Living with the Son in the Bosom of the Father

I am reading John of the Cross' Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ and really enjoyed this he wrote:

"Show me where you feed, where you lie in midday." [Song of Songs 1:7] For to be shown the place where he fed was to ask to be shown the Essence of the Divine Word, the Son; because the Father feeds nowhere else but in His only begotten Son, Who is the glory of the Father. This pasture, then, is the Bridegroom Word, where the Father feeds in infinite glory. He is also the bed of flowers whereupon He reposes with infinite delight of love, profoundly hidden from all mortal vision and every created thing

We are being brought into the intimacy of the Holy Trinity; the ancient intimacy of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One of God’s names is Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:9). From the ancient times of eternity, God has been in intimacy. Forever and ever, he has lived in a rich, beautiful, bare intimacy; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One, together, forever. Forever, the Son lives in the bosom of our Father. How intimate and close. Jesus, the Son of God, living in our Father’s bosom. And I think it’s just gorgeous how John puts the Father with the Son as Jesus being “the bed of flowers whereupon He reposes with infinite delight of love.” The Holy Spirit permeates both the Father and the Son, forever knowing Jesus and his Father in the most intimate and deepest of ways. How perfect! And Jesus desires to bring us into this intimacy as his beloved whom he has married. What joy and ecstasy we will have forever being one with God.

In Song of Songs 8:1-2, we find ourselves thrust into the romance with God.

If I found you outside,
I would kiss you,
and no one would despise me.

I would lead you
and bring you to my mother's house—
she who has taught me.
I would give you spiced wine to drink,
the nectar of my pomegranates.

I love the commentary on these two verses from Jeanne Guyon, a 17^th/18^th century French mystic in The Song of Songs of Solomon.

The soul finding herself thus intimately connected with God, experiences two things. One is, that her Bridegroom is in her as she is in Him, just as an empty vase thrown into the ocean is full of the same water by which it is surrounded, and contains without comprehending that within which it is contained, so that the soul who is borne by her Bridegroom bears Him also. And whither does she bear Him? thither only where she can go: she bears Him into the bosom of her Father, which is her mother’s house, that is the place of her birth. The other thing which she experiences is, that there He instructs her, bestowing upon her the knowledge of His secret things, which is only given to the favorite Spouse, to whom He teaches every truth that is necessary for her to know, or with which, from the excess of His love, He desires that she should be acquainted. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/guyon/song.xi.html)

How beautiful! Being in a perfect intimacy with God, we find ourselves being drawn and wooed deeper and deeper into the eternal oneness of God, into the intimacy of Jesus with the Father and the Holy Spirit. How incredible to one day be so close and one with God, that in our intimacy with Jesus, out of the ecstasy of the moment of our love in him, we will bring him into the bosom of our Father. How beautiful and romantic. And what will we learn from Jesus? We will know him in love. And he will know us. Secretly. Wonderfully. Isaiah said, “Truly you are a God who hides himself.” (Isaiah 45:15. NIV). But for God’s lovers, who seek him, will find him (Seek and you will find, Jesus said). And in our secret intimacy with him, he will know us. (like Paul said, I will be fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12). In our secret place with our Lover, he will tenderly have a new name for us. He will give us a white stone with a new name written on it that is known only to the one to whom it is given (Revelation 2:17). John Eldredge and Brent Curtis in The Sacred Romance said this is the name only known between two lovers. Jesus is a “spring enclosed, a sealed fountain” to us (Song of Songs 4:12), hiding gracefully, desiring us to desire him. Jesus is our beautiful Lover, coyly and sweetly wanting us to pursue him. God wants us to want him. He wants to be desired. Desire him, pursue him, and find life. Like in Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.” It’s not blandly worship God and he’ll give you stuff you want; we delight and take joy and pleasure in being close to him, and he gives us the desires of our hearts, which is himself. I love Song of Songs 2:14. I think this verse can be about us in our romance with God, but I also think it can be about us pursuing Jesus as he is a God who hides himself and us pursuing him:

My dove in the clefts of the rock,
in the hiding places on the mountainside,
show me your face,
let me hear your voice;
for your voice is sweet,
and your face is lovely (NIV)

We truly are heirs of God, in that we are heirs of him in a very wonderful way. We get him. All of him. We get to be one with God intimately forever, always one with him in this lovely union with his Son in his bosom with the Holy Spirit. That is truly incredible.