Thou Art All Fair, My Love

The Lord's admiration of his Church is very wonderful, and his

description of her beauty is very glowing. She is not merely fair, but

"all fair." He views her in himself, washed in his sin-atoning blood

and clothed in his meritorious righteousness, and he considers her to

be full of comeliness and beauty. No wonder that such is the case,

since it is but his own perfect excellency that he admires; for the

holiness, glory, and perfection of his Church are his own glorious

garments on the back of his own well-beloved spouse. She is not simply

pure, or well-proportioned; she is positively lovely and fair! She has

actual merit! Her deformities of sin are removed; but more, she has

through her Lord obtained a meritorious righteousness by which an

actual beauty is conferred upon her. Believers have a positive

righteousness given to them when they become "accepted in the beloved"

(Eph. 1:6). Nor is the Church barely lovely, she is superlatively so.

Her Lord styles her "Thou fairest among women." She has a real worth

and excellence which cannot be rivalled by all the nobility and royalty

of the world. If Jesus could exchange his elect bride for all the

queens and empresses of earth, or even for the angels in heaven, he

would not, for he puts her first and foremost-"fairest among women."

Like the moon she far outshines the stars. Nor is this an opinion which

he is ashamed of, for he invites all men to hear it. He sets a "behold"

before it, a special note of exclamation, inviting and arresting

attention. "Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair"

(Song of Sol. 4:1). His opinion he publishes abroad even now, and one

day from the throne of his glory he will avow the truth of it before

the assembled universe. "Come, ye blessed of my Father" (Matt. 25:34),

will be his solemn affirmation of the loveliness of his elect.

-C. H. Spurgeon