  persecution, these believers found Christ more beautiful than
• 24:34
  ever before. Even in the freezing Glens.
• 24:36
  Yes, he says, they saw his sun face in the wilderness.
• 24:40
  His sun face. They experienced a radiant,
• 24:42
  blazing revelation of His presence and comfort that
• 24:46
  sustained them through torture, imprisonment and execution.
• 24:49
  They saw the brightest version of him in the darkest place.
• 24:52
  Exactly, and Spurgeon contrast this with modern believers
• 24:56
  living in comfortable, peaceful times.
• 24:58
  What face do we see? He says we only see Christ's
• 25:01
  moonlight face. Moonlight face a pale
• 25:04
  reflection. Right, a pale reflected, less
• 25:07
  intense version of his glory. The Covenanter's extreme
• 25:11
  suffering stripped away all earthly distractions and
• 25:14
  comforts. Allowing the sheer brilliance of
• 25:16
  Christ's character to become their sole source of warmth and
• 25:19
  light. That is it entirely that.
• 25:21
  Contrast between the sun face and the moonlight face is
• 25:23
  brilliant. It points to a stark truth about
• 25:26
  human nature and our relationship with the things of
• 25:28
  this world. We get distracted so easily.
• 25:30
  We do. Earthly novelties always lose
• 25:33
  their charm the more you see them.
• 25:34
  The shiny new toy gets old. Yeah, you buy a new car and for
• 25:37
  the first month you love it. You wash it every weekend.
• 25:40
  You park it far away from other cars to avoid scratches.
• 25:43
  You protect it at all costs. But a year later, it is just a
• 25:47
  car, it has crumbs in the seats and it has lost its shine.
• 25:50
  The novelty wears off. The same thing happens with
• 25:53
  houses, gadgets, and even relationships if they're based
• 25:56
  on superficial things. The closer you get, the more
• 25:58
  flaws you see, right? The closer you get to earthly
• 26:01
  things and the longer you have them, the more you see their
• 26:04
  flaws, their limitations, and the less they impress you.
• 26:07
  Familiarity breeds contempt, or at least apathy.
• 26:10
  But Christ is the exact opposite.
• 26:12
  How so? Spurgeon points out that Christ
• 26:15
  grows lovelier the closer you get to Him.
• 26:17
  The beauty expands. It does, as your spiritual taste
• 26:21
  becomes more educated through the years as you walk through
• 26:24
  ceilings of bright prosperity and through the crushing depths
• 26:27
  with Jonah. Your appreciation.
• 26:29
  Your appreciation for his character expands.
• 26:32
  You see nuances of His grace, His patience, and His justice
• 26:35
  that you could not comprehend when you were a new believer.
• 26:38
  But if we follow that logic to its natural conclusion, we run
• 26:42
  into a massive problem. What is the problem?
• 26:45
  Well, if Christ's beauty continually expands the closer
• 26:49
  you get, and if your capacity to appreciate that beauty grows
• 26:52
  throughout your life life, then human language will inevitably
• 26:56
  fail to capture it. Language breaks down.
• 26:58
  Completely. And this brings us to Spurgeon's
• 27:01
  assertion that the praise in our source text is actually
• 27:05
  insufficient. He says that the phrase
• 27:07
  altogether lovely is actually a. Poor word, a poor word.
• 27:11
  He calls it a word of despair. I have to admit, when I first
• 27:14
  read that it was confused. It sounds contradictory, doesn't
• 27:16
  it? It really does despair.
• 27:18
  That sounds incredibly negative. Altogether.
• 27:21
  Lovely is supposed to be the highest possible compliment.
• 27:24
  How could it be a word of despair?
• 27:25
  It is the despair of an artist who realizes they do not have
• 27:29
  the right colors on their palette to paint the sunset they
• 27:31
  are witnessing. Oh wow, so it is a linguistic
• 27:34
  failure. It is, Spurgeon explains, the
• 27:36
  philosophical weight of this. He argues that Old Testament
• 27:39
  praise, like the phrase we are examining from the Song of
• 27:42
  Solomon, was based on report. Based on prophecy.
• 27:45
  Right. It was based on anticipation and
• 27:47
  prophecy, not on the historical reality of seeing him die on the
• 27:51
  cross, seeing him rise from the tomb, or seeing him sit in
• 27:54
  splendor at the right hand of God.
• 27:56
  They were looking at shadows. Yes, the Old Testament writers
• 28:00
  were praising a shadow, a promise of what was to come.
• 28:03
  But even with the New Testament language, still fails.
• 28:06
  It does. Even with the full blinding
• 28:08
  revelation of the New Testament, language still breaks down
• 28:12
  completely. Spurgeon quotes the 18th century
• 28:15
  minister John Barrage on this. What did he say?
• 28:17
  He says living tongues are dumb at best.
• 28:20
  We must die to speak of Christ. That is a very stark way to put
• 28:24
  it. It is the implication is that
• 28:27
  our current physical vocal cords, our current vocabulary,
• 28:30
  and our current mental faculties are simply too limited, too
• 28:34
  primitive to articulate the reality of who he is.
• 28:37
  We need new equipment. We need glorified minds and
• 28:39
  glorified tongues to even begin the task properly.
• 28:42
  That leads to some fascinating speculation about the afterlife.
• 28:46
  It really does Think about the Apostle Paul.
• 28:48
  His experience in the second letter to the Corinthians, yes.
• 28:51
  Paul describes A visionary experience where he was caught
• 28:54
  up into the 3rd heaven. He saw things he couldn't
• 28:57
  explain. He says he looked through the
• 28:59
  lattices of heaven and heard words that are not lawful for a
• 29:02
  man to utter. He saw things and heard things
• 29:05
  that the human brain cannot process and human vocal cords
• 29:08
  cannot reproduce. Our language is built for a
• 29:10
  three-dimensional world of time and space.
• 29:13
  It cannot hold the weight of eternity.
• 29:15
  It's too small a container. Right, So what does it mean that
• 29:19
  eternity will be occupied with declaring these praises?
• 29:22
  If Paul could not even repeat what he heard during a brief
• 29:25
  glimpse. What will it look like to spend
• 29:27
  endless ages trying to articulate this beauty?
• 29:30
  Spurgeon uses a beautiful piece of imagery to describe this
• 29:34
  cosmic reality. I love his imagery.
• 29:36
  What is it? He compares the sweetness of
• 29:38
  Christ's person to an alamaster box of rare fragrance.
• 29:42
  Like the woman in the Gospels who broke the box of perfume.
• 29:44
  Right, he says, this box contains far too much fragrance
• 29:47
  for one single world to keep it all to itself.
• 29:50
  It will spill over. When that box is fully opened,
• 29:53
  the sweetness will rise above the stars and perfume unknown
• 29:56
  worlds forever. Perfume Unknown Worlds forever.
• 29:59
  The cycles of eternity will revolve, and the redeemed will
• 30:03
  spend those endless ages continually discovering new
• 30:06
  facets of his loveliness and finding new ways to express it.
• 30:10
  There will always be something new to say.
• 30:12
  Always. The sheer volume of his
• 30:14
  perfection requires an infinite amount of time to properly
• 30:17
  acknowledge. Heaven itself is too small to
• 30:20
  contain the full declaration of His praise.
• 30:23
  We will never reach a point where we've said everything
• 30:25
  there is to say. Never.
• 30:27
  Well, while that cosmic scale of eternity is breathtaking to
• 30:30
  consider, we have to shift back down to the immediate practical
• 30:34
  reality of your current life. We have to bring it back down to
• 30:37
  earth. We do.
• 30:38
  Spurgeon does not leave us staring into the clouds.
• 30:40
  He brings the focus right back to the condition of the human
• 30:43
  heart today. He is always very practical.
• 30:45
  He is, and this brings us to the spiritual diagnosis he offers.
• 30:48
  And I have to warn you, it is a harsh, stinging assessment of
• 30:53
  the world we live in. It is a tough pill to swallow.
• 30:56
  It is a severe diagnosis indeed. Spurgeon argues that if someone
• 31:00
  looks at Christ and does not see his beauty, it is not a
• 31:03
  reflection on Christ. No, it is a reflection on the
• 31:05
  viewer. Right.
• 31:06
  It is an evidence of terrible depravity within the person
• 31:09
  looking. It reveals A fundamental lack of
• 31:12
  fine moral perception. The person is spiritually blind.
• 31:15
  They are to prove this, Spurgeon points to what the world
• 31:19
  naturally admires. What does the world admire?
• 31:21
  He says the world builds massive bronze monuments to tyrants.
• 31:25
  We celebrate the conquerors. We do.
• 31:27
  We pile up columns and dedicate arches to conquerors who have
• 31:31
  slaughtered thousands of their fellow human beings in reckless
• 31:35
  pursuits of power, territory and wealth.
• 31:37
  Think of Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar or Napoleon.
• 31:40
  Exactly. We mount them on horses and
• 31:42
  place them in the center of our cities, paying homage to men who
• 31:46
  were essentially blood soaked dictators.
• 31:48
  The world respects their brute force.
• 31:50
  Their ambition and their ruthlessness.
• 31:53
  Yet this same world ignores Jesus Christ.
• 31:56
  Who Spurgeon calls the pure mirror of disinterested love.
• 31:59
  Yes, Jesus gave his life for men.
• 32:02
  He was perfectly holy, and he sought no earthly political
• 32:06
  dominance. Yet the world sees no virtue in
• 32:09
  him to admire. The world just scrolls right
• 32:11
  past him. Spurgeon concludes that a world
• 32:14
  that worships violent conquerors and ignores pure, self
• 32:18
  sacrificing love is a fool world, a blind world lying in
• 32:23
  darkness. That stings because it forces
• 32:26
  you to look at your own heroes. It makes you evaluate what you
• 32:28
  really value. It does.
• 32:30
  Yeah. So what does this all mean for
• 32:31
  you? Listening to this right now, you
• 32:33
  have to ask yourself what rival affections might be crowding out
• 32:37
  your view of this beauty. What monuments have you built in
• 32:39
  your own mind? Are you captivated by the
• 32:42
  wealth, the ruthless ambition, or the superficial aesthetics
• 32:45
  that the world values? Because those things are
• 32:47
  aggressively competing for your attention?
• 32:49
  Every single. Day they want to be the center
• 32:51
  of your. Affection.
• 32:52
  They demand it, but Spurgeon says that the love of Christ is
• 32:55
  the only thing that can kill the bitterness of earthly care.
• 32:58
  The bitterness of earthly care. That is a great phrase.
• 33:02
  When you were consumed by anxiety about your finances,
• 33:05
  your physical health, or your social standing, those earthly
• 33:09
  cares become incredibly bitter. They weigh you down and poison
• 33:13
  your joy. They choke out everything else.
• 33:16
  But a genuine vision of the inexpressible sweetness of
• 33:19
  Christ acts as an antidote. It puts those temporary
• 33:22
  anxieties into their proper, minuscule perspective.
• 33:25
  The question is, how do we get that vision?
• 33:27
  Well, Spurgeon provides a very specific practical cure for
• 33:30
  those who are struggling to see this loveliness.
• 33:32
  What is the cure? If you feel that your vision is
• 33:34
  clouded, or if you simply do not feel that overwhelming affection
• 33:38
  for him, Spurgeon says you need to read the four portraits
• 33:41
  painted by the evangelists in the Gospels.
• 33:43
  Go to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
• 33:45
  Right. But do not just read them for
• 33:47
  theological data, or to win a debate or to gather historical
• 33:51
  facts. Read them as portraits of a
• 33:53
  living person. Yes, study his interactions.
• 33:56
  Watch how he responds to the outcast who touches his garment,
• 33:59
  how he handles the self-righteous hypocrite trying
• 34:02
  to trap him in a lie, how he faces his own unjust execution
• 34:06
  with silent dignity. Look at the actual man.
• 34:08
  Spurgeon is confident that if you truly look at these
• 34:11
  portraits, his character will inevitably win your heart.
• 34:14
  As you look at those portraits, Spurgeon direct your attention
• 34:18
  to three specific aspects of Christ's mouth.
• 34:21
  He calls them 3 sweet things, right?
• 34:24
  First his word. The actual teachings, the
• 34:26
  parables, the promises. He spoke words that comfort the
• 34:30
  broken and shadow the proud. The second is his breath.
• 34:34
  And we should clarify that theologically, Spurgeon
• 34:37
  identifies this breath as the Holy Spirit.
• 34:40
  Yes, in the Gospel of John, Jesus breathes on his disciples
• 34:43
  and says receive the Holy Spirit.
• 34:45
  So it is not just physical breath.
• 34:46
  No, this is the active, life giving presence that makes the
• 34:49
  written word come alive in the mind of the believer.
• 34:52
  Without the breath, the word is just ink on a page.
• 34:55
  Just dead letters, right? And the third sweet thing is his
• 34:58
  kiss. Which Spurgeon identifies as the
• 35:00
  token of eternal love. It is the personal intimate
• 35:03
  assurance that you are accepted and cherished.
• 35:06
  The word gives you the objective truth, the the breath gives you
• 35:09
  the spiritual life to understand it, and the kiss gives you the
• 35:12
  relational intimacy to rejoice in it.
• 35:15
  That brings us to a final lingering question build upon
• 35:18
  Spurgeon's text. And it is a very challenging
• 35:20
  question. We've discussed how eternity
• 35:22
  itself is too short to exhaust the limitless facets of Christ's
• 35:26
  loveliness. The redeemed will spend forever
• 35:29
  declaring his praises and never run out of material.
• 35:32
  An endless discovery. Contrast that eternal reality
• 35:35
  with the way we live our lives today.
• 35:38
  We have a modern habit of endlessly scrolling through
• 35:40
  trivial temporary information. We are addicted to distraction.
• 35:44
  We are We consume hours of short form videos, rapid fire social
• 35:48
  media updates and fleeting new cycles that will be relevant by
• 35:51
  tomorrow morning. Total junk food for the mind.
• 35:54
  Does this constant consumption of the trivial reveal an
• 35:57
  appetite that is woefully unprepared for the eternal?
• 36:00
  That is the core issue. If your attention span is
• 36:03
  trained to only engage with 15 second bursts of superficial
• 36:06
  entertainment, how will you handle the infinite staggering
• 36:10
  weight of absolute perfection? I challenge you to consider how
• 36:14
  you are training your attention today for the reality of
• 36:17
  tomorrow. Are you cultivating a spiritual
• 36:19
  taste that can appreciate the altogether lovely, or are you
• 36:22
  satisfying yourself with the fast food of a blind world?
• 36:25
  That is a question we all need to sit with.
• 36:27
  Our daily habits are shaping our eternal appetites.
• 36:31
  Are we settling for the cold, lifeless marble of the end to
• 36:34
  the statue, or are we seeking the marred, infinitely beautiful
• 36:38
  visage of the Savior? A.
• 36:40
  Phenomenal thing to think about. It really is.
• 36:42
  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive on reformed
• 36:45
  thinking. We hope this conversation has
• 36:47
  challenged your perspective and giving you a clear vision of the
• 36:50
  best beloved. Until next time.