Chapter Twenty Six: Dawn of a New Day
There’s a special spot in my neighborhood where I secretly covet a small portion of houses. They have a particular view of the highlands of northern New Jersey where there’s a stunning display of light as the sun washes over the mountains.
It’s remarkable what happens when light breaks in on a scene like this. Entire mountains that were invisible during the night can suddenly emerge like hidden guardians along the horizon. You might be able to see faint traces of their outline during the night, but their color and curves, their sprawling forestry or snowy drapery all remain veiled until the dawn rolls in. When this happens, everything comes into focus. A new world of exploration opens before you with rising trails and hidden habitats. And yet nothing has actually changed. Light has only exposed what was hidden and sleeping.
It is the same with revelation. When the light of truth dawns upon the soul, new territory opens up. In the morning of spiritual understanding, new sights emerge and sleeping things awake. Nothing has changed and yet everything changes.
One of the changes is that people around you start taking notice. Just as rising sunlight can transform a dark stretch of clouds and cause onlookers to be drawn away and captivated by its sight, so it is with the revelation-infused believer. This is what happens with the Shulamite as her story begins to wrap up.
The Shulamite has been awakened and now begins to manifest what was previously hidden. In hope against hope, her heart stayed true to her Beloved’s kiss and she is starting to bear the fruit of God’s life within. Like Abraham’s wife who bore a supernatural child named Laughter (the meaning of “Isaac” in Hebrew), the Shulamite begins to exude divine joy. Such an attractive and sweet fruit catches the attention of those around her, as we see in the following words:
…The maidens saw her and called her blessed,
The queens and concubines also, and they praised her, saying,
“Who is this that grows like the dawn,
As beautiful as the full moon,
As pure as the sun,
As awesome as an army with banners?”
Song 6:10
The True Church
The maidens, queens, and concubines speak of those who do not yet intimately know the King of glory. They may be in some kind of relationship or proximity to him, but they have not woken up to the full mystery of Christ. They do not know what it means to be consumed by his love.
Yet something in the life of the Shulamite causes them to compare her to the dawn. Like the almond tree signaling the coming of spring, the Shulamite heralds the arrival of a new day to a world that is still asleep. This brings us a deeper understanding of what the scriptures refer to as “the church.”
Like tall mountains in the black of night, the true church has been hidden in darkness for much of its history. Though some crude outlines can be seen in this night season of humanity, the full wonders of the church have not yet appeared.
Praising her beauty, the Shulamite’s observers go on to compare her to a full moon, another fitting metaphor considering everything we’ve discussed. The moon does not bear any light of its own. It simply faces the sun and reflects its glory onto the earth. And such is the church’s calling—to reveal Christ’s light to a world still sleeping under a deceptive veil. But like the moon’s exterior, the church often appears like a dusty group of people, dry and dotted with empty craters. Nonetheless, we are positioned in the heavenly realm in such a way that we’re able to catch beams of divine grace and pass them on to others.
For much of its existence, the church has done this only partially. Like a moon in the crescent position, there have been slivers of light here and there. Her illumination has waxed and waned in a variety of times and seasons. Thankfully, the days are upon us when she will come into the fullness of the King’s glory, having been properly positioned in the starlight of his grace.
And this will set us up for what is spoken next about the rising Shulamite.
Glad Tidings of Great Joy
How beautiful are your feet in sandals,
O prince’s daughter! …
Song 7:1
“Beautiful feet” connects to a phrase used by the prophet Isaiah to speak of those who carry good news to others (Isaiah 52:7). In other words, this poetic statement is about evangelism.
Like the word “church,” this is a term that’s been dragged through the religious mud over years, losing much of its original beauty along the way. But that beauty is still there if we’re willing to wipe off layers of mud and look at the original context of the phrase.
Without social media or radio, news in ancient times had to travel by the physical mouth of messengers. A person with beautiful feet spoke of one who was appointed to run across hills and plains into secluded villages and cities with wonderful news. Oftentimes this news was about a military victory. Running across mountains and arriving in the center of a town, such an individual would catch their breath and share something like this:
Our king’s armies have defeated the barbarian forces at our border! The enemy who had been threatening to overthrow our towns, kill our men, and kidnap our women and children, is no more. The threat is gone. You can all relax and celebrate!
Surely, for a community riddled with anxiety over an uncertain future, such a messenger would come running with the most beautiful feet imaginable. These glad and welcoming feet would spark a flurry of parties and celebrations, particularly amongst the people who believed the message (even if they didn’t see the victory with their own eyes).
This brings us back to the explosive power of the Gospel. We’re beginning to see how the Shulamite is destined to carry this message of powerful and intoxicating truth. Having drunk the wine of grace herself, she will soon bring this drink to others. For she is now running with a key that unlocks the human soul’s potential. This key is found in the kiss of God, the message of grace, the mystery of our complete reconciliation with heaven.
It is the Word of Jesus Christ, of his death and resurrection.
Death is defeated. Guilt has been drowned in the grave. We are raised to new life through the work of our divine Representative.
With this, the Shulamite carries a message of glad tidings and great joy. Through her own story—what we might call her “testimony”—she has discovered that even when you feel forsaken, the King has never left you. He is Immanuel. God with us.
He is here, all around us, and his heart beats with a tender and precious love.
And that takes us into even more good news. We have a heavenly Father—and he is not angry with us! He longs for us, waiting for us to turn our gaze back to his smile. Indeed, we have an entire family in the home of a good and happy Trinity. We have a Father’s embrace and a Mother’s grip, just as we have everlasting Brotherhood in the person of Jesus.
In other words, the original blessing of Eden holds true. We are blessed beyond imagination. This blessing simply waits for our hearts to open wide to receive it like a Lover’s kiss—a kiss that wakes us from the lying spell that says we are rejected and alone.
When we read the words—“the maidens saw her and called her blessed”—this is what they were seeing. The blessing is beginning to radiate from her life. Now she will seek to unleash that blessing upon every person she meets.
Chapter Twenty Seven: Our Calling and Destiny
Before she moves into these final stages of her journey, the Shulamite sums up everything she’s learned so far:
Now I know that I am for my beloved
and all his desires are fulfilled in me.
Song 7:10 TPT
We’ve dug deep into the fabric of creation and down into the pages of scripture. We’ve plumbed the depths of reality itself and found the most stunning truth.
We are made for God.
And this “God” is not some vague invisible force, nor is he a wrathful religious deity.
He is the Beloved of the Song. He is our Lover and Friend, the One who tore the bark off the exterior of our understanding of him to reveal a tender, beating heart within. He is the crucified Christ who invites us to the table of friendship to drink of his love in the house of wine.
In the beginning of the journey, we looked at the origins of space and time and how our cosmic canopy was mapped out by this eternal relationship known as the Trinity. This Divine Family dreamed of others to include in their love—a love that flowed endlessly like a song of ecstatic praise. With fresh lyrics rising in their heart, they exhaled and sang out the created order, preparing the way for the chorus a had been building within them. This new chorus was the emergence of children.
Children who would bring them unthinkable joy.
We are those who were made for God. We are desired by the entire Trinity. We too can say with the Shulamite, “I am for my Beloved, and all his desires are fulfilled in me!”
To be desired is in fact a core desire of the heart. Both men and women carry this yearning to be cherished and admired, to know that One greater than you is proud of you, that One stronger than you is pursuing you, that the perfect One looks into your eyes and sees a perfect reflection of himself.
Such is the treasure of revelation-knowledge we’ve unearthed as we followed the Shulamite to the table of grace. She received this truth as the greatest blessing of all and now we will find her changing direction with a newfound sense of purpose.
Running with Joy
Come away, my lover.
Come with me to the faraway fields.
We will run away together to the forgotten places
and show them redeeming love.
Song of 7:11 TPT
Secure in her King’s love for her, the Shulamite’s eyes are opened to the needs around her. She desires to go to the lost and forgotten, to reach out to those who are experiencing all the opposites of “blessing.” Those who live under the throes of poverty, injustice, and grief. Those living under the curse of a false identity.
This illuminates another word that’s been dragged through religious mud over the years—ministry. This term originally had to do with good service, like an excellent waiter who is there to honor and serve the people at their table. Indeed, the church is called to invite people to a table of fellowship and serve them as excellent “ministers” of good news.
This is an act of love and is not meant to come from a place of guilt or religious duty. It arises from joy and divine intimacy. It is the reason Jesus himself went to the forgotten places to serve the poor, the broken, and the hungry.
In light of this, the Shulamite is expressing more of her true nature as an image-bearer. She’s reflecting the One who gave birth to humanity out of an already fulfilled relationship. Creation was the overflow of the Trinity’s love and now, as one of their awakened children, she demonstrates this same kind of overflow in her desire to bless others.
And yet, she does this not so she can fill a hole in herself.
She goes, rather, because she found out the hole was a lie! She only wants others to discover this same treasure of revelation.
From the start, the Shulamite felt this call to be a “runner” of good news. We passed over the line, but this is what she said after her initial request for the kiss of life: “Draw me after you and we will run together.” (Song 1:4).
This was a calling that lay deep inside of her, and so it dwells in every single person reading these words. As a symbol of the human soul, the Shulamite has unique gifts and passions placed within her, and these arise from the mission to partner with our Creator in beautifying the world. Yet for the Shulamite (and us), there was a religious wall blocking this calling from coming out in a healthy way. Though she wanted to help others, the Shepherd’s priority was to first bring her to a table where she could discover the foundation to her life’s purpose.
Thus, this request to run with God goes hand in hand with the request for his kiss. This is because the desire to change the world is in fact what comes out of the blessing given to humankind in the Garden of Eden. After they were blessed as God’s beloved children, Adam and Eve were told to be fruitful and multiply. Essentially, they were commissioned to expand the family of the Trinity across the world and cultivate Eden’s peace wherever they went.
All gifts and passions spring from this heavenly charge. Unfortunately, our personal gifts can easily become self-serving when used to fill a personal sense of lack. That isn’t to say we shouldn’t use our gifts until we feel a complete sense of inner peace. It’s often by sharing the truth we others that we ourselves grow in it.
However, we need to move into this calling from that proper foundation. Like the Shulamite, we first take our stand on the rock of Chris’s love, fully assured of what was revealed at the cross. This is what the vast majority of the Shulamite’s journey has been about. She has been tuning her soul to the original music, thereby aligning her gifts and passions to the right key—all that she might play his Song with clarity and courage.
As the Song permeates our own souls, the way we utilize our gifts (including the gifts of time and money) will flow from a new conductor. Instead of the old song leader of anxiety or reasoning, a new force will move upon us, leading us into a life of fulfilled destiny.
And this destiny and calling is summed up in a phrase many have come to call the “Great Commission.”
The First Commission
Herein lies another term tarnished by guilt-driven religion. Jesus’s final words to his followers before his ascension was to “go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:18-20). This mandate ties back to what was foreshadowed in the Garden with Adam and Eve’s commission to multiply.
As we’ve pointed out, the blessing of Genesis 1 was not the commission to multiply. The blessing is what empowered the commission. We are loved and blessed before we do anything for God. This is our foundation as we rise to become runners of grace and truth.
When Jesus gave his commission, the first thing he said to do was immerse people into “the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” This is what the religious term “baptize” means. It was never about getting people to join a religious institution. It was about plunging humanity back into their family origin. It is reconnecting people with the very spark of creation. It is the call to true fellowship and healthy family—to the rediscovery of what was lost in Eden.
Jesus’s commission is not a military conquest, nor is it some religious labor driven by a harsh taskmaster. Rather, it is a grand adventure with our Best Friend where we go and awaken other brothers and sisters to the wonders of love, reconciling them with their true name, and with the true nature of their Divine Family.
Let us arise and run to the vineyards of your people
and see if the budding vines of love are now in full bloom.
We will discover if their passion is awakened.
There I will display my love for you.
Song 7:12 TPT
Chapter Twenty Eight: Rising from the Wilderness
The eighth chapter of Solomon’s Song holds mysteries far beyond the space of this book. In a frail attempt to nudge you out into its infinite waters, I’ll lay out just a few thoughts here. But I pray the sail of your heart is lifted so you can catch the wind that will carry you much farther than my words can.
We’ll pick it up in the fifth verse.
Who is this coming up from the wilderness
Leaning on her Beloved? …
The Shulamite is the awakened human soul and the divine counterpart to the Son of God. Here at the end, we find her in full partnership with the Creator, leaning upon him with a deep and proven assurance even as she steps into this great destiny to expand Eden’s borders across the earth.
She comes up from the same wilderness we saw earlier in the vision of a crowned and crucified King. This whole book has been an ascension out of the wilderness of religion and death. Our main character has been learning to wake up to the fact that she is in union with the One who already rose up out of these things.
During our first visit to the wilderness, you may remember the mystery hidden in the word kalah, which was found in its alternate meanings (“perfect” and “bride”). Interestingly enough, we find a similar thing happening in the wilderness once more—literally, in the word wilderness itself.
The Hebrew word for wilderness is midbār and it is usually translated as a deserted place. However, the word can also be rendered as “mouth.” Some believe these two meanings are linked in one word because the desert was a place where people heard the voice of God (see Hosea 2:14). Whatever the reason, the double meaning of midbār holds a remarkable revelation here at the Song’s grand finale.
Hidden Throughout the Music
Think about it. We were launched into this whole venture after the Shulamite requested the kisses of his “mouth.” We quickly discovered this awakening kiss is the word of Christ. It is the reality of his death, resurrection, and ascension, the means by which God redeemed us back to the original word he spoke over humanity.
You are my beloved child in whom I am well-pleased.
It turns out her entire journey has been one long encounter with this kiss. She’s been consumed by it, becoming one with the eternal truth pouring from God’s lips. Therefore, we can rightfully translate this part of the poem as saying, “Who is this rising from the mouth of God?”
Like Jonah getting kissed by a whale, the Shulamite was kissed and swallowed by grace. Then, like the prophet in the belly of the whale for three days, the Shulamite was given the revelation of being buried in the ground with Christ. In his death, she died. In his resurrection, she lives. Now, no matter what it feels like, and no matter how things appear, she knows she is one with the resurrected Son of God.
Finally, like Jonah was spit out of the fish’s mouth to go on a mission of mercy to a lost and dark nation, the Shulamite is being released from God’s mouth to become his poetry to the world. She goes to the forgotten places to share the brilliant and sparkling message of new life in Jesus. Indeed, she has become that Word.
Or we might say that she’s become God’s kiss.
The Word of Our Testimony
All of this happens after the Shulamite accepted the fact that her false and twisted self was a lie. A lie that was buried in the ground with Jesus. This false self was painted with the imagery of a veiled prostitute, one whose identity is hidden and who engages in an act of paid “love.”
We saw how she sought the broad paths of man within the city of religion and how the kiss of true love was the only way to wake her up from this burdensome spell. This kiss came through her communion with the King, where she learned to adjust her striving, out-of-tune heart to the frequency of grace. As a result, she is now able to sing its message to a world that is still caught up in the lie. As the Song wraps up its final verses, this is what begins to happen…
Put me like a seal over your heart,
Like a seal on your arm.
For love is as strong as death,
Jealousy is as severe as Sheol;
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
The very flame of the Lord
Song 8:6
The Shulamite sings this out as an ambassador for the Creator. In other words, this verse is actually the song of Jesus as he gives an invitation to humanity through the lips of his awakened bride. She carries the victorious revelation of his love and calls people to let Jesus be a “seal” over their hearts.
This is the Great Commission in action. These words connect with the call for people to be immersed into the family of God, where they receive what the New Testament calls the “seal” of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13). The Spirit of God is the kiss of God, and it is only through an encounter with the living Spirit of Christ that a soul can awaken to its identity and go on to fulfill its destiny.
The Shulamite embraced this seal for herself and now she wants others to know its transforming power. With that, she goes on to describe something else she learned along the way.
Many waters cannot quench love,
Nor will rivers overflow it;
If a man were to give all the riches of his house for love,
It would be utterly despised.
Song 8:7
God’s love is unbreakable and enduring. It will never fade and never give up. Furthermore, his love can never be earned or bought. The unfailing love of the Father is simply who he is. It’s the constant truth of his being, revealed most clearly in the suffering death of his Son, Jesus.
Such love can only be received. Baptism, or immersion into water, is simply the way we show we’ve received this love as we embrace our death and resurrection with Jesus. When a person truly accepts this grace, the Spirit floods their inner being and causes the original image of God to break loose like fruit in a garden. The Spirit marks their heart like a signet ring pressing upon wax with a seal of authority, confirming who they really are. From there, they are called to be part of a growing family of other awakened sons and daughters with the commission to go out to gather more.
The Shulamite is part of this growing circle of life and thus she carries the good news to the world, along with the call for true “repentance.” And there’s another word corrupted by the systems of the world. This word was originally about a change of perspective where we turn back to the One who has already accepted us. It was a serious and yet joyful invitation into rest.
That takes us into the next few verses of the Song where we read about a “younger sister.” This portion of the poem speaks of those who are less mature than the Shulamite. They may be an open “door” and thus receptive to the message of Jesus, or they are a closed “wall” and reject the message of grace.
Which leads us to the final words of the Shulamite. In the tenth verse, she gives her testimony in a poetic nutshell. She reminisces on her work in the vineyards of religion and how she found freedom through the love of her King. She says there was a time when she too was a “wall,” unreceptive and closed to the love of God, but…
…Then I became in his eyes as one who finds peace.
If you remember, the Shulamite’s name is the feminine version of the king’s name. Solomon and Shulamite come from the same root word—shalom—which means peace, wholeness, and completion. Shalom is the essence of Eden and it is at the center of the blessing bestowed upon humanity. If you’ve been tracking with us, this is how the King has always seen her and it’s how he’s always spoken of her, even when her faith wavered.
Now, as an awakened soul, she recounts how she became in his eyes as one who finds shalom. By discovering his constant view of her, the Shulamite found the true meaning of her name! In his eyes, she saw her own reflection. She found the “root word” of her existence. The origin of her life is the enduring, unshakable love of God, and this was established before the beginning of time. Her acceptance of this love is how she finally found the shalom her heart was always longing for.
Messengers of the Song
A secret garden lies hidden within all humanity. Along with our true name, this garden is locked behind a deceptive veil that can only be torn down by the sword of Christ’s mouth. When a soul is immersed into the waters of grace, that sword is released. They arise from the mouth of God and are empowered by the Spirit to help others break free as well.
The Shulamite now dwells in this garden, enjoying the bliss of her union with Christ. Her voice has become a vessel to help others experience this garden with her, which is why the King says these words toward the end:
O you who sit in the gardens,
My companions are listening for your voice—
Let me hear it!
Song 8:13
The “companions” are those throughout the world who need to hear the life-giving message of grace. They need to hear the message of truth from our own lives. And so, the King longs to hear the Shulamite articulate the message in her own voice and through her own unique story.
This is what he longs for in each of us as well.
May you, dear reader, be swallowed up by this same kiss of truth. May it ignite a garden of awakened fruits throughout the terrain of your soul. Even when there appears to be a wilderness, may the truth of God’s original blessing over you be greater than any other voice. You are his perfect and beloved child, and you make him feel real good inside. Indeed, you are also chosen to carry this blessing to others. It is the calling woven into your being, and even now he is helping you step into it like never before.