SOS 1:12 COMMUNION IN THE REST OF FAITH

Chapter 1:12

“While the king was at his table, my perfume gave forth its fragrance”

Earlier in the song, the bride was ashamed, insecure, and feeling like a spiritual outsider. She was very aware of her brokenness and defects. She cried out to be shown where the shepherd (Jesus) leads his flock and makes it to lie down in rest. She was answered by the King speaking affirmation to her, addressing her as if it was a surprising thing that she wouldn’t already know the answer within herself, since she is the most beautiful of all creation and his very bride who he lives within. He addressed her rejection and self-esteem issues by affirming her great beauty and importance to him in several ways. She begins to see that she is not only already among his flock, but that she is already at his table. She finds the place of rest there, his rest, and it is from that place that her perfume (her spikenard worship sacrifice of all of her life) delights his senses as she merely rests in his presence.

She is seated at the King’s table, which he has provided for her. It is not of her own production but of his. It is also the King who is seated, so it is his rest that we enter into. This is the finished work of the cross, the freely provided banquet with the King, where we commune with him in the rest of faith. It is the faith to rest in who he is and in what he has done, providing our access to divine Life. We cease from our striving to earn it ourselves. We eat the life giving bread of his flesh (the Word made flesh, God revealed in the incarnate Son and given for us) and we drink the cleansing and life giving drink of his blood, (his covenant in his blood of forgiveness, union, and divine Life in us) and he takes great delight in us while we do so. This is what he is looking for, not that we perform to earn something from him, but that we freely sit down and eat and drink of him, experiencing oneness with him as he desires to experience it with us.

It is also important to see that he is “the King” who we have been brought into this place of union and rest with. It is he who is sovereign over all, he of whom it is said in scripture, “Of him, and through him, and to him are ALL things.” This is no small privilege to be in this place of union with such a one.

The word used for perfume means spikenard, and is translated so in some translations. It is spikenard as Mary of Bethany poured out her sacrificial worship offering of spikenard on Jesus, a year’s worth of wages from one vial, right before his crucifixion. It seemed an extravagant and impractical waste, but Jesus honored her greatly for it, because it was the heart of his bride on display. In response to the revelation of the finished work of Christ, from the place of reliance on what he has provided rather than on our own abilities, we surrender all we are and all we have to him. This is our sacrifice of worship. From a natural perspective it can seem costly and impractical to do so, but it is worship in Spirit and in Truth. It brings him great pleasure. He is not looking for a worker to save the world for him, but a worshipper and a friend who he can know and be known by. He can do much more through a lover than a worker can ever do for him. Think Mary and Martha. This sacrifice of surrender itself even comes as a result of his table, our rest in what he has provided to enable us to follow him, not our ability to perform.


More on the King’s table:

This table is that communion and rest which is being offered in Hebrews 4. (Hebrews 4:7-11: “Today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts,… there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his own works as God did from His. Therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest…”)

How do you enter that rest and freely eat of his table? Hebrews 4:3 tells us plainly; “For we who have believed enter that rest.” So we see that we are invited into communion with God, to receive all his covenant promises in Christ, which is a place we enter into when we simply believe and cease from our own striving. It is effortless union, as some have put it well.

His rest is also shown to us in Psalm 110 where Jesus has sat down at the right hand of the Father until all his enemies will be made his footstool. Who are his feet? You and I are his body, we are the feet which all his enemies are put underneath. It is accomplished as we rest in him and in his work on the cross, after which he sat down at the right hand of the Father. We take our place in him and His results manifest. Our results are what created the need for the cross in the first place. Let’s take our place in his rest by faith and receive his results.

This “King’s table” is a picture as well of the communion table. The word for communion, “koinonia,” can be translated as “intimacy.” It isn’t necessarily speaking of a ritual eating of a cracker, but is about feeding on Christ’s finished work and truly becoming one with him as his spiritual bride. There is much to the meaning of communion which is commonly passed over:

Just before the “eat my flesh and drink my blood” passage, Jesus tells the crowd in John 6:27-29; “’Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the son of man will give to you, for on him the Father, God, has set his seal.’ Therefore they said to him, ‘What shall we do that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’” He clarifies a little in verse 35 “I am the bread of life, he who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst.” It is in believing and receiving through Christ that our hearts are satisfied, rather than through scheming and performing to fill the void ourselves. Jesus goes further in verses 47-52; “Truly, truly I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life… I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats this bread he will live forever, and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” So we eat Jesus, the bread of life, through faith. We receive, not just life after we die, but the life of eternity in us now as we “eat” him by believing in him. It is a picture of spiritual marriage as well, the taking of himself into us, even into our flesh.

Man does not live by natural bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God, and Jesus is the word of God made flesh to dwell among us. Simply put, here is what this means: Jesus is the clearest revelation of who God is and how he relates to us. He revealed the heart of God especially clearly when he went to the cross in our place. His miraculous life and his resurrection also show the willingness of God to be involved with us the same as with him. We were resurrected with him. If we can truly believe it, this revelation of Jesus, the cross and the resurrection will feed our hearts and give us access to all that God is: Life from the realm of eternity into our lives now in every form. We don’t earn it, he did that part for us. We simply believe it to receive all. It is in this way that believing in the word made flesh opens access for us to the "proceeding word" from his mouth, which we live by.

Jesus continues in John 6:53-57 “Truly, truly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day, for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me, he also will live because of me.”

It was common in those days for religions to sacrifice an animal to their god and eat the animal as a covenant meal representing union with that god. They would eat the animal and drink its blood as a sign of making a sacred blood covenant with their god. Jesus was a sacrifice in such a way for us, using that imagery which was understood at that time. This is what Paul referred to when he wrote “You cannot eat of the table of the Lord and the table of idols.” So the bread is his body given for us, revealing the heart of God towards us, and the drink is his blood poured out as a blood covenant of marriage and everlasting commitment to us. We eat and drink this revelation of who God is and how he relates to us by believing it, and we receive Life beyond human imagination. (beyond all we can ask, think, or imagine)

On the fragrant perfume/spikenard offering:

It is at the Kings table that we rest, we eat and drink of him, and our spikenard offering of a surrendered life comes out of that place as a delightful fragrance to the King.

Hebrews 11 tells us that it was by faith that Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain and that his offering was accepted while Cain’s was not. Faith is a response to revelation of who God is. The difference between them was that Abel made an offering in response to revelation, while Cain just made an offering as a ritual. So our worship, our offering, must be based out of communion with Him first, like Abel’s offering, rather than a worship of mere performance like Cain’s offering. Romans 12 tells us; in response to the mercies of God, to present our bodies as living sacrifices, and that this is our worship. The worship in Spirit and Truth is not what songs you sing or what location you do a church service at. Those things can all just be religious works of performance. True worship is a surrender of yourself in response to revelation. Songs are a byproduct. When we are resting at the Kings table, everything we are and do becomes worship, not just our songs, and our songs come from the heart, not just our mouths.

Let us meditate on who he is, what he revealed about his heart for us when he went to the cross in our place, and let us hold onto his promise of Life from eternity for all who will simply believe. If the Father didn't hold back the incarnate word from us, his own Son, (even when we were at our worst) how will he hold back his spoken word, or anything else from us?

The scriptures quoted above in John 6:53-57 are great to meditate on to receive this Life, as are many mentioned in this article.