I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem.
The church’s blackness
I. The church of God and Christians, whilst they are here, are in an imperfect state. There is a mixture of some light and darkness together, and so it will be till we come to heaven, both for sin and sorrow, for sins and defects in soul. The causes why God will have it so are:
1. In regard of outward infirmities, that we might be made conformable to His Son (Romans 8:17), and so reign with Him, being first made suitable to the body.
2. In respect of outward and inward infirmities, both because God’s glory is seen in our infirmities (2 Corinthians 12:7), His grace being sufficient to uphold us, and also in regard our weakness commends His strength, and our folly His wisdom.
3. Because He would draw us out of the earth, and have us hasten to accomplish the marriage and come away, therefore He sends us so many crosses, and so little rest in the flesh.
4. Because God would have us humble, patient and pitiful people, neither of which would be unless our state were imperfect; we would never know ourselves, our brethren and God, unless it were so, that on both sides we saw the prints of our imperfections.
II. Though our estate be here imperfect, yet we must not be discouraged.
1. We have a great and mighty deliverer. He loves His children in the midst of all their deformities.
2. He is able to help them in all estates; His grace is still sufficient, He hath present help. What needs the child be dismayed for pain when the Father can remove it at His pleasure?
3. The saints of God in all ages have gone through imperfections; they have been sick, poor, doubtful, passionate, as well as we. God hath brought them to heaven, to happiness, through all storms.
4. Uprightness may stand with imperfection, some gold may be amongst earth; as the Church shows here, beauty and deformity may stand together, some light, some darkness. Now God bids the upright hope, rejoice, says he is blessed (Psalms 23:6).
5. Because the effects of discouragement are too bad, as fretting (Psalms 42:11); yea, this doth not only keep Out praises, but causes neglect of all ordinances, drives from God, makes one fierce, envious, uncomfortable, impotent, etc.
III. There is a glory and excellence in the saints of God in the midst of all their deformities and debasements. Indeed their glory is like Solomon’s curtains, not obvious to every eye; like Kedar’s tents, or a heap of wheat in the chaff, and outwardly base, but inwardly excellent.
1. Needs it must be so, for being converted, they obtain a new name (Revelation 2:17); yea, they, have this peculiar favour granted, as 1 John 3:1, to be called the “sons of God.”
2. They have a new nature, being made partakers of the image of God, and so of the Divine nature; as it is (2 Peter 1:4).
3. They have a new estate; Christ Jesus makes them free, as John 8:35, and He makes them also rich, supplying all their wants with the riches of His glory (Psalms 4:3).
4. They have a new kindred and guide. God is their Father, they are members of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13), they are “led by the Spirit of God.” God dwelleth in them, and the Spirit of glory rests upon them even in affliction (1 Peter 4:14), and filleth them with glorious faith and precious graces.
(1) This first discovers a wonderful blindness in us, who can see no such matter in the saints of God.
(2) This is comfort to saints now and hereafter. Now they be glorious, but yet they are but in the way going to glory (Proverbs 4:18). If thus in their pilgrimage, what at home in their country? If thus, imperfect, what in perfection? If thus, in corruption, what when this corruption shall put on incorruption? And if thus, in mortality, what when mortality shall be swallowed up of life?
IV. We must not still be poring into the deformities of God’s Church and people, like flies on galled places, or dogs upon garbage and raw flesh. For--
1. This is a practice which utterly crosseth God in His commandments, who chargeth us “not to despise the day of small things” (Zechariah 4:10).
2. This is quite against justice; for Christians have beauty as well as blackness, graces as well as corruptions.
3. This neither cometh from any good, nor worketh good. It ariseth from pride, ignorance, etc., and showeth that a man neither knows his own estate, nor God s proceedings with His people, who brings them to honour through baseness, and confounds the glory of the world with base things.
V. Then God’s children pay for it, when they do not their own work, not keeping their own standing. It is with them as soldiers and scholars, when they keep not their own places, and learn not their own lessons: they are met with on every side.
1. Because no man speeds well out of his own place, but Christians worst of all; as Proverbs 27:8, a thousand inconveniences befall to oneself, to his charge, when absent. God will be upon him, and leave him to himself, till he hath wound himself into woeful brakes.
2. Men will be upon his back, as Paul on Peter’s, or else grow strange till he be humbled; but bad men they will curse him, all the hypocrites in the town will be at his heels.
3. The devil will be upon them, and having drawn them out of the way, will either still mislead them, or else cut their throats and steal all, or hold them, if possible he may, from returning unto God; as in the prodigal son.
4. Their own consciences will be upon them, and it is with them as with a child that plays truant, his heart throbs, he hath no peace: so a Christian, whether he prosper or not prospers, he hath no peace, he eats not, he sleeps not in peace. (R. Sibbes.)
The Church’s confession of infirmity
By the “daughters of Jerusalem,” Jewish expositors understand the Gentiles, Jerusalem being the spiritual metropolis and mother of us all. And, in substance, most Christian expositors agree with them--that is, they suppose the persons addressed to be some who are not yet openly joined to Christ; who are halting and undecided; seeing much of power and grace in Christ, but discouraged and driven back, either by the remaining infirmities of His followers, or by the persecutions to which they see them to be exposed. Hence the Church proceeds to vindicate herself against any suspicions arising out of these adverse appearances. “True, in one sense I am ‘black’; judged of externally, and seen only as man seeth, I am as dark and swarthy as the skins with which the wild Arab roofs his tent. But, in another sense, I am ‘comely’; my ‘clothing is of wrought gold,’ my raiment ‘is of finest needlework’; my soul, embroidered and enriched with the graces of the Eternal Spirit, makes me beautiful as the hangings in king’s palaces, gorgeous ‘as the curtains of Solomon.’” “Black, but comely.” The words may be taken, and by the Jews are taken, as anticipative of the glory of the Church in the latter days. In her present state she may be considered as dark as the Ethiop’s skin. Her heresies, her divisions, her heart-burnings, the spots in her feasts of charity, the scandals among men professing godliness, make the saying to be true of her which Jeremiah witnesses, that her “visage is blacker than a coal.” But how does Ezekiel speak of what her glory shall be (Ezekiel 16:9-14)? Again, the expression, “I am black,” may be taken to refer to the many sins of the believer. In the eyes of no one is he so black as he is in his own. He is covered over with blemishes, and spots, and soils. There are stains upon his duties, stains upon his repentances, stains upon his prayers. But look we again. We have seen the picture but from one side. On looking at it from the other, this stained and darkened thing is beautiful as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, “terrible as an army with banners.” Thus, while the believer is both “black and comely,” he is neither all the one, nor all the other. There is a strife for mastery always going on between the elements of his inner life--the grace reigning, but the sin not expelled--the flesh disputing inch by inch the claims of the Spirit, and iniquity forcing its presence into the shrine of his holiest things. Still, comely he is, and that through Christ’s comeliness. The world sees only the “tents of Kedar,” but cannot discern the “curtains of Solomon.” (D. Moore, M. A.)