"But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowl of the air, and they shall tell thee."-Job 12:7.
While all birds' wings speak in some way of heaven, the remarkable power of flight of the dove or pigeon specially marks it out as a bird of heaven. Its short legs, and slow running on the ground, show it is not fitted for that, and thus emphasizes its power of flight-just as the awkward gait of the eagle does.
Its toes are weak and often turn under, and it cannot perch. If it alights on a tree it is always on a large limb, never on a small branch; perches for pigeons, therefore, are made flat. Its weak feet, then, locate it on the ground. Scientists recognize this and call them rock doves.
The wings suggest that it is a heavenly bird; the weak feet, that it is come down to earth, the place of the curse; and the short legs that it does not naturally belong on earth-in other words that it is here as a stranger. These features of the dove are in a spiritual way true of the Holy Spirit.
THE IRIDESCENT FEATHERS.
"Though ye lie between the hurdles, the wings of a dove [are there] covered with silver and her feathers with green tinted gold" (Psa. 68:13-Numerical Bible.)
This scripture gives us the key to the shining wings and iridescent neck feathers. The question in the psalm might be stated:How shall Israel be blessed in their hopeless condition? '' The answer is plain,- wings that brought a Saviour down .. . wings covered with silver, reminding us of he 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'' (Numerical Bible, Notes.) So the silver is put upon the wings-the place of refuge and shelter; and the gold about the neck-the part we ornament. The Holy Spirit is the one who presents Christ as redemption-makes it effective to the sinner.
ITS NOTES.
It is the bird of love and sorrow. No other bird shows such marked affection. To its mate the cooing conveys no thought of mourning or sorrow as it does to us; it is to them only a love-song. Since, then, the bird has a message from God, it must be He who is mourning, and we have only to look around us to realize abundant cause for it-a world full of sinners on the broad road to destruction. It was this that made the Lord when on earth "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." The mourning of the Spirit was expressed through His lips:
"We know the love that brought Thee down,
Down from Thy throne on high,
To meet our ruined souls in need,
On Calvary's cross to die."
If the dove expresses God's attitude toward the sinner now, who need fear or hesitate to go to Him at once in confession? for who was ever afraid of a dove?
The same characteristics should belong to all who are born of the Spirit. We are indeed to rejoice in the Lord; but only a purely thoughtless or selfish Christian can indulge in levity. Who that realizes what he has been saved from can do so.
"While millions and millions of deathless souls to the horrible pit are hurled!" While children, relatives, friends, may in a moment be called into eternity unprepared! When they are thus taken away, it sobers us-why not before? Every time we hear a dove mourn it should sober us, when we remember what the message is, and from whom it is.
THE HOMING INSTINCT.
If it is taken away from home even hundreds of miles, and kept a prisoner for months, when let loose it immediately circles three or four times in the air, and then with unerring instinct makes a straight line for its home, never stopping on the way, unless the distance is very great. In this it is similar to the bee.
The home from eternity of the Only-begotten Son and the Spirit was in heaven. When God sent His Son into the world the Holy Spirit followed Him, descended at His baptism (not sent) in the form of a dove and abode upon Him. In Him the Spirit found His native and congenial home all through His life down here. At Pentecost He was sent (not came) back to form and abide with His Church in our Lord's absence. And here He is at present a captive away from His home-a captive of the love of God to men, (for it is that alone which keeps Him here,) with the Lord's people in a foreign land, till the day for which we wait. Then the Spirit and every one born of the Spirit will go back home to meet the Lord in the air, "and so shall we ever be with the Lord." Every one born of the Spirit has this homing instinct, in a greater or less degree.
Thus the dove is a double type of the Spirit and those born of the Spirit. This accounts easily for
the hundreds of varieties of pigeons and doves;- puffer pigeons (proud); tumbler pigeons (always faltering and stumbling) etc. If we could read them all, how many of these varieties may be faithful, though humiliating, pictures of those born of the, Spirit; for we would not think of them as being in all things types of the Holy Spirit. God has foreseen and thus described, in nature, the failures of His people.
The strongest instinct of the captive dove is the longing for home. "We are but strangers here."
"How blest a home-the Father's house!
There love divine doth rest;
What else could satisfy the hearts
Of those with Jesus blest?
His home made ours-His Father's love,
Our heart's full portion given,
The portion of the first-born Son,
The full delight of heaven."
ITS FOOD.
The dove is distinctly a grain feeder. It eats the corn or wheat and then drinks water freely. When it has partly digested this in its crop, it feeds it to the young pigeons in the form of "pigeon-milk"- the milk period lasts five or six days. This is easily read:the dove answers to the Holy Spirit; the "corn of wheat" to Christ in His death (John 12:24); the water to the word of God which the Spirit uses, and without which He cannot work in the soul; the digested food-the pigeon-milk-to the "sincere milk of the Word" by which we grow (i Pet. 2:2); and the young doves to those who are born of the Spirit. The water of the Word must be mixed with faith in order to profit us (Heb. 4:2), and even this faith is the gift of God, We cannot feed ourselves any more than young doves. How this is emphasized in i Cor. 2:1:Of ourselves we could not understand nor appreciate the person nor the work of Christ. The Holy Spirit alone can receive (Himself received first) of the things of Christ and show them unto us. All these precious and important truths are clearly illustrated when the dove eats the corn itself, digests it and then feeds it in "convenient" form to its children. Their weak stomachs would not be able to digest it otherwise. So, neither poverty, nor riches, nor anything else in this world can satisfy the soul of those born of the Spirit-nothing but heavenly food ministered by the Spirit.
As the young birds get older the parents digest it less, give them stronger food as they are able to bear it, till, soon, they eat the corn, drink the water, and immediately feed it to the young birds.
Just so the Spirit by Paul could give the Ephesian saints the strongest food, the highest truth, while to the carnal Corinthians and Hebrews, mere babes, he could minister but the simplest diet, the "first principles," "nothing but Christ and Him crucified." What sorrowful reproof – though we often hear Christians glory in it instead of being ashamed of it! How few to-day care for or get the strong meat there is for them, and how slow is their growth in the knowledge of Christ!
We find a somewhat similar truth in the mammalia, who all feed their young on milk; but none of them, that I know of, are types of the Spirit. In the dove God has, so to speak, gone out of His way to teach this most important and blessed truth,-that we are entirely dependent upon the Holy Spirit for our spiritual food.
In four weeks doves get their full growth. So God expects those fed by the Holy Spirit to grow rapidly, and once in a while we find an isolated case, like the "Convict Daniel Mann," who in a few weeks grew spiritually as much as most Christians do in a life-time.
At the Lord's table, at the breaking of bread, we gather as worshipers-to give to God, rather than receive. We have nothing to bring but Christ, and specially Christ in His death; God delights in Christ and in all that refers to Christ; it satisfies His heart. But a table implies room for more than one, and fellowship. So at the table we have the Lord Jesus, our God and Father, the Holy Spirit who has gathered us to Christ, and redeemed sinners born of God. What we bring to God the Spirit ministers back to us, for one cannot go there empty of self and not find food and refreshment. There, above all other times and places, we can delight ourselves in fatness, on what has first satisfied God.
AS MESSENGER.
At the siege of Paris pigeons were used to carry messages to and from the beleaguered city. They are specially fitted to carry messages.
This world lies in the wicked one, is straightly shut up like Jericho, marked for the judgment that still lingers like the six days respite at Jericho, and the Holy Spirit is here as the "heavenly dove" the messenger from God with a message of reconciliation, and a full provision for escape from the "wrath to come." This message He gives through God's people.
We have long recognized pigeons as messengers, little dreaming that they brought us so full and blessed a message as we have had before us. Are they not heavenly messengers indeed? T. M.