The following is an excerpt from Nick Padovani’s forthcoming book “The Song of the Ages III: Eden’s Return.” It will be the final volume of three-part journey through the Song of Solomon, the ancient Old Testament text that holds great revelation of the identity and destiny of God’s children.
For a long time, man has hunted desperately after the knowledge of his origin, scouring fossils and stars, caves and galaxies, in order to discover something of his starting place. Like a person interviewing old family members and searching through faded documents in hopes of learning about the blood in their veins, our entire race has gone through earth, sea and sky with the same purpose. How surprising is it then, and how beautiful and strange, to discover that the origin of our species was actually a divine kiss?
We were formed in the dust, yet we were never meant to remain a blend of chemical-infused earth. We were made by Love to bear the image of Love. This is why God leaned into man’s earthly form and kissed him into being. The Maker drew near to Adam and breathed into his nostrils the spark of divine life, which became our true genesis. Even when we fell back into the dust, forsaking the One who had made us, creating fossils of war instead of legacies of love, we would yet be brought back to our true identity by another divine kiss from heaven.
In the coming of Christ, a fresh kiss of the Spirit was poured out upon all flesh. Heaven touched earth like falling rain pressings its lips against chapped soil. This rain proved that the seed of the Word, the image of Christ, was still present within God’s lost children. Though dormant and cold, this hidden seed had only been waiting for the rains of the Spirit to awaken its inner fire—a fire of love that was meant to blossom with colorful heat and infinite passion.
The Shulammite
In the beginning of the Song of Songs, we discovered a young woman longing for this great kiss of the Spirit to awaken the flames within her. She was quite literally burnt out and thus intently seeking a fresh ignition. Through an ensuing journey of love and revelation, this woman became the Shulammite Bride who rose confidently and humbly into her place as a restored child of God. We found that this woman represents each and every person who is in pursuit of their origin in God; who is reaching out for the “more” behind their existence.
We also found that thousands of years before fairytales like Sleeping Beauty were penned, a wise king from Israel had already captured their intrinsic storyline in the Song of all songs. Humankind is the true beauty who was put to sleep by the spell of religion and fear, now captive to a dreary forgetfulness and guarded by a dragon known as the Accuser (Rev. 12:9-10). This is the message behind the Song of the Ages; one that goes on to declare how our great Prince came to dispel our fears and awaken us to true love. In His coming, Christ kissed all humanity and raised us up before the Father through His all-inclusive resurrection (Rom. 5:18). Unfortunately, there are many who choose to stay upon a bed of slumber. They reject the kiss of heaven and resist the Song of grace that would set their hearts free.
The Shulammite woman is obviously not in this category. She allowed her heart to open to God’s love and found that it tasted better than the sweetest of wine. We found that this wine of God’s love is intricately tied to the work of Jesus in His death and resurrection. In the Scriptures, wine represents the very blood of Christ. The night before His crucifixion, Jesus lifted up a cup of wine and said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). The wine of Jesus’s grace, poured out on the cross, is the kiss that comes to our hearts and awakens us to our true and original existence. It leads us out of the destructive illusions of sin and into the breathtaking promise of abundant life.
The Bride is the one who has learned to drink down this wine of grace, to receive its kiss, and to allow the divine life to blossom within her. This has led to her rising and releasing her own kiss back to the Lord. It goes without saying that this sleeping beauty could not kiss back until the Prince had first kissed her. Hence, “we love because He first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19). In receiving the overflow of His grace, the Bride released the wine of her own love back to the Lord. Halfway through the Song, we then saw the King enjoying her returning kiss and He too compared it to wine (Sgs. 4:10).
All of this has been a picture of mankind coming into maturity. Each one of us were made to grow up into love, to develop and flourish in the full expression of the image of God, which is Love itself. The Bride’s journey has magnificently revealed these things, especially when her life uncovered the jaw-dropping truth that we captivate the heart of the Creator. We’re the beauty that has held hostage the heart of the King, propelling Him to go through hell and high water to rescue each one of us. It turns out that our beauty stems from the fact that the same wine of glory within God has been placed within us as well. We reflect God like a daughter can uniquely reflect her father; like the prodigal son still bore the DNA of his searching Dad. This truth is the hidden seed and the pearl of great price for which Jesus sold everything to redeem…
The Great Climax
We now come to the closing scenes of this great Story and Song. A symphony has been rising with a crescendo that began quiet and unsure, yet grew into the most beautiful chorus of awakened love. We have crossed a threshold in the Music that God is conducting through the ready pen of Solomon. The Song of the Lamb has built up toward a resolute ending and now, as musicians will sometimes say, we have “arrived.” The rest of the Song is simply about enjoying this moment of arrival where all the pieces of the Song, its instruments and lyrics, its rhythm and story, come together in harmonious force. This is where the kiss of God and the kiss of the mature Bride collide together into an overflowing energy of love. This overflow will now touch those who are still “asleep”—people of the world who are unaware or still resistant to the Music that calls them home (see Sgs. 7:9). Now the kiss will come to their hearts as well…