Song of Solomon 4, 12 “A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up; a fountain sealed.”

We return again to this book that depicts the relationship of love between the Lord Jesus Christ and His followers. That relationship applies both to the church as a body, and also to each individual Christian. The Lord Jesus has died to save us for this purpose – that we might belong to Him particularly – His special treasure, His purchased possession, and His holy bride. This is what the writer speaks about in this text.

Isaac Watts wrote a hymn based on these words. This is its first verse :

"We are a garden walled around,
Chosen and made peculiar ground;
A little spot enclosed by grace
Out of the world’s wide wilderness."

The Lord Jesus Christ did the choosing, the making and the enclosing. We can think of this text in two ways. First, it shows our individual relationship to Him. We come to the Lord in repentance and faith one by one as His Spirit draws us. There is no mass conversion. God deals with us individually, though of course, in times of revival many individuals may be converted at approximately the same time – perhaps in the same hour of the same day. There is an important and Biblical individualism to be noticed and maintained.

The text also refers to the relationship of the Lord Jesus with the church as a body – a number of believers gathered together. The church is Christ’s ordained instrument to do His work and preach His gospel. Christ loved the church and He gave Himself for her. Psalm 87 says, “The LORD loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.” His special interest is in the church as a whole – a fellowship of people who have agreed to work together in harmony, rather than a group of individuals each operating in a freelance capacity.

So we need to think in both of these ways. We are saved individually and the Lord is always interested in us as individuals. However, His purpose is that we should find fellowship with others who have come to the same experience of saving grace, and agree to contend together for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

1. Christ’s commitment to us in love.

This is shown in the affectionate terms “my sister, my spouse”. He generously claims us as “mine”. He has facilitated our adoption as children of God so that He is now our elder Brother who will always take care of us. He also gives us a union with Himself that resembles marriage. Those who believe in Him are His spouse – His bride.

Consider for a moment the great difference between His character and ours. He is perfect, we are imperfect. He is spotlessly holy, we are hopelessly sinful. He is the Creator, we are creatures. He is Almighty, we are weak. He is wise, we are foolish. He is infallible, we make countless mistakes. He is infinite, we are subject to every sort of limitation. He is eternal, we are creatures of time. He is a success, we are all failures. We seem to have nothing in common – no basis to claim His goodwill as a right. Yet in His own kindness He has chosen to claim us for His own. That claim is not that we should be His as slaves, but as friends. “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends…” (John 15, 15) He brings us into two of the closest possible relationships. We are adopted as children by the Father, and married to Himself as His bride. And so the Lord Jesus Christ calls the church “my sister, my spouse.”

This is true of the universal church, and of every local gathered gospel church, and of every saved individual, qualified by grace to be a member of Christ’s church.   

2. His vision for us.

The Lord Jesus Christ calls us “a garden inclosed” – literally “a garden being latched.” What is the significance of this phrase? There are two parts to it – we are a garden; and we are enclosed – that is, a private garden that is not open to the public.

A garden is a plot of ground where plants, shrubs and trees are grown. It cultivated land. But it is not the same as a field. A field is cultivated on a more commercial scale. A garden, on the other hand, is intended for personal pleasure. It may well serve a practical purpose, such as a vegetable garden, or a herb garden. But even then, the scale is domestic. Even then the aim is often pleasure in eating what you have personally grown instead of relying on the supermarket. Often, the garden is simply developed as a pleasant place to sit and to enjoy the sights and smells of beautiful flowers.

The garden is a plot which has been specially set aside for this sort of display. Unlike a field, it does not have one single crop. There is variety, but there is also order. The gardener has a plan. He knows what he is aiming to accomplish. There are contrasting colours; various contours and so on. The main aim is not utilitarian, but enjoyment.

As individuals, and as a local church, we are a garden – a little plot of humanity chosen by the Lord Jesus to cultivate, first by planting His wonderful saving grace in our hearts, then developing our character. He has done it for His own glory and pleasure. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. We are “Trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.” Yet, it is a great privilege to be nurtured by Him, and it is supremely beneficial to us. We receive unlimited good from being under His expertise. Sometimes it may be necessary for us to be trimmed or pruned, transplanted or hardened off, and this may be painful. But He is wise and kind. He knows what is best and makes no mistakes. There is nothing better than to exist for the pleasure of the Lord. The bride in this passage says, “Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.”

Then, the text says that we are an “inclosed” or latched garden. We are Christ’s private property. We exist for Him who redeemed us by His blood. The church exists to promote His message. He is the only one who has the right to say how this garden should be developed. The garden is therefore walled around, and the door is kept locked. The Christian and the church do not develop according to their own preference or a democratic vote. We must not try to merge with the ways of the godless world, so we must be an enclosure. A garden with no boundary is soon overrun by neglect and weeds. Its carefully reared plants will soon be trodden underfoot by animals and people who have no appreciation for its beauty. In line with this we must refuse to conform to the agenda of godless government. To yield will, in effect, allow the protecting wall to be demolished, allowing rival gardeners to come in and change Christ’s perfect plans. A church that gives way in this manner ceases to be a true church at all. The criterion of a true church is that it trusts entirely and exclusively in the direction that Christ, its owner, gives in His written word.

To be a “garden enclosed” also means separation - resisting the encroachment of the world and all of its philosophy in our life and ministry. We are not interested in borrowing from the world and its entertainments. What do we care for the Big Brother House and its immoral nonsense? This is not because we are reactionary curmudgeons. It is because we belong to Christ. He has bought us with His blood. Entertainment celebrities have never hung and died on a cross to save us from sin and hell. Neither has the Equalities Commission. But the Lord Jesus Christ has. So who are we going to be loyal to. Choose you this day whom you will serve – Him or them? Christ’s vision for us is that we should be His own garden, reserved for Him.

3. His care for us.

The Lord Jesus Christ also speaks of us as a spring shut up. Literally, it is “a mounded pool being latched.” The word for sealed is the same as “enclosed”, and the “mounded pool” conveys the idea of a miniature reservoir or pond from which the garden itself is watered, so that the plants do not wilt and die, but continue to grow and thrive. The garden is the private property of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He has given the pool to be the private property of the garden. It is not there for all comers to help themselves. It is provided to ensure that the garden remains fresh, for the pleasure of its owner.

Think of John 4. The Lord Jesus rested at the well of Sychar in Samaria. A woman of Samaria came to fetch water. He slipped easily and naturally into conversation with her, and attracted her interest and curiosity by saying, “If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water…” She took the bait, lovingly laid for her, thinking that he was talking about literal water. Her answer opened the way for the Lord to say, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” The one who trusts in Christ has a perpetual source of spiritual nourishment that will never run dry. It is locked and barred so that no-one can interfere with it, or cut it off.

In John 7, Jesus said, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive…” The Spirit comes, and God enters in. He makes His abode with us. No-one can dislodge Him. Christ in us is the hope of glory. We do not depend on the favour of outside authorities, religious or secular. We have the favour of God. His divine power gives us all things that pertain unto life and godliness; we are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit…

It is a special feature of the church and of the individual Christian as the garden of the Lord that we have this private and direct source of power and spiritual nourishment, irrespective of what men say or do. We are a spring shut up.

4. His plan for us.

Finally then, let us consider Christ’s plan for us. We are a fountain sealed. This is not repetition, but something new. The spring is a mounded pool, but the fountain is a water source that flows and flows and overflows. The garden of the Lord is not only there to perpetuate itself, but also to exercise a beneficial influence in the world.

We must see ourselves as having an evangelistic purpose in the world. Of course, the world does not want our gospel or our Saviour. It needs Him, but does not want Him. They want to silence the message that tells them they are sinners. Every one is a sinner. They have gone astray and rejected the authority of their creator God. He declared that there is forgiveness for sinners – but only for sinners. Those who reject His verdict cannot expect the provision of His forgiveness. As for those who say they do not believe in God at all, sin only has reference to God. Why should they be so offended to be called sinners in the sight a God who they claim does not exist?  

But into this world of sin and Christ-rejection, and apathetic unawareness about Him, we are to pour forth the gospel message – man’s sin, God’s mercy and Christ’s death in our place. We are to invite people to set aside their assumptions and preconceived ideas. We must challenge them to think for themselves instead of accepting other people’s opinions uncritically. And we must pray for them, that the Holy Spirit would open their eyes to see the truth, and to recognise it as the truth.

This gospel fountain is sealed. God Himself guarantees to protect it from being poisoned. He will preserve His word of grace. We cannot be sure how. Sometimes it seems that ungodly people, and alternative religions are powering along to destroy the gospel witness in this country altogether. Or, more subtly they may try to corrupt it and discredit it by putting their own Bible-rejecting stooges into Christian churches.

The book of the Revelation is often difficult to interpret. But one thing is clear. It was given in a time of intense and unrelenting persecution when it might have seemed that Christianity was about to be extinguished. The aged John, persecuted and exiled on the isle of Patmos, was given this vision by the Holy Spirit. Its purpose was to encourage the church. They were to see that whatever dreadful things happened to them God Himself was still on the throne. Savage persecution had not blown His eternal purpose off course. And in chapter 14, verse 6 we read, “I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people…”

As individual believers, and as a local church we are a gospel fountain, and it is sealed by God against all contamination and interference. It is the everlasting gospel, to preach to every nation, kindred, tongue and people on earth. And however weak and ineffective and fearful we may be, God has purposed that it will be so preached.

Let us rejoice that we are Christ’s if we know that He has claimed us as His sister and His spouse. Let us delight in the fact that we are His private garden that He is cultivating for His pleasure. Let us be so thankful and confident because He has given us His Spirit to be within us a well of water sustaining us in everlasting life. And let us look with expectancy for opportunities so that the unpolluted gospel fountain entrusted to us, may flow out to reach thirsty souls in a dry, barren needy world.




A hymn :

Does the gospel word proclaim
Rest for those who weary be?
Then, my soul, put in thy claim;
Sure that promise speaks to thee.
Marks of grace I cannot show;
All polluted in my breast;
Yet I weary am I know
And the weary long for rest.

Burdened with a load of sin;
Harassed with tormenting doubt,
Hourly conflicts from within;
Hourly crosses from without;
All my little strength is gone;
Sink I must without supply;
Sure upon the earth there’s none
Can mor weary be than I.

In the ark the weary dove
Found a welcome resting place;
Thus my spirit longs to prove
Rest in Christ, the Ark of grace.
Tempest-tossed I long have been
And the flood increases fast;
Open, Lord, and take me in
Till the storm be overpast.

(John Newton, 1725-1807)