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The Song of Solomon – Part 4b

[Study Aired August 29, 2026]

Introduction 

Sequential Peoples and the Healing of Her Heart

Central Thesis

Babylon and the Bride are not two separate populations engaged in eternal opposition. They are sequential stages of the last governing and saving the first—if you are an Elect, it is your own journey, my own journey, the journey of every reformed Elect soul destined for the First Resurrection. First, the natural; afterwards, the spiritual. First Babylon; then New Jerusalem. This single principle prevents the two errors that plague false doctrine: thinking the harlot was only “other people” (spiritual pride), and thinking transformation is impossible (intended spiritual ignorance and “rich man”-like temporary despair). 

This sequential journey is not merely a doctrinal architecture standing apart from you. It explains something far more intimate: why the Shulamite is so radically and unashamedly enthusiastic about being intimate with her Husband. Her enthusiasm is not accidental to the doctrine—it is the doctrine, made flesh in a single woman’s transformed heart. To understand why she can say, in her very first words, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine” (Song 1:2), you must first understand what she has been sequentially delivered from.

Babylon and the Bride: Sequential, Not Separate

Here is a critical corrective that must reshape how you read every subsequent chapter of the Song of Solomon: these are ultimately two conditions of the same people, appearing in two successive stages, not two eternally separate populations.

The pattern is universal and unchanging throughout Scripture: First, the natural; afterward, the spiritual.

Every budding member of the Elect lives first as part of, and in, Babylon before being sovereignly chosen to leave her.

Revelation 18:4 (KJV) “And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.”

Notice: this call is addressed to “my people”—God’s own, still residing within Babylon at the moment of the call. You do not become a bride by never having been a harlot. You become a bride by being called out of the harlot condition you were already in.

Only after experiencing the harlot condition does one become the Bride. This follows the universal biblical principle that governs every major transition in redemptive history:

• First Adam, then the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45-47)

• First flesh, then spirit (1 Corinthians 15:46)

• First, the wife under law (unfaithful, striving), Old Jerusalem, then the faithful wife (transformed, resting)
• First Babylon, then New Jerusalem (Revelation 17-21)

Why This Matters for Your Self-Understanding

This sequential doctrine protects you from two catastrophic errors:

Error 1: Spiritual Pride. If you imagine that Babylon is other people—those foolish, deceived masses in the 40,000 harlot churches, while you have always possessed (illusory) clearer sight—you have misunderstood your own condition entirely. You did not arrive at understanding through your own superior discernment. You were, at some point, as confused, as self-willed, as spiritually fornicating as any soul in Babylon. The only difference is that God chose to drag you out. This truth must produce in you the posture of 1 Timothy 1:15: chief of sinners, learning to be master of doctrine as is Christ.

1 John 4:17 (KJV) “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.”

Note carefully: this boldness—this confidence to stand without shame—is never rooted in your own accomplishment. It flows entirely from being conformed to His likeness. You do not become a master of doctrine by climbing above your fellow sinners; you become mastered by Christ’s own perfected love working itself out in you.

Error 2: Spiritual Despair. Conversely, if you look at your own remaining sin, your continuing struggles, the ways you still resemble the harlot more than the Bride, you might conclude that transformation is impossible for someone like you. 

The sequential doctrine insists otherwise: the very fact that you were once, in some sense, part of Babylon is not disqualifying—it is the necessary starting point. No one skips from birth directly into perfected Bride status. The harlot condition is not evidence that you are excluded from chastising grace; it is evidence that you are exactly where every member of the Elect has stood before transformation began.

Jer 29:4 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all that are carried away captives, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem unto Babylon;
Jer 29:5 Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; 
Jer 29:6 Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished. 
Jer 29:7 And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace. 

This is why the study of curses in Parts 1-4 was not incidental to this doctrine but foundational to it. You cannot understand your movement toward the Bride without first understanding the curse you are moving out of. The natural must be established before the spiritual can be grasped (1 Corinthians 15:46)—this is not merely a hermeneutical method. It is the actual shape of your own spiritual biography.

Why Is the Shulamite So Enthusiastic? The Question That Unlocks Everything.

Having established the sequential architecture, a striking question now demands our attention: Why is Solomon’s Shulamite Bride so eager to be intimate with her Husband?

This question matters because it exposes the Shulamite as the precise spiritual reversal of what Israel—and ultimately mankind in Adam—had been as Christ’s first wife. Her enthusiasm is not primarily enthusiasm for sensuality itself. It is enthusiasm for Christ, His Word, His authority, and the unity of mind and spirit that those carnal, sensual representations signify and spiritually produce.

Most significantly, this transformation transpired spiritually between the crucifixion and the First Resurrection: Solomon, in the Song of Songs, unwittingly foretold the Bride’s glorious intimate responses, precisely as Christ designed for His future Bride—no longer “against” her Husband’s intimacies, but implicitly, joyfully “for” them.

Old Israel: The Wife Who Does Not Delight in Her Husband’s Intimacies

Israel was God’s wife under the Old Covenant, but she repeatedly rejected His words, His priests, and His expressions of love. This is her “haughty dismissiveness” toward her Husband—the Lord’s own experience of being rejected again and again in the wilderness.

The underlying spiritual problem, resulting directly from Adam’s injured headship, is represented in Eve and all women through the imagery of wounded breasts. The breasts signify the woman’s heart—the seat of her emotional responsiveness and, symbolically, her authority over intimacy.

Genesis 3:16 (KJV) “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”

Because of the wound inherited from Eden’s exposure to her natural condition, the natural woman does not instinctively trust her husband’s headship. Consequently, she attempts to secure herself by controlling the relationship through the immense power of her sensuality; she is headless and adrift without the covering that was designed but never rightly established between the first man and woman.

Although her “sorrow in conception” physically refers to the pain of childbirth, the overarching pain is derived from her attempt to control—amplifying her dominance over bedroom intimacies and resultant disconnection from her carnal husband, mirroring Israel and the harlot churches’ opposition to their Lord and Husband’s headship. Hence, her husband endlessly sweats over working the ground that his wife represents, laden with the psychological intimacies of thorns and thistles, in a vain attempt to restore a semblance of unity of mind, body, and spirit in the marriage.

This makes a very strong parallel: Israel’s relationship with the Old-Covenant Lord → the carnal marriage relationship → Babylon’s relationship with Christ—all represent the same underlying problem. Israel was not simply an unfaithful wife in the ordinary sense. She represented the natural heart that wants God’s benefits while resisting God’s authority and Word.

Manipulative Intimacy: Intimacy Used to Obtain Something

This is an essential distinction in understanding the carnal female mind: the problem is not that intimacy exists. The problem is why the wife is intimate.

The natural woman has learned to use sensuality and emotional responsiveness as leverage within marriage. She may desire her husband’s attention, validation, security, provision, or affection—while her own desire for him becomes conditional on receiving them. The result is a disconnection problem: intimacy becomes routine, negotiated, or mechanically performed rather than arising from wholehearted desire.

This is why the natural wife is preoccupied with how much her husband makes her feel about herself—seen, valued, understood, feminine, secure. In contrast, the Shulamite is fundamentally concerned with how much she esteems her Husband. That is the enormous transition.

The natural wife asks, in effect:

“What will you do for me so that I will want you?”

The Shulamite says, spiritually:

“I already know who you are, and I want you.”

That is why her enthusiasm is so radical.

The Bride Has Discovered That Christ Does Not Need to Be Manipulated

This may be the most profound difference of all. The Bride becomes drawn to the Man she cannot control—One who delights in and desires her, but does not need her to fill His emotional deficiencies and does not submit Himself to her schemes. That changes everything.

The carnal relationship is based upon mutual neediness. The wife seeks security through her husband; the husband seeks affirmation and intimacy from his wife. Both are attempting to extract something from the other.

Christ is different. The Bride gradually realises that Christ is already completely secure in His love for her. Therefore, she doesn’t have to manipulate Him, test Him, withhold herself from Him, or continually demand proof that she is loved.

His love becomes the foundation for her response

That produces her “Sabbath rest” in Him, in His vineyard—the healing of the cursed, wounded heart that enables her to become enthusiastically responsive to Him for the very first time in her spiritual history!

Her Enthusiasm Comes from Being “Kissed” by the Word

This is where Song of Solomon 1:2 becomes central:

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

“Kisses” are spiritually interpreted as the delivering of the Word of God, ravishingly awakening the Bride. In other words, her desire is not generated by her flesh trying harder to become religious. Christ first awakens her understanding.

Compared to a man, most critically for a woman, this principle is simple: amorous arousal comes before desire—not merely interest in a prospective mate, but desire itself. That is enormously important. The Bride doesn’t manufacture spiritual desire and then come to Christ. Christ’s Word enters her, changes her understanding, and that new understanding creates desire. 

Centuries after the prophets of Baal danced, leaped, and bled on Mount Carmel to whip up a divine response, modern charismatic churches have resurrected the formula. Only now is the frantic desperation rebranded as euphoric love—a highly engineered, manufactured desire masquerading as an authentic spiritual breakthrough (1 Kings 18:28).

So the sequence is essentially:

Christ speaks → she hears → understanding awakens → trust develops → her heart is healed → desire for Him arises → she eagerly responds. 

That is why the Bride can say: “Thy love is better than wine.” Wine represents the joy of fleshly gratification—the pleasure the natural woman formerly sought through manipulation and sensual control. 

The Bride has discovered something vastly superior to the gratification she formerly sought through the flesh: the joy of spiritual understanding itself.

The Doctrine of Sovereignty Applied to Desire Itself

Notice how completely this principle aligns with everything already established in this system regarding the impossibility of self-generated transformation. The Bride does not conjure desire from within herself through willpower or religious effort. Desire is the fruit of revelation, not the cause of it.

This is Philippians 2:13 applied precisely to the register of intimate longing: “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Even her want—her ache, her eagerness, her trembling anticipation—is something worked in her, not manufactured by her.

The natural woman tries to work herself up to feel something for her husband. She performs a fickle desire she struggles to genuinely possess, hoping the performance will eventually produce the reality. This is precisely backward, and it is precisely why it often fails, generation after generation, marriage after marriage.

The Shulamite’s pattern reverses this entirely. She does not perform desire in hopes of manufacturing intimacy. She is first spoken to and “for” (Son 8:8), first known in her entire spiritual nakedness, not insisting that he understands her by her former Babylonian traditional intimacy dogma, but stunned by his choosing her, she is given to understand Him—her Husband’s Word—and only then does authentic spiritual desire arise, unforced and unmanufactured, twice repeated in the Song. “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me.” Son 7:10. 

This is why the Song does not open with the Shulamite preparing herself. It opens with a dynamic statement—an admission of insufficiency and longing that only another’s initiative can satisfy: “Let him kiss me.” Not dreary, merciful affection, “I will kiss him,” not “I have prepared myself to be kissed,” waiting for ravishment—but a plea for Him to act first. 

The Weight of This Doctrine Against Her Former Condition

Remember the scars of Eden. The curse that shattered Eve did not just break her—it built a fortress. Trapped in a world of self-delusion, imagining subservience, stripped of her glory, the woman learned she could never risk vulnerability without first extracting a ransom of security from her husband. Her sensuality became a tactical weapon; her body, a currency of survival. This was not malice, but the tragic alchemy of a broken-heart adaptation—a desperate instinct that refused to trust authority with its safety. It was the same veiled, duplicitous rebellion that would later echo through the halls of Susa: Queen Vashti, refusing her husband’s safe harbor, in modern suffragette terms of self-aggrandizement of being a strong, powerful and independent woman in charge of her destiny, defying the crown, refusing to be paraded like property, catastrophically rebounding on her to be banished from the Palace ignominiously. Out of left field, she is rewarded double her self-eminence in eviction as mirrored by the Great Whore of Revelation 18:7: “How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.”

Against that backdrop, the Shulamite’s opening plea becomes almost unbearably poignant. She asks to be kissed before any negotiation, before any guarantee, before any proof is extracted. She has laid down the entire defensive architecture Eve’s curse constructed. In Shunem, young girls are raised like delicate offerings, their entire childhood a rehearsal for the day they are “spoken for.” Yet she approaches not as a captive to destiny, but as its master. Like the legendary Abishag and Esther, she steps into the light devoid of fear. She does not come to negotiate security; she arrives cloaked in it. Persuaded to the depths of her soul by her Husband’s inevitable devotion, she operates from victory, not for it. Her weapon now is a breathtakingly poised, coquettish grace—a silent, beautiful choreography that asks for nothing, yet inherits everything.

This is not naivety. It is the fruit of having been dragged (John 6:44) into a relationship where the Husband’s trustworthiness has already been established beyond doubt—not by her own investigation or negotiation, but by His prior, unilateral demonstration of covenant love. She trusts because He has already proven Himself utterly unlike Adam, utterly unlike every earthly husband who has ever disappointed a wife’s hope. Her enthusiasm, in other words, is not blind. It is the clearest-eyed response possible to a Husband who cannot fail.

Segue to Part 4c

We have now established two intertwined truths that together form the foundation for everything that follows: first, that Babylon and the Bride are sequential, not separate—every jewel has lived, at some point, within the harlot condition before being drawn out of it; second, that the Shulamite’s radical enthusiasm is the direct fruit of this sequential deliverance—a heart once wounded by Adam’s failed headship, once compelled to control and manipulate intimacy as a means of self-protection, now healed and awakened by the kiss of Christ’s Word.

In Part 4c, we will trace the completion of this transformation: how the very symbols that once represented her resistance—her breasts, her sensuality, her power—become instruments of wholehearted giving; how she escapes the Great Whore pattern entirely; and how this personal, intimate transformation opens onto the full eschatological architecture that spans from the cross, to the First Resurrection and final restoration of all things in her signified children, the entire world of humanity since Eden in the Resurrection to Judgment, saved by her and Husband, under the Father.

The Shulamite’s opening cry—“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth”—is where this transformation begins. It is where your transformation begins, too.

Part 4c: Next Study: “New Beginnings and the End of All Things”