What does a dove represent in the Bible?

The dove is commonly taken as the emblem of peace. the Holy Spirit descended on the Lord 'like a dove,' answering to "on earth peace, good will toward men." It is also an emblem of harmlessness: 'wise as serpents, harmless as doves.' Matt. 10:16. In the Canticles the bridegroom three times calls the bride 'my dove,' and says she has 'doves' eyes;' she also says the latter of him. Cant. 1:15; Cant. 2:14; Cant. 4:1; Cant. 5:2, 12; Cant. 6:9. Loving gentleness characterises the dove.

And so when our Lord was baptized of John in Jordan and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily shape like a dove, the form He took suggests, may we not say, the character and office of our Lord Jesus. The dove is the bird of heaven; so He "came down from heaven" (John 6:38). The dove is the bird that loves and mourns; so He came in love and was the "Man of sorrows." The dove is the bird of gentleness; and He was meek and lowly in heart. It was distinctively a "clean" bird; which fitted it to be used in sacrifice; so was our Lord without spot, and offered Himself thus to God (Heb. 9:14) "through the eternal Spirit." Thus the dove is suggestive both of the Lord and of the Holy Spirit, who came in that form.

The dove is a common figure in the Song of songs, and there doubtless represents Israel. We shall not forget this, while yet we remember that its first and fundamental significance carries us away from this, although there is an easy connection between the different applications.

It is plainly in the New Testament the symbol of the Spirit of God: "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove," says the Baptist, "and it abode upon Him." This necessarily, therefore, is an application which every one accepts; but even in this place it suggests another: the dove, the bird of heaven, the bird which is at once realized as the bird of love and as the bird of sorrow, and which Scripture speaks of in this double character, is so manifestly the representative of Christ Himself, the Man of sorrows, (sorrows that flowed from love, and into which love brought Him down,) that this application is no less evident than the other. Necessarily the symbol is thus a double one: for the dove could only come and abide on Him because here was a congenial home; and conversely, the Spirit of Christ must characterize Christ.

But Scripture confirms this further and without possibility of doubt, in that the dove is (in its two varieties of dove and pigeon) the only specified sacrificial bird. In this way it could, of course, apply, not even to the Spirit of God, but only to the Lord. How at once, then, there gleams upon us the glory of its matchless "wings"! Here the application to Israel even in the psalm before us seems at once excluded. What would be the force of any such to them? But if to Christ, then they may well be emphasized, — "wings" that brought a Saviour down! And all is plain: the wings covered with silver, reminding us of the redemption-money; and that presented first; then, as the light strikes differently, the glory of the green-tinted gold," — divine glory, with the hue of reviving nature in it, as in the "rainbow like an emerald, round about the throne" (Rev. 4:3).

Men of this world have adopted the dove as an emblem of peace, but we gather from the record of the dove sent forth from the Ark that Scripture uses it as an emblem of purity. It is well known that the first use of any type in Scripture determines its use throughout the Scriptures. The raven suggests what is impure, but the dove suggests purity. The day had dawned in which God was going to give the Spirit to others, but the One to receive it first, in this way, was the Son of God. We must remember that others would receive the Spirit while still marked by sin within, hence witness is borne that Christ was sinless and pure. With Him therefore the Spirit was seen in the character of a dove, but with others as fire. There was something in all others which was never found in the Son of God, hence the Spirit came upon them in a judicial character, dividing in them between the new nature and the old in view of the testimony.

But, returning to the descent of the Spirit upon our Lord at His baptism, we have what I will call your attention to again, for it is most striking. I mean the form in which the Spirit appeared. He descended in bodily shape like a dove. The symbolism here is simple and clear. The dove was the bird used in sacrifice — "two turtle doves." It is also the bird of love — "My love, my dove," as in the Song of Solomon. With equal clearness, it is the bird of sorrow — "We mourned sore as doves." Sacrifice, love, sorrow — these the dove symbolized. But why, then, is the dove used as a type of the Spirit?

In the New Testament the dove becomes the emblem of the Spirit of God, and the expression used on the first occasion is worthy of note — "no rest for the sole of her foot." As yet the whole scene was a waste of death and corruption. On the second occasion the dove returned with, "an olive leaf pluckt off." Here was the first evidence of life appearing above the waters of death, for it was not a leaf that had been drifting among the debris but plucked off a living tree. Death entered by sin, and "so death passed upon all men" (Rom. 5:12), as much after the flood as before it. The first evidence of real life rising up beyond the scene of death was when Christ rose from the dead. Though the Spirit came at Pentecost as wind and fire, He came as a Witness to Christ risen and glorified.

Hence we read, "And John bore witness, saying, I have beheld the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and it abode upon Him. And I knew Him not; but He that sent me to baptize with (ἐν) water, He said unto me, Upon whomsoever thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding on Him, this is He that baptizeth with (ἐν, the) Holy Spirit. And I have seen and borne witness that this is the Son of God."35

Such was the suited sign for the Saviour. Ravens might have been employed in God's wisdom to feed the famished prophet at another dark day; but not such was the appearance of the Spirit descending from heaven to abide on Jesus. The dove only could be the proper form, emblematic of the spotless purity of Him on Whom He came. Yet did He come upon Him as man, but Jesus was man without sin; as truly man as any other, but how different from all before or after! He was the second Man in bright contrast with the first. And He is the last Adam: in vain does unbelief look for a higher development, overlooking Him in Whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

Turtle-doves and pigeons are the lowest grade of burnt offerings. These were for the poorest of the people and they express typically the weakest faith in Christ and the lowest estimate of His work. But here also we read that it was accepted as an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord. These birds speak of Christ as do the ox and the lamb. The dove is the bird of peace, love and sorrow. The dove pictures Him as holy and undefiled, filled with tenderness and love. The bird was put to death by "wringing off its head," the type of the violence done to Him, who was so tender and loving. The crop and the feathers (correct meaning, "filth") were cast away. As those were unclean they had to be thrown away so as to make the type correspond to Him, who is undefiled and holy.

"Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest" (v.5). How could it be otherwise? Was rest to be found in taking their own way? It could not be. "Thou hast made us for Thyself," said Augustine of Hippo, "and our souls can never be at rest until they rest in Thee." It is the most egregious folly to seek for it anywhere else. That worldlings should make such a mistake is no cause for surprise: they have never known anything better than the alluring enticements of Satan's realm: but for one who has shared in the deep, true peace which the Spirit gives to those that obey Him, to turn his back upon the only source of rest and seek it in the world from which he was once delivered, is an anomaly beyond explanation, save on the ground of hidden backsliding of heart long before. Such we know was the case of Judah . Their heart went out after unholy things first; then the feet soon followed. But they found, like the dove sent forth out of the ark, no rest for the sole of their feet. A raven, type of the evil nature in every man, could rest upon a floating carcass, while feeding on the carrion; but the clean, pure dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit and of the new nature which all God's children have received, could find neither rest nor food in such a scene, but must needs return to the ark, a type of Christ, for both.

When is there joy in heaven? Over a sinner made happy? Well, no doubt there is — but here it is on the first right step taken, repentance, for there can be no true blessedness to the soul without this. What infinite grace in the Lord to say "us" (ver. 15). They had done the right thing, and the Lord takes up the case of repentant sinners. They were fit subjects of His kingdom. There had been a time of silence for just thirty years. The Lord was walking in seclusion, but what was that life to the Father? — a continual meat offering! He looks back over those thirty years and He bears testimony to it. These very people had owned their sins, and some of them were very bad, and yet He will identify Himself with them; but what does God think? "My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Heavens were only once opened in the Old Testament, and that in judgment; but here God's heart finds a resting-place. You don't get the Trinity definitely brought out in the Old Testament; with the light of the New you can see it in such passages as: "Let us make man;" or Isaiah 6; or Zechariah 3. The Lord Jesus is the Holy One, the Harmless One, the Undefiled One, etc. When the Holy Ghost came down at Pentecost it was as a rushing, mighty, wind; but here it is, "as a dove" — emblem of purity — coming on One who needed not redemption as we, for He was holy. Now, we, having redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, can be, and are, sealed with the Spirit, and so are called to be harmless as doves: "Oh, that I had wings as a dove," separate from sinners.