"Catch us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the
vines, for our vines have tender grapes." (Song 2:15). This is the Bride's prayer
that all the defects and faults connected with her life may be utterly removed, that she
may have not only a personal fitness to meet her Lord, but also be found full of good
fruit, unspoiled by blight from any earthly creature. Great, destructive savage beasts and
serpents represent Satan and demons, but the fox is not such a savage beast, and
especially little foxes, which are more like puppies and kittens, and full of play, for
these represent not the vices of sin, but little shortcomings, little silly thoughts, or
words, little negligences of prayer, of obedience, of right manners, of not doing good,
little blemishes that spoil the bloom on the perfect ripe fruit.
The true saint cannot bear these little foxes that seem to other Christians so harmless,
and yet they are sufficiently of the flesh to hinder the perfection of devotion, and that
deep, constant communion of the heart with Christ, that marks the perfect ripening of all
the graces. Though her Bridegroom is hid in those high clefts in the steep places, yet she
knows He has power, through the Holy Spirit, to destroy those little foxes that hinder the
full growth of the tender grapes.
"My beloved is mine, and I am His." This verse opens to us another rich thought
in this Love Song, and that is the mutual ownership between Christ and His saints. This
intense passion of proprietorship is universal, and belongs to God and all His creatures,
even to the lower animals, who will fight for the ownership of a grain of corn. Now, when
Adam fell every normal instinct in the human soul was perverted and exaggerated, hence sin
has utterly filled with the passion for ownership, and made it the unspeakable curse of
the world in covetousness. When we are regenerated and thoroughly purified from inward
sin, this instinct of proprietorship is restored back to God, and then under the full
baptism of the Spirit, and by a life of prayer, we are brought to that blessed place where
we see and feel that God is our own, and especially He is our own in Christ, for it is
only through the blessed Jesus that we can seize upon the living God, and appropriate Him
as altogether ours. On the other hand, we belong to Christ by creation, and by redemption,
and when He transforms us and fills us with Himself, we become still more His own, not
only as a piece of property, but as joined with Him in His very life and graces and
destiny. This expression occurs three times in this divine Song, and each time it is on a
rising scale, containing a wonderful suggestion of the steps in this proprietorship, and
showing that we are to sink out of the thought of our ownership, and be lost in that great
ocean of the ownership which our Lord has in us, and all things.
Now, just notice how the three expressions are used: The first is "My beloved is mine
and I am His," in which you notice that the Bride puts her ownership first, and her
Bridegroom's ownership in her comes next. Again, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is
mine." (Song 6:3). Here you notice she puts the Bridegroom's ownership first, and her
ownership in Him comes last, for you see the ownership which Christ has in us is far
beyond any ownership we can have in Him, for we are His absolutely and beyond our
thoughts. The third time, the words are "I am my beloved's, and His desire is toward
me." (Song 7:10). Here you see the Bride sees nothing except her Lord's ownership in
her, and that all His love and desire is toward her, and she forgets to mention her own
proprietorship, or else the very thought of her ownership is lost in that sea of love
where everything is sunk into Christ, and His blessed ownership swallows all things in its
vastness and sacred keeping. Thus the "me", and the "my", gradually,
or by distinct steps, sink away into being lost in a loving gaze upon our God, and that we
do not mention our rights, or our possession, but only see that Christ is all and in all.
Reference Used: The Divine Love Song by G. D. Watson
From: A Revival Source Center