Blessed Assurance

The proximity of the most intense sense of love and fellowship in juxtaposition with the most intense sense of loss is not without significance. So fickle is the human heart that we can come from blessed assurance into a deep doubts in a very short time. Notice the progression of events that set the context of this assurance; A time of the sweetest fellowship (5:1). A time of cold indifference (5:2-6). The dark night of loneliness (5:6). The admission of Love-sickness (5:8). The recollection of his beauty (5:9-16). The stirring up by the saints to love (6:1) The restoration of fellowship (6:2-3)

Comfort and reassurance is restored in fellowship - “I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine.” This expression is found in another place in the book – with a different emphasis (2:16 cf. 6:3) Interesting change of emphasis from the time where she confidently says as it were “I have a hold of him” – now she says “He has a hold of me.” In 7:10 “I am my beloved and His desire is towards me.” Here she abandons all claim of her own hold on him and focuses entirely on his hold of her and his desire of her. That is the assurance we have; that he has a hold of me - it is not my hold on him that matters ultimately, but his hold on me.

Assurance is based on two things implies in these verses (6:2-3); our Savior's indwelling presence and His immutability. After the indifference, the dark night of doubt and the searching, she discovers that He is STILL in His garden; he has not changed, He is still with her!