Expositions of Holy Scripture: PsalmsMaclaren, Alexander
Religion
Expositions of Holy Scripture: Psalms
Maclaren, Alexander
Bible. Psalms -- Commentaries
So, putting all the metaphors together, the true Christian character,
which will be ours if we really are the subjects of that divine love,
will be lustrous and snowy as the snows on Hermon, or as was the garment
whose whiteness outshone the neighbouring snows when He was
'transfigured before them.' Our characters will be splendid with a
splendour far above the tawdry beauties and vulgar conspicuousness of
the 'heroic' and worldly ideals, and will be endowed with a purity and
harmony of colouring in richly various graces, such as no earthly looms
can ever weave.
We are not told here how the garment is attained. It is no part of the
purpose of the psalm to tell us that, but it is part of its purpose to
insist that there is no marriage between Christ and the soul except that
soul be pure, none except it be robed in the beauty of righteousness and
the splendour of consecration, and the various gifts of an all-giving
Spirit. The man that came into the wedding-feast, with his dirty,
every-day clothes on, was turned out as a rude insulter. But what of the
queen that should come foully dressed? There would be no place for her
amidst its solemnities. You will never stand at the right hand of
Christ, unless jour souls here are clothed in the fine linen clean and
white, and over it the flashing wealth and the harmonised splendour of
the gold and embroidery of Christlike graces. We know how to get the
garment. Faith strips the rags and puts the best robe on us; and effort
based upon faith enables us day by day to put off the old man with his
deeds and to put on the new man. The bride 'made _herself_ ready,' and
'to her was _granted_ that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean
and white.'
V. Lastly, we have the picture of the homecoming of the bride. 'She
shall be brought unto the King.... with gladness and rejoicing shall
they be brought; they shall enter into the King's palace.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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