Prayer for Full Assurance
J.D. Davies Songs 8:6, 7 Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave… The marrow and essence of true religion is love. If there is no love to God, there is no religion. If I am not the object of God's love, I have no solid hope of a blissful immortality. Hence it is our primary and supreme concern to ascertain whether we have a place in God's affection. Has God a care for me? Has he put my name on his book of life? Is he engaged by solemn covenant to be my Friend eternally? I want to know this. If I am left in suspense, it is, of all things, most painful. It robs me of the inspiration and the stimulus of hope. It weakens my endeavour after holiness. It damps my zeal. It checks my cheerfulness, and kills my inward peace. Unless the warm sunshine of Immanuel's love encircle me, I shall not produce the ripe fruits of goodness. Will my love be steadfast? Shall I hold out to the end? Well, all is secure if I know that I share in the love of Christ; for that love is endearing, unchanging, tender, all-victorious, everlasting. If my name is on the heart of my Saviour, then my eternal fortune is certain. No ill can come to me through time or through eternity. Therefore this prayer, "Set me as a seal upon thy heart." I. NOTE THE SUBSTANCE OF THIS PRAYER. 1. It is a plea for love. Unless God had revealed to us the fact that in his heart there glowed a vehement flame of love for sinning men, we could never have surmised it. We might have carefully noted his many arrangements in nature for ministering to our happiness. We might have reasoned in our mind that, since he had given us the capacity to love, the spring and fount of that love must be in his own breast. Yet this would have been at the best conjecture. We could not have built on it any hope of enjoying his personal friendship, or of sharing his society eternally. But he has given us a veritable gospel. He has assured us that his highest love centres in men. He has given us plain and practical proofs of the ardour of his love. He has given us the sure pledge that his love is a permanent force in his nature; yea, an attribute of his Godhead. Therefore this love kindles our hope, excites our profoundest desire. God loves me; hence I can become a better man. I can rise out of the mire of sin. I can emerge out of the grave of dark despair. I can become a child of God, a prince in the kingdom of heaven. My heart is deeply moved. I love him who gave himself for me. I want to love him more. But he must soften my nature, and draw out my love. Will he condescend to do it? Will he have pity on undeserving me? I want to have this question solved. Jesus, I pray thee make me thy friend! 2. It is a petition for the assurance of Christ's love. The language is very probably borrowed from an impressive scene in the temple. It was a part of the duty of the high priest, when he went into the holy place, and came into immediate contact with God, to wear upon his breast and upon his shoulders the names of the tribes of Israel. These names were graven upon precious stones, and this ceremony indicated the affectionate interest which the high priest felt in the welfare of the people. He lived for them. He made oblation for their sins. He interceded with God on their behalf. Their misfortunes and their fails became his misfortunes and his burdens. He identified himself completely with the people. So his influence with God was used for them. Now, we too have a great High Priest; not a frail, erring man like Aaron and his successors. We have a perfect Mediator, even the Son of God himself. He has passed into the heavens as our Representative. If he will identify himself with me, and undertake my salvation, I am fully content. For so excellent is he that his pleading always does and must prevail. Can I be sure that he feels an interest in me? Yes, it is possible. If I ask for this blessing I shall have it. Hence I pray, "Set me as a seal upon thy heart." 3. This also is a plea for practical help. "Set me as a signet upon thine arm." The love of Jesus is not an inactive sentiment. It is sympathetic; it is personally helpful. His love puts into gracious operation all the energies of his being. I want the protection of a mighty arm. I want superior help. My heart has grown very insensible through sin, and I want him to soften it. I want him to eradicate from me the old roots of lust and folly. I want him to break off my letters of evil habit, I want him to remodel and revitalize my whole nature. No one else can do it. His strength is almightiness. If he will use his Divine power for my good, I shall be emancipated and purified and ennobled. I shall run gladly in his ways. And he is willing to do it. He delights in saving men and in doing good. So I will pray, "O Saviour, let thy great power work in me. Put forth thy strength on my behalf. 'Set me as a signet on thy arm.'" II. OBSERVE THE ARGUMENT IN THIS PRAYER. "For love is strong as death." The Christian has large hope and has large expectation, because the principle or quality in God concerned about his salvation is love. So he argues with his heavenly Friend in this way: "It is for my eternal good that my name should be engraven on thy heart, for this I know that love is strong; yea, the mightiest thing in the world." 1. This plea for the assurance of God's love is founded on the power of love. Commentators have differed whether the writer had in view here Immanuel's love to us, or our love to him. But it is evident that the inspired writer is thinking about love in the abstract. Real love everywhere is strong. The timid bird, that usually flees from man or dog, will, to defend its young, risk its own life and attack its fiercest foe. Love is strong. What peril has not a human mother faced to save her child? Can we measure the strength of love by any known test? Can we express it by any metaphor? I cannot conceive any difficult feat too formidable for love. I think of love as I observe its working among men. I think of it as I experience its strength in me. It is next to omnipotent in man. It will readily confront death and grapple that mysterious foe. Amongst men, it is strong as death; yea, stronger, mightier! What, then, must love be in our Immanuel? Here it exists in perfect form, in uncreated measure, without a flaw or blemish. If love in Christ be the same sort of thing as love in my breast (and it is), then that love will endure anything to save its object. H my name is on Jesus' heart, this is my best-founded security for all good, present and eternal. 2. The argument proceeds on this ground, that baffled love is poignant pain. "Jealousy is cruel as the grave." This, again, is spoken of jealousy in the abstract. If I love, and my love is encouraged, and for a time reciprocated, until it burns with ardour; then, if a rival comes between me and my object, what pain, what fierce indignation, follows! Such jealousy springs out of injured love, that the heart passion is uncontrollable. It overleaps all barriers of law, all limits of reason. You cannot hold it in check. "It is cruel as the grave;" cruel as hell. Now, if Jesus has set his heart upon me; if he has sacrificed much on my account; if he has attested his affection by the cross and by the grave; then will he allow any rival to supplant him? Would there not be a feeling of intense pain, akin to jealousy, burning in his breast if anything came between him and the object of his love? Hence, for his own sake, he will not cast me off. For his own sake he will not cease to love me, nor cease to win my love in return. We are told that "he hates putting away." Here, then, is a very forceful argument, that for his own peace of mind, for his own honour, he will give me - poor, unworthy me - a larger place in his heart. "Having loved his own, he loves them unto the end." 3. The argument proceeds on love's unchangeableness. Literally translated, it is, "The coals thereof are the coals of God." This flame never decreases; it is fed from a storehouse of infinity. Changeableness is incident to man, but it has no place with God. We may love a person under a false estimate of that person's excellence. The charms may be plausible and pretentious rather than real. Hence our affections may diminish, undergo complete change. This can never happen with God. He does not love us Because we are lovable. He loves us in order to make us lovable and worthy of himself. His love chose us when we were aliens, rebels, depraved, dead in sin. As there was nothing in us to attract him at the first, so nothing in us will drive him away. He will correct, chastise, prune, purify us, but will not allow his love to change. Says he, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." The flame of love which glows in his breast is a flame that cannot die out, so long as God is God. III. THE RESPONSE TO THIS PRAYER. We may very properly regard this verse as the bridegroom's response. To the pathetic, yearning appeal of the bride, he promptly replies, "Thy argument is most valid; cogent in the extreme. Yea, verily, many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it." 1. Love is all-victories. If it be imaged forth as a flame of fire, then in one respect the figure fails. You can extinguish flame with water, if only you can pour on a sufficient quantity; but on this flame of love no amount of coldness or opposition will cool it in the least degree. Let Satan and his legions do their very utmost to lessen the intensity of this heavenly flame, their labour is vain. They only prepare for themselves a bitter disappointment. Or let the floods of human vice and human antagonism rise as they may, they can never rise as high as this heavenly flame. The finite can never o'ermaster the Infinite. The love of God to men is a sacred principle, an integral part of the Divine nature. There is nothing outside God to be compared in potency with what is within him. As the creature can never be a match for the Creator, so no kind of opposition can ever injure or diminish the eternal love of God. Just as nothing on earth nor in hell can diminish God's power or tarnish his righteousness, so also nothing can lessen or dim the fervent flame of his eternal pity. "Many waters cannot quench love;" yea, love turns all human hatred into fresh coals to feed the flame. 2. Love has a priceless value. The argument on the part of the Bridegroom seems to be, "Wherefore should my love abate. If it should, there must be some reason for it. What reason can there be what advantage? what gain?" Even were there some advantage to be gained, this would not weigh in the scale. For love scorns all advantage. Love delights in sacrifice. Only let love discover how it can make some new surrender, in order to bless the fallen and the wretched, and straightway love makes the surrender. Jesus will give up his heaven, his joy, his crown, today; give all up without hesitation, if he can thereby lift some poor sinner into a righteous life. On his part nothing shall impede the activities of his ardent love. Will he ever listen to any proposal to allow his love to rest? Never! Will he at any time prefer ease, or rule, or fame, or worship, to the outgoings of practical love? Never! A thousand times, never! Do I feel myself now more unworthy of his love than ever in my past history? Then, my soul, be hopeful! Here is greater scope for Immanuel's love! Spirit of truth, show me more clearly yet my guilt, my ingratitude, my inward corruption! For then shall I see how much I need my Saviour's pity, my Saviour's help. Then I know that he will run to my deliverance. For "Christ died for the ungodly." He loves to save the needy. If I have had much sin forgiven, then shall I love much. "Therefore, Lord, write my name upon thy heart, for in me thy love shall have a glorious triumph!" - D. Parallel Verses KJV: Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. WEB: Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death. Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a very flame of Yahweh.