Audio Download

The Song of Solomon – Part 4a

[Study Aired August 28, 2026]

Introduction 

The Dynamics of Adam’s and Eve’s Curses: His Injury and Her Wound That Shape All History

The Reversal Pattern and the Shulamite’s Living Transformation 

Adam’s curse was not merely a curse of labor and toil. It was a curse of priestly disqualification. His injury—signified in his “privy and stones”—means that carnally, as the Old Man, he cannot enter the congregation of the Lord. He cannot stand as a priest and head of his wife before God. This is why Christ came as the New Adam: not to patch the Old Man’s failure, but to replace him entirely as Husband and Head of the Church.

From this single truth flows the entire architecture of Scripture. Throughout the Bible, only two spiritual identities exist, both symbolized by women. The first woman is the harlot—Babylon, the Old Adam, fallen and carnal humanity organized into false religion. The second woman is the Bride—the New Adam, those whom Christ has drawn out of Babylon and transformed into faithful union with Him.

You are, at this moment, either living as the first woman or being transformed into the second. There is no third category. Every soul who has ever lived, or ever will live, occupies one of these two identities, with the overwhelming majority comprising the first woman for 7,000 years—and for the Elect, both identities are experienced sequentially, not as separate peoples but as two successive stages of the same journey in becoming the New Adam as first did Christ. “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.” (Mat 20:16)

1Co 15:42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: 
1Co 15:43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: 
1Co 15:44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 
1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. 
1Co 15:46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. 
1Co 15:47 The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
1Co 15:48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 
1Co 15:49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 

Adam’s Priestly Injury: The Text That Explains Everything

Deuteronomy 23:1 (KJV) “He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord.”

This law, given under the Old Covenant, carries a spiritual weight far beyond its literal application. Read spiritually, it directly comments on Adam’s condition after first being “against” his Creator’s headship, which engenders Eve being “against” Adam’s headship: he is thus wounded in his privy and stoned. In the Old Covenant, such a male cannot enter the congregation of the Lord. In the New Covenant, he may be unknowingly slothful or stubbornly present and secretly integrated into the Body of Christ, as and to varying degrees we all once were, akin to a tare.

Mat 13:30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

This is not merely metaphorical language for embarrassment or shame. It is a disqualification from the priesthood. In the Old Covenant, a priest’s physical wholeness was required for him to serve before God (Leviticus 21:17-21). A man wounded in his privy member was excluded—not punished arbitrarily, but recognized as unable to fulfill the priestly office.

Adam, having principally abdicated his headship over Eve, having failed to protect her from the Serpent, having listened to her voice rather than God’s command—Adam was spiritually wounded in exactly this way. He could no longer function effectively as her head and priestly covering. He could no longer stand as the unblemished head of his household before God. His failure was not merely moral; it was functional. He was disqualified from the office he was created to hold. 

The Signified Brutal Truth

Here is what the individual jewel must understand with unflinching clarity: The carnal Old Man—Adam and all his descendants who remain in his image—cannot enter the Body of Christ as he is. He cannot. He is spiritually profoundly wounded. He is disqualified. No amount of self-improvement, no religious performance, no accumulated good works can restore what was severed in Eden.

This is why the gospel is not a repair of the Old Adam. It is a replacement. Christ does not come to heal Adam’s wound and restore him to his former office. Christ comes as an entirely New Adam—the first of the firstfruits, the perfected Husband, the Head who cannot fail, who takes the place Adam forfeited.

1 Corinthians 15:45 (KJV) “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.”

Note the language: not “the first Adam repaired” but “the last Adam”—an entirely new and final representative. Christ does not stand in Adam’s lineage of failure. He stands as the replacement, the one whose priesthood cannot be disqualified because He was never wounded by disobedience to the Father.

Here is the mystery that unfolds through the whole of Scripture: the Church—the Body made up of men and women alike—becomes, in Christ, the New Adam. Those who are joined to Christ are no longer identified with the wounded, disqualified Old Man. They are incorporated into becoming the perfected Priesthood of the New Adam Himself.

1 Peter 2:9 (KJV) “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”

The Bride is not merely married to a Priest. Through union with Christ, she becomes a priest herself—something Adam’s wound made forever impossible for the Old Man to achieve on his own.

The Two Women: Scripture’s Only Spiritual Taxonomy

Now we arrive at the doctrine which governs everything that follows in the Song of Solomon and beyond: Scripture consistently presents only two identities through the symbolism of two women.

These women are not simply literary devices. They represent, simultaneously:

• Individual females in their spiritual condition
• Two churches
• Two covenants
• Two conditions of mankind

Together, they portray the entire journey of redemptive history: from the Old Adam to the New Adam, culminating in the Bride of Christ.

Why a Woman? Why Is the Sub-Protagonist Under Christ Female?

This raises an important question: if the two fundamental identities are ultimately about two men—the Old Adam and the New Adam—why does Scripture tell this story primarily through women?

The answer illuminates the entire structure of biblical typology: the woman becomes the protagonist because she outwardly reveals mankind’s spiritual condition.

Since being cast out of Eden, a man’s now semi-emasculated headship, particularly in these latter days, is often hidden—yet still expressed through leadership, decisions, and authority that operate in somewhat invisible ways, overshadowed by women. However, a wife’s response to that headship is highly visible, dramatic, and relational. Her fidelity or unfaithfulness, her trust or her rebellion, her submission or her control—these become the observable evidence of the underlying spiritual reality. 

This is why she moves through two identities across the narrative arc of Scripture:

• First, as Eve and the Great Whore—the visible manifestation of humanity’s rebellion against headship
• Finally, an extracted minuscule remnant becomes the perfected Bride—the visible manifestation of complete union with Christ.

This dramatic transformation—harlot to Bride—is not one thread among many in Scripture. It is the central narrative of the entire Bible.

The Recurring Pattern Across Scripture

This two-woman pattern does not appear once. It appears again and again, under many names, each iteration deepening the pattern:

Sarah and Hagar (Genesis 16, 21; Galatians 4:21-31) — Sarah, the free woman, representing the promise and the New Covenant; Hagar, the bondwoman, representing the flesh and the Old Covenant. Paul explicitly interprets this allegorically: “which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants” (Galatians 4:24).

Aholah and Aholibah (Ezekiel 23) — Two sisters representing Samaria and Jerusalem, both committing spiritual whoredom with foreign nations, illustrating the corruption of both the northern and southern kingdoms—types of the pervasive nature of the harlot condition even within professed covenant people.

Jerusalem That Now Is and Jerusalem Above (Galatians 4:25-26) — “For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.” The earthly, carnal system in bondage versus the heavenly, spiritual reality that is free.

The Great Harlot and the Bride (Revelation 17-19) — The clearest and most climactic expression: Babylon the Great, “MOTHER OF HARLOTS,” is judged and destroyed, and in her place, the marriage of the Lamb is announced, His wife having “made herself ready” (Revelation 19:7).

Old Covenant Israel and the New Covenant Church — The overarching historical frame within which all the above types operate: the physical nation under law, prone to backsliding and whoredom, giving way to the spiritual Israel—the Church as Bride, operating under unifying grace and the indwelling spirit.

Though the names change across these six pairs, the spiritual message remains identical in every case. 

The First Identity: The Old Adam, the Harlot

The first woman belongs, at some point, to every human being. This is not a condition reserved for especially wicked people. It is the universal starting condition of mankind.

The Old Adam is characterised by:

• Flesh ruling spirit
• Self-will
• Religious deception
• Independence from Christ
• Spiritual fornication
• Babylonian confusion

This is why Scripture repeatedly portrays God’s first wife—Israel under the Old Covenant—as becoming a harlot. The pattern is established early and reinforced relentlessly throughout the prophets:

Ezekiel 16:15 (KJV) “But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.”

Hosea 2:5 (KJV) “For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink.”

Old Covenant Israel serves as the great historical type, but—and this must be understood without softening—the principle extends to all Babylonian Christianity and, more piercingly, to every individual’s natural spiritual condition before Christ.

The harlot is not simply “other churches.” She is not a convenient label for denominations you disagree with. She is your very own former spiritual identity. Before the Father dragged you (John 6:44), before Christ chose you (John 15:16), you existed—by nature, by birth, by inherited condition—as part of this first woman. You were, in your natural state, harlot-minded: self-willed, spiritually confused, independent of true headship, worshiping according to your own preferences rather than submitting to Christ’s word.

This is the Shift from Information to Implication applied at the deepest level: you are not reading about Babylon. You were born into her. Her confusion was your confusion. Her rebellion was your rebellion. Recognition of this is not optional for genuine transformation—it is the necessary starting point. 

The Second Identity: The New Adam, the Bride

The second woman stands in complete contrast. She represents those whom Christ has dragged out of Babylon and purified through judgment—not those who improved themselves out of the harlot condition through effort, but those God sovereignly extracted and transformed.

Her defining characteristics are:

• Submission to Christ
• Spiritual understanding
• Obedience
• Purity
• Love of truth
• Complete dependence upon her Husband

Here, the doctrine of sovereignty, already established throughout this system, finds its clearest application: the Bride does not become perfect by her own strength.

Ephesians 5:26-27 (KJV) “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

Notice the grammar with care: He sanctifies. He cleanses. He presents. The Bride’s beauty is not self-generated. She becomes beautiful because Christ washes her with His Word until she reflects His own life—not because she achieved purity through her own religious effort or moral striving.

This connects directly to her very origin. As Eve came from Adam’s side—formed from his rib while he slept (Genesis 2:21-22)—so the Bride comes from Christ Himself, formed through His death (while He, too, “slept” in death) into one who is “bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh” (Genesis 2:23; Ephesians 5:30).

This is not incidental imagery. It is the theological foundation for everything that follows: the Bride’s very existence, not merely her transformation, originates in Christ’s sacrifice. She did not choose Him. He chose her, formed her, and is presently sanctifying her toward the day when she will be presented spotless.

John 15:16 (KJV) “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain…”

The Reversal Begins: 1 Timothy 1:15 and the Refusal of Academic Pride

Before moving further into this doctrine, one critical warning must be issued—a warning against a subtle but devastating corruption that Babylon has perfected: elevating scriptural knowledge into a means of self-exaltation.

1 Timothy 1:15 (KJV) “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.”

Paul—the apostle with arguably one of the deepest theological understandings of any human writer in the New Testament, the man entrusted with articulating the mystery of the Church—does not conclude his study of doctrine by exalting himself as master. He concludes by naming himself: “chief of sinners.”

This must define the posture of the Bride entirely. Babylonian Orthodoxy has perfected a counterfeit spirituality in which theological education, hermeneutical sophistication, and academic accomplishment become a means of ruling over the laity—a priesthood of the “learned” who lord their understanding over those they deem inferior.

The Bride, in becoming precisely the same as her Husband Christ in unity of doctrine, is immensely aware that she didn’t attain her spiritual understanding by her intellect derived from the Serpent; she lusted in Eden to be as wise as God himself, and indeed, only in this age since the cross, she is becoming all spiritually as wise as her Husband, just as Joseph was under Pharaoh signified, as second in command of authority. She knows from whence she came, like the apostle Paul, immensely aware of her own status as having been chief of sinners. This is not false humility performed for appearance. It is the accurate self-assessment of “working out her own salvation with fear and trembling” that flows from the peace of genuine spiritual growth: the closer you come to Christ’s light, the more clearly you see your own remaining darkness. 

Php 2:12–13 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 
Php 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

An individual jewel in the Body of the Bride who begins to feel superior to others because of her doctrinal understanding has, in that very moment, reverted to the Old Adam’s pattern of self-exaltation.

Her now being for her husband epitomises this entire doctrine—Adam’s priestly disqualification, the two women, the Old Adam versus the New Adam—converges on a single, breathtaking reversal that the Song of Solomon opens with immediately:

Song of Solomon 1:2 (KJV) “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.”

This is the Bride’s first utterance in the entire Song. This represents nothing less than a complete reversal of Eve’s governing mindset regarding intimacy, which is at odds with her husband’s demonstrative need for an intimate “helpmeet” in unity with “knowing”—doctrinally understanding His mind. That is the epitome of a unified, espoused mind, demonstrating that her curse has been reversed.

Recall Eve’s condition after the curse: distrust of headship, weaponised sexuality, fear of abandonment, the compulsion to control rather than trust. Now hear the Shulamite’s opening words: not manipulation, not withholding, not strategic positioning—but immediate, unguarded, wholehearted desire for her Husband’s affection.

This single verse encapsulates the entire journey this study has traced across four parts: from Adam’s abdication and Eve’s wound, through the curse of the cross and daily crucifixion, to this—a woman whose desire has been so completely healed that her very first words are an unashamed request for intimacy with her Husband.

This reversal does not remain merely emotional or romantic. It translates, as we will see throughout the full study of the Song, into utter devotion and reliance on living a dynamic marriage in His vineyard, ordered by His spiritual doctrines that translate intimately into marriage itself. The Shulamite’s opening cry is not an isolated sentiment; it is the seed from which her entire pattern of trust, submission, and fierce devotion will grow across the Song of Solomon’s eight chapters.

Segue to Parts 4b and 4c

We have established the foundational architecture: Adam’s priestly disqualification necessitating the New Adam; the Two Women as Scripture’s only spiritual taxonomy; the warning against academic self-exaltation; and the Song’s dynamic opening expression signifying the reversal of Eve’s curse.

In Parts 4b and 4c, we will trace the remaining critical doctrines: how Babylon and the Bride represent sequential stages of the same people rather than separate populations; the full eschatological architecture culminating in the Two Resurrections; and the final restoration of all humanity into the Father’s image through the Bride’s completed intercession.

This is the doctrinal foundation upon which the full verse-by-verse exposition of the Song of Solomon will stand.