His Face is Beautiful and His Words are Perfumed

“His cheeks are like a bed of spices, a raised bed of aromatic herbs. His lips are as lilies dropping flowing myrrh.” (Song of Solomon 5:13)

Just to remind ourselves that Solomon’s poetic writing of the love between a husband and his bride is prophetically about the love of Jesus and the church. Keeping that in mind when we study these Scriptures, we can see why this book was considered “canon,” meaning it met the standard of legitimacy and authority as inspired of the Holy Spirit.

The bride is speaking in this Scripture and is describing the beauty of the bridegroom. There is an old hymn with the chorus about the beauty of the face of Jesus.

                Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in His wonderful face,

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,  

In the light of His glory and grace.

On this earth, we will not see the face of Jesus, but in His presence, we receive the blessing of His beauty. The hymn was written by Helen Lemmel who was inspired after reading a booklet written by Lilias Trotter a missionary to North Africa in the late 1800’s titled “Focussed.”  And so it is that when we do focus on Jesus, the difficulties of this life do grow dim and unimportant.

If you remember when you fell in love, just like the bride that Solomon wrote about, the troubles and difficulties you may have been experiencing faded in the presence of your love. And because of our love for Jesus, our Lord and Savior, our troubles fade away from our minds. The difficulties are still there but are bearable or tolerable in His presence. With the Lord we can persevere. Jesus spoke to us about enduring. “But he who endures to the end, the same shall be kept safe.” (Matthew 24:13) We cannot endure on our own. It’s a supernatural enabling from the Lord as we walk with Him. In Paul’s eleven long prayer for the Colossians, he writes that they might walk worthy of the Lord, “being empowered with all power, according to the might of His glory, to all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness,” (Colossians 1:11).

To us who love Him, His face is precious even if we haven’t seen Him. We enjoy the blessing of His face. As David wrote, “There are many who say, Who will show us any good? Jehovah, lift up the light of Your face on us. You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their grain and their wine increased.” (Psalms 4:6-7) Isaiah prophesies how the Messiah’s face was marred when they plucked his beard. “I gave My back to the strikers, and My cheeks to pluckers; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.” (Isaiah 50:6) But when Jesus is revealed as the King of kings, His face will light up the New Jerusalem. “And the city had no need of the sun, nor of the moon, that they might shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb.” (Revelation 21:23)

The bride that Solomon wrote about extols the bridegroom’s lips as flowing with lilies and perfumed with myrrh. This was how she received his words. Are not the words of Jesus sweet smelling to our human spirits? They wash over us with love and hope. Luke wrote at the wonder of the learned priests at the words of Jesus when He revealed Himself in the synagogue. “And all bore witness to Him and wondered at the gracious words which came out of His mouth. And they said, Is this not Joseph's son?” (Luke 4:22) Jesus speaking to His disciples said, “It is the Spirit that makes alive, the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and are life.” (John 6:63) Like Solomon’s bride, we receive the Words of Jesus as flowers to our spirit which perfume our spirits with His life and light.

So briefly, the bride’s description of the bridegroom’s face and words prophetically tell of the beauty of the face of Jesus and His life-giving Word. And as the hymnist wrote, “...and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”