Song of Solomon 1:5

In the presence of the Bridegroom, the bride can only rejoice in Him and His love. But as a result of being in the King's chambers, she gets a true estimate of herself, so before others she owns her true condition… If we learn what we are in the presence of Him who is the King, we also learn what His grace has made us. So while we own that we are black, we can also add, "but lovely," like the beautiful curtains of Solomon's temple.

The tents of Kedar were made of coarse black goat's hair. Seen in all their dingy blackness under the bright rays of the desert sun, they are a fit picture of what we are by nature — full of sin. The beautiful curtains were made for the temple of fine twined linen, with blue and purple and gold woven through. They are the symbol first of all of what Christ is in the perfection and beauty of His Person. But they also picture the believer as God sees him in Christ, clothed with all the beauty and perfection of His Person and work.

The sons of Ishmael, it is said, use the rough, shaggy skins of their black goats to cover their tents, and to a traveller's eye they look intensely black in the desert under a bright sun. Even a burning lamp, as someone has said, shows nothing but its black wick when it is placed in the rays of the sun. But what a happy thought: if the sense of how unlovely we are still troubles us, it no longer troubles the blessed Lord. He has removed it all, and for ever, from His own eyes. And faith's eye sees with Him. The judgment of God and the judgment of faith are always the same.

She confesses she is black. This does not mean at all, as some have taken it, that she was Ethiopian. It means sunburnt, as she says herself: "Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me." She passed through the scorching heat of affliction and sorrow, yet she is lovely (Ezekiel 16:10); through His mercy and kindness she is not forsaken. The daughters of Jerusalem she is speaking to are women of the nation who do not yet share her knowledge of the Beloved, the Messiah.

So she was "black, but lovely." But I do not doubt that the blackness refers to something else as well. It is not only the blackness of failure, of shortcoming, of sin, but the blackness of suffering. And the Lord will feel it too… So she owns that whether it was her own fault, or the cruel persecution she had endured in the just chastening of her faults, such was her condition: black, but, by grace, she was lovely.

There the Bridegroom looks at the bride and tells her, "You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you" (Song of Solomon 4:7). Speaking of herself, she can only say, "I am very dark" (Song of Solomon 1:5-6)… So vast is the difference between what we are in ourselves and what we are in Christ — between our settled standing and the state we may actually be in.

The repentant son in Luke 15 had nothing to do with making the best robe or putting it on himself. He had only rags, and he told his father so honestly… But what a disgrace it would be to his father if, once the father had put that beautiful robe on him, the son went about mourning over his rags, or saying he was not well dressed. True, he would feel how unworthy he was of it all, but that would make him love the father all the more.