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"Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; / With me from Lebanon come. / Look from the top of Amana, / From the top of Senir and Hermon, / From the lions' dens, / From the leopards' mountains" (S.S. 4:8):
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The experience of Christ's death and resurrection has brought the seeking one into His ascension, and now she is on the mountaintop of Christ's ascension and is living in ascension (Eph. 1:20; 2:5-6).
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Christ calls His lover to live with Him in His ascension, as He had called her to remain in His cross (S.S. 2:14):
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Christ asks His lover as His bride to look with Him from His ascension (Lebanon), the highest place of the truth (Amana) and of Christ's victory in His fighting (Senir, meaning "soft armor," and Hermon, meaning "destruction"), and from the heavenly places of the enemies (the lions' dens and the leopards' mountains) (4:8).
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When the lover of Christ is living in ascension, she and Christ are living in one condition, the condition of ascension, to be a couple; they are the same in life and nature, perfectly matching each other.
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In Christ's ascension is His victory; there is no more fighting, for the enemy has already been defeated, and we wear soft armor to enjoy our victory in Christ; the position of prayer is ascension, that is, a heavenly position (Rom. 8:37; Eph. 2:6).
Morning Nourishment
S. S. 2:14 My dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the precipice, let me see your countenance, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your countenance is lovely.4:8 Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; with me from Lebanon come. Look from the top of Amana, from the top of Senir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the leopards' mountains.
Christ asks His lover as His bride to look with Him from His ascension (Lebanon), the highest place of the truth (Amana) and of Christ's victory in His fighting (Senir and Hermon), and from the heavenly places of the enemies (the lions' dens and the leopards' mountains)....When the lover is living in ascension, she and Christ are living in one condition, the condition of ascension, to be a couple. Christ is divine and human, and His transformed lover is human and divine. They are the same in life and nature, perfectly matching one another. (S.S. 4:8, footnote 1)
Today's Reading
After the lover of Christ has experienced Christ in His sweet death and His fragrant resurrection, she determines to stay in the sweet death of Christ (the mountain of myrrh) and His fragrant resurrection (the hill of frankincense) until her Beloved comes back when the day dawns and the shadows flee away (S.S. 4:6). If we have Christ, we have His sweet death because He and His death are one....We cannot experience Christ's death and resurrection as something separate and apart from Christ.In Song of Songs 2:14 He called her to be with Him in the clefts of the rock and in the covert of the precipice. Now [in 4:8] He calls her again to be with Him in His ascension instead of remaining on the mountain of myrrh and on the hill of frankincense.
In Christ's ascension there are the positive peaks of reality, victory, and the destruction of the enemy. Amana means "truth, reality." This is the truth, the reality, of the consummated Triune God; the all-inclusive Christ with His complete redemption; and the all-inclusive, compound, life-giving, sevenfold intensified Spirit. These realities are the three of the Triune God. Senir means "soft armor," signifying that the war is over and victory has been gained. We do not need to wear the hard armor to fight. Satan is the defeated foe. We do not need to fight, because he has been defeated already (Heb. 2:14; Col. 2:15). We are now wearing the soft armor to enjoy our victory in Christ. Hermon means "destruction." In ascension the enemy is destroyed.
With Christ Satan is a defeated foe, but with us he is still a troublesome one. Therefore, Ephesians 6 says that we need to wrestle with the evil one. Christ calls us to look from the heavenlies (v. 12), signified by the lions' dens and the leopards' mountains (S.S. 4:8b). Here are Satan and his subordinates (Eph. 6:12; 2:2). Here the believers fight with Satan and his power of darkness (6:12) by being empowered in the Lord and in the might of His strength (v. 10), by putting on the whole armor of God (vv. 11a, 13a), by standing against the stratagems of the devil (v. 11b), by receiving the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, the word of God (v. 17), and by praying always in spirit (v. 18a) for the building up of the Body of Christ and the spreading of the gospel (vv. 18b-20). This is the reality of living in the ascension of Christ.
To be resurrected with Him is to enjoy the resurrected life-giving Christ. To live in ascension is to enjoy Christ in the condition of ascension. We need to live in ascension as God's new creation in resurrection....Ascension,
God's new creation, and resurrection are one. Christ is not only in the conditions of His death, resurrection, and ascension but also in the condition of the life-giving Spirit. He is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit of Jesus Christ to us. Where the Spirit is, Christ is, and it is in this Spirit that we enjoy Christ. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, "Crystallization-study of Song of Songs," pp. 320-321, 319-320)
Further Reading: Life-study of Song of Songs, msg. 5; CWWL, 1972, vol. 1, "Life and Building as Portrayed in the Song of Songs," chs. 8-9