SOS 1:4 SPIRITUAL UNION, SPIRITUAL WALK

Chapter 1:4a

            “Draw me after you, and let us run together!”

Jesus told the crowd in John 10, “No man can come to me unless the Father draws him. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” Other scriptures also point to the fact that we need him to draw us before we can run: “You did not choose me (Jesus) but I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go and produce fruit,”... “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and gave his son to be the payment for our sins,”… “It is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." We cannot work up the grace to do his will ourselves, but we are able only to receive it and then cooperate with it. As Mike Bickle puts it, “It takes God to love God.” Even faith is only a gift by grace. As he draws us though, we do not remain passive; we become co-laborers with Christ, partners in the family business on all levels. The first step, as the bride is modeling here, instead of just giving up because she doesn’t have it already, is to trust him and seek him to draw us.

Another revelation here is that he sought us first, before we sought him. It is not that we don’t seek him, but that he sought us first. Even when Adam sinned and hid from the Father, the Father came searching for him to restore the relationship. He knew us before time began, he predestined us to be conformed into his image before we were ever born. When we know that he wants to move in our lives more than we could ever want him to, and that he purposed to share his glory with us before we even thought of asking for it, we are in a more faith filled place to receive his manifested kingdom of heaven here and now. We receive it/it is established from that place of trust and rest. He has said, “Fear not little flock, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

Chapter 1:4b

            “The king has brought me into his chambers!”

We have been made one with him. You can’t get any closer than oneness. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:17, “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him,” speaking of the truth that we are in a spiritual marriage with the Lord, and the two have become one. Paul was even writing that to a people involved in gross immorality at the time if you check the context. This oneness is real when we feel like it, and it remains real when we don’t feel like it. Believing it and rejoicing in it centers us on him rather than on substitutes, and draws manifestations of that oneness with him, that inward reality, into our outward lives.

In John 17:20-22, Jesus prays to the Father, concerning his disciples, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one;”

“He has brought us into his chambers.” We are one with him as he is one with the Father, married into the family of the Trinity. We are being made one with him in the areas where we aren’t experiencing it yet through his glory which he’s given to us for that purpose as we draw on it by faith. This changes everything. Religion seeks a god who we need to climb up to somehow or pull down somehow, because he is outside of us and we aren’t worthy. Our lives and practices take on an outwardly centered, outside-in type of approach, rather than an approach which is inside-out. The perspective scripture gives is one where God is already in us, we are already one with him because of what he did, and we only need to release him into our outward lives by believing. Jesus living through you is different than trying to get yourself to measure up to Jesus. Praying from heaven is different than praying to heaven, worshipping from his presence is different than worshipping for his presence. The prophets of baal cried out and cut themselves for hours, trying to get their god to come down with ritualistic gymnastics, so typical of man’s religion, but the believer in Christ, living from the perspective that God is already in us and is just jumping up and down with passionate love and vehement desire to be released by even a tiny bit of faith into our lives and surroundings, that believer is revealing a whole other way of approaching everything.

Chapter 1:4c

“We will rejoice in you and be glad, we will extol your love more than wine!”

Wine, again, is not a bad thing necessarily in scripture, but speaks of God’s blessings which delight the heart. To extol his love more than wine is to celebrate and focus on his relationship with us more than on the good things he has given us. The truth is that he wants us to enjoy good things, but also that the basis of all sin is to exalt some good thing above him in our lives, and so turn that blessing into a corrupt use. All created things are meant for good, but we are the ones who corrupt things in our lives when we don’t allow relationship with him to be the center, and so our perspectives and priorities get off. Evil is the result.

The reality that he has brought us into marriage with him, into union, into oneness, into his chambers, is something that deeply fulfills the human heart. When we really see this, when we choose to meditate on and rejoice in this above all other things, we have a well of fulfillment and joy to a degree that we never need to thirst again for unmet emotional needs. As our hearts are fulfilled by him through awareness of this love and literal marriage reality, our lives become more and more centered on him, which is the scriptural definition of “spiritual,” instead of “carnal.” A carnal person is centered on the outward things of their body and of the world and thinks and lives according to those priorities, while a spiritual person is centered on the things of the Spirit of God and thinks and lives according to those priorities first. It isn’t that we can’t enjoy our bodies or enjoy the world, but it is an issue of what we look to foremost for the fulfillment of our hearts. We can enjoy good things in relationship with him but without making an idol of those things, although there is a discipline involved, and we progress over time in it.

We are told in Romans 8 that he who walks in the flesh sets his mind on the things of the flesh, (the things of his body and outward life in the world) and he who walks in the Spirit sets his mind on the things of the Spirit, (the revelation truth of the Spirit) and we are told that to be carnally minded is to be an enemy of God, because the one who is carnally minded is not even ABLE to obey God. We are told there also that to be carnally minded is death, but that to be spiritually minded is life and peace. The difference is in what we put first and what we focus on, what perspective we look at things through, and what the source is which we draw from to meet the needs of our hearts. In practice, setting our minds on the things of the Spirit can be as simple as turning our awareness back to him when we’ve gotten distracted and gotten focused on lesser priorities more than on him. It is to put first things first again, to remember our union and it’s meaning above all else again. We need to have grace for ourselves and not get into condemnation and discouragement when we see how often we walk in the flesh rather than in the Spirit. (it happens so much more often than when we violate a common rule-book, most western christians live there most of the time and think nothing of it, it can be scary to even become aware of) Let's not punish ourselves, because he himself was punished in our place, he cares about us that much, let's just recognize it when we do stray, turn back, and trust him to receive us and move us forward as if we had never left the path in the first place. He already knew it was going to happen beforehand, and with that knowledge already chose to go to the cross to forgive and redeem us from it completely.

Here is an amazing promise from the same chapter: (Rom 8) even though we are told that if we walk according to the flesh we must die, but that if we allow the Spirit of God to dwell in us, believing and making room for Him by setting our mind on the things of the Spirit and walking in the Spirit, he will give Life to our mortal bodies, which died with Christ, by the same Spirit who rose Christ from the dead. I don’t believe this is talking about the afterlife. Nothing is said there about the afterlife, but it had been said in Romans 6 that our corrupted bodies were already put to death through the cross, that we are now dead to sin and made alive to God through the work of the cross. This resurrection Life now available to us who believe is the kind of Life Jesus carried in his flesh so that all who touched him in faith were healed whether he was praying for them to be healed or not, and so that he couldn’t have died unless he chose to, and he couldn’t stay dead even if he did choose to die, it is the Life that he promised us in this world and in the next, available now to all who believe. There is more to this reality of walking in the Spirit than just praying a prayer or knowing an identity, or making a confession of scripture. There are often untapped wonders and there is a discipline in a process, but it is a discipline totally rooted in and empowered by his love and grace. It isn’t performance oriented but it does involve our walk and consistent application. It’s about what we believe and what we are centered on consistently in all we do.

The old carnal man Adam is passing away, and the new spiritual man, Christ, one with the Father, is being revealed from inside of us in all his glory. We participate in that revealing. It is not performance based, but it is also not completely passive.

Chapter 1:4d ”Rightly do they love you!”

It is right that we love him, but it is also our righteousness. It is true that we are made righteous as Abraham was considered righteous when he merely “believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness,” as the scripture says, but it is also true that this righteousness manifests into our outward lives as we “enjoy his love more than wine,” meaning as we love and enjoy him more than any blessing he has created. We can not manufacture righteousness. We can not perform up to a standard to get holy. Only God is holy, that is the very definition of holy; to be completely other than fallen creation, like God. We must allow his love to live in us and live through us. Only the holy One can make our lives holy as we let him. We’ve been brought into his chambers, we didn’t bring ourselves there, and so we love him in response when we truly see the heart behind this. We don't earn our righteousness, but we value his love more than all blessings, leading us to put relationship with him first in all that we do. It is not just a technical righteousness, but it is meant to consume our hearts, then moment by moment he is more important to us than anything else we are involved in, and our walk reflects our heart with it's new priorities. This is how our righteousness, which we received by faith alone, is walked out.in our outward lives.

This discipline of setting our minds on the things of the Spirit, of walking in the Spirit and walking out our righteousness, of being centered on him in all things, valuing relationship with the giver more than the gifts, is beyond our own ability. It can only be empowered by coming back to the place of enjoying that we’ve been brought into his chambers. (into marital oneness) That is the fuel that makes it all possible. This is the "rejoicing in him and being glad, extolling his love more than wine." We simply can’t do it any other way. Our hearts need to be fulfilled in him or we will look to something else to fill that place instead. We can realize that place of contentment which allows us to be faithful. It is a discipline empowered by joy over the best thing. It is enjoying the best thing even more than the good things, which we also get to enjoy. It is just that they don't become our addiction which our joy depends on, they don't become our master anymore. It's all Him, and he has done it already. Just believe.

SOS 1:3 THE NATURE OF GOD, TRULY REVEALED, LEADS US TO LOVE

Chapter 1:3

            “Your oils have a pleasing fragrance, your name is purified oil, therefore the maidens love you.”

“Your oils,” spoken to the Bridegroom, speak of the manifestations of Holy Spirit. In the natural world, an oil is an inner substance of a plant which can give off a fragrance. The oil could be likened to the very inward nature of a thing, pleasing or displeasing to the senses. Purified oil, of course, would be oil without any impurities mixed in. A person’s “name” in scripture, often speaks of their character and nature.

This verse is saying that God manifests his nature in the work of Holy Spirit, that it is pleasing and that his nature is totally pure, drawing mankind to love him as it is revealed. (“The maidens,” also called “the daughters of Jerusalem,” are spoken of separately from the bride in SOS. They represent the larger part of mankind who hasn’t yet come into the place of more intimate relationship that the bride has.)

So what does the “pleasing fragrance” of Holy Spirit’s oil look like? You can see it most clearly in Jesus Christ, in his ministry of unconditional love and healing, forgiveness for the worst and life for the hopeless and the dead, and you can especially see it in the work of the cross, where he suffered in our place to redeem us and deliver us while we were yet his enemies who put him there. God is love. He is not just someone who loves but also gets in a different mood and does something else sometimes, (as we are often told) but he is always love and does everything completely out of love and does nothing ever contradictory to love. He proved it when he became a man and went to the cross for the sake of all sinners who were against him. This is the nature of God, the pleasing fragrance which causes mankind to love him. These are all important things to take time to meditate on and soak ourselves in. Meditating on this will build the faith to draw on his nature and promises so that we can experience him and his miraculous works and revelations in our lives today.

If you are one who knows the miraculous and experiences of communion with him, you can also see this pleasing fragrance in everything that Holy Spirit does in our lives.

You can look at the “fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control,” and see the nature of God, his fragrant oil, revealed. You can look at 1Corinthians 13 to see his nature, his fragrant oil, as well. It may help to replace the word “love” with “God,” to see things better. It then reads “God is patient, God is kind and is not jealous, God does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, does not seek his own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, God never fails.” We may have a hard time seeing God this way, we may see him as easily provoked and jealously taking into account every wrong suffered for instance, but his image has been twisted by religion and his scriptures have been interpreted in a light of meanness which doesn’t really reflect him. He truly does line up with his own words about love. When he is jealous, when he is provoked, when he watches over wrongs committed, that is in a different way than we thought, a way that is for us, not a way that is against us. We interpret those truths in the light of the most clear truth of Jesus going to the cross while we were his enemies who put him there. He is the Word made flesh, fully God revealed as a man, the clearest revelation of God in history.

He has been presented differently than that by organized religion. He has been made out to be someone who is performance oriented and looking for faults to condemn us with, who brandishes a hot cattle prod to make us try harder to please him, someone who wants us to feel that we are totally depraved and unworthy of any love. That is ridiculous. He is not that at all. Jesus showed us differently. He really is love.

He is often presented as someone who demands that we submit ourselves to a system of domineering people who will keep us from going too far in trying to have a direct relationship with Him or expressing Him without their permission, especially if it isn’t serving their personal and business agendas. It is said that he will burn down your house or something if you don’t give those people a certain amount of money. What ever happened to Hebrews 8:10-12, which tells us that in the new covenant, we won’t merely teach one another or say to one another, “know the Lord,” but all will know him directly? What ever happened to Jesus’ command not to call anyone on earth our father or leader, but that we only have one Father and one Leader, God himself? These scriptures, as well as the basic meaning of the gospel and the resulting royal priesthood of every believer, don’t leave any room for a mandatory hierarchy of human command, control, and codependency in “the church.” We are not obligated to get under the thumb of that for Jesus, nor to ever question it. That just isn't his fruit, it isn't his nature.

He is often said to be someone who predestines most of his children that he made in his image to a little speck of a life on earth and then an eternity burning in hell with no parole. That guy makes Hitler look compassionate. He is given legal credit for all natural disasters as “acts of God,” but believed to have better things to do than to calm a storm or stop an earthquake or heal a cancer patient or any such redemptive thing. This is not the God revealed in Jesus Christ or the work of Holy Spirit, and this is not the Bridegroom of Song of Solomon or the God of the rest of the bible, OT or NT. (Men have only taught the bible in such a way to make it look like it is, or we have read it from a place of condemnation, afraid of the light and twisting the words, as the children of Israel twisted their interpretation of God’s words when they pulled back from him in fear at Mt. Sinai. Moses, in the same situation, had a different kind of fear and view of God’s heart, which caused him to draw nearer into that fire.)

The message of the gospel even gets mixed up! We are told about Jesus dying in our place to save us, but then that gets added to and twisted. We are told by preachers that Jesus took the wrath of the Father on the cross in our place. Supposedly the psycho rageholic Father needed to take his anger out on someone, so he took it out on his innocent son, instead of us, but really; what might he do to you some day if he did that to Jesus for no good reason, out of such great wrath and bloodlust? No, Father was not angry with Jesus when he obeyed and went to the cross. That’s ridiculous. We are told by preachers that Jesus was forsaken by the Father on the cross even though they are the same person. Did the trinity cease to be a trinity for three days? Did God forsake himself when Jesus yelled out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Was Jesus having a crisis of faith? No, Jesus was referencing psalm 22 for the crowd, to show that his death was a fulfillment of that prophecy. The psalms are poetic, it doesn’t mean the Father actually forsook the Son who he is one person with, but the psalm was written to show that it seemed that way from a human perspective. The Father was not angry at Jesus, but Jesus was rescuing us from sin by legally putting it to death in his own body. That’s what it was about. Scripture declares that, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,” not, “God was wrathful against Christ, abandoning Christ, and torturing Christ because he needed to take his wrath out on SOMEBODY, so now he’s satisfied… for the time being…” Even the message of God revealed in Jesus dying for us on the cross got turned into a message that God is a raging psycho and you never know who he might just randomly get mad at and murder next, it could even be his son Jesus! Somebody needed a rageholic god to use to control people. That’s what we see happening here.

1John 1:9 tells us that “God is light and in him is no darkness.” He is not the monster that has been portrayed through the centuries by organized religion. He is passionate and unconditional love. He is Jesus dying on a cross for our sins against him while we were at our worst, and the sins of all people at theirs. His name is purified oil, spotless from any kind of corruption or evil motive, and when we see his nature, we simply fall in love. Jesus is truly “the desire of all nations,” yet he has been presented as something else. Space does not permit to address so many errors of common teaching against the goodness of God, especially not thoroughly.

I think that God has mainly been represented as such a sick monster by organized religion due to the fact that throughout much of history, even though Father was still active in his people, religion was usually being used by kings and emperors as a way to maintain control. Religion was very much under the control of the state and they had a need for a sick monster to scare the people into line. A liberating lover God was a threat to the system. You couldn’t be in the tyranny business while preaching grace and freedom and a redemptive, good God who each person is to know and be led by directly. The people needed to be kept guilty, afraid to question authority, under a formal chain of command in an institutional “church,” insecure in their direct relationship with God and so easy to manipulate and to herd around by the tyrants. It is truly a miracle that we have as much truth preserved as we do today.

The place of God’s judgment:

So, what about his judgment? We are definitely not left with a choice of believing that God is a sicko or believing that half of the bible is wrong.

The stories of severe justice in the Old Testament, and the warnings of the same throughout the New Testament, have been taught on by men and made to sound like they mean God might love us on a good day, but on a bad day is out to abuse us for our faults rather than save us. On the contrary, the cross shows us that mercy triumphs over judgment, that although all came under condemnation in Adam, all are brought into justification of life in Christ (Romans 5:18) and that His judgment is redemptive, not ultimately destructive.

I’m not one who throws out the half of scripture or so which talks about judgment, the fear of the Lord, just consequences for disobedience etc, these were all things emphasized by every apostle who wrote the New Testament, and the Lord himself. I’m one who interprets that in the light of what Jesus revealed clearly about the heart of God when he went to the cross for our sins. One does not contradict the other. I’m one who believes that God’s judgment has been grossly misrepresented by religion. His justice against evil is love for us, just like it is loving and right to have some kind of justice system in any society instead of letting violent criminals run around free doing whatever they want with no consequences and no protection for the public.

The difference is that earthly justice systems are flawed and impure, while God has perfect justice which brings consequences but ultimately leads to greater blessing for even those who are judged. That is not traditional teaching, but I can’t conclude anything else in light of the truth I’ve seen, both in scripture and personal, spiritual experience.

You can’t go and lock some guy up in your basement because you think he deserves it, but it is good to have a justice system in a government where a criminal can go through due process and be sentenced to prison if found guilty. It is likewise just and good for God to judge evil in ways that he doesn’t allow us to get away with in judging one another, because we aren’t him. God’s judgment is shown to be from a different nature than man’s judgment, and also from a much higher place of understanding and wisdom, and the ability to turn it all for each person’s benefit in the end.

David, in the psalms, cries out, “Judge me o Lord! Find out any wicked way in me!” not because he had a sadomasochistic relationship with God and wanted to be abused, but because he knew God’s heart and he knew that judgment, though not always pleasant right away, was a blessing for him. He cried out for it over and over throughout the psalms because he knew it was redemptive, to purify him and to bring him to a place of greater blessing and personal knowledge of God and of his likeness. His judgment is actually an expression of his mercy. He judges evil to deliver us from it, as he did for Israel to deliver them from their slavery in Egypt, in answer to their cry for help. Even his severe discipline is always for our benefit and care. It is a great source of peace to understand that there is justice in the universe and in our lives, even if we don't fully understand it because it hasn't fully played out yet, and to understand that the judge is love himself, not a hateful tyrant.

He is love, not just someone who loves but sometimes does something else when he’s in a different mood. At the same time, Jesus is revealed in messianic prophecy as the Savior/Judge, a warrior violently defeating evil and righting injustice in the world, not just the passive flower child son of the passive hippy father in the sky.

Father didn’t have a midlife crisis when his son died, neuter himself and become the big passive hippy in the sky, no, but he is also not a sadistic monster. He is an intensely loving, heroic redeemer of his children from all evil, bringing them all into maturity in his own likeness. He is severely, perfectly just, with judgment always leading towards redemption and the maturity of his children. These are not contradicting sides of God, he only has one nature, but it is that prophets have only seen and declared a portion at any one time. It is when we put the revelations of the prophets together into context by the clearest revelation of God, the one who went to the cross for our sin, and likewise into the context of the clear scripture "God is love," that we see how judgment and wrath can only be for our benefit, not for our endless doom. He made us to be his bride, not his torture victims.

Paul wrote that we are the fragrance of Christ, a fragrance of life to those who are being saved (“sozoed;” saved, healed, delivered) and we are a fragrance of death to those who are perishing. (the rebellious/the self-reliant) The fragrance of his oils is truly pleasing, but we see that people aren’t always pleased. Part of his ministry is in offending our pride and strongholds to bring us more fully to the cross and more deeply into his embrace and his likeness. Sometimes our growth process doesn't seem pleasant for the moment, but we can be sure that it will all become more than worth it.

There isn’t space to address all the crazy and commonly accepted teachings that make Father out to be a monster, and his discipline and training out to be abuse, especially not in depth, although some have been referred to already. I do want to go after one a little more. One that seems to be most deeply rooted and powerful in twisting our view of Father, one which seems to get defended the most adamantly, angrily, and without real basis: the belief that God is going to send most (or any) of humanity to an eternity of torture without end or escape, for no purpose other than to satisfy his great anger at them. (just step back and take a look at that belief for a second, and it’s implications... very wacko.)

On beliefs about hell:

The truth is that scripture simply never teaches that. Scripture teaches clearly that there is judgment for sin in this life and in the next, it clearly teaches that there is a hell and that people will go there because of their sin and that this is nothing to be taken lightly. Scripture does not give us a lot of clear detail about what hell consists of, how long people will be there, etc. The glimpses we do have are very brief, use poetic forms of language, and require interpretation, although they are very serious warnings.

The few scriptures (in Revelation) which are translated into English in such a way to make it look like people will be tormented “forever and ever,” just do not say that in the original text. It just isn’t there or anywhere in the New Testament. A word or combination of words are used which mean a period of time, not, “forever,” or, “forever and ever.” You can research that for yourself. There is much material freely available to the public out there going over every nuance, and Holy Spirit is given to lead you into all truth as well. There are scriptures speaking of eternal judgment and eternal life, but biblical scholars will tell you that the word for eternal actually means more of a quality, not a quantity of time. It speaks of where that life or judgment comes from, it does not speak of duration necessarily. Physicists will tell you that time is a function of the physical universe only, relative to physical space. Time, by definition, is not a function of eternity. Eternity is a place outside of time, where time was created from. He is said in scripture to be the one who “inhabits eternity.” Also, if there is a promised “last day,” what happens to time after the last day? We are repeatedly said in scripture to already have access to eternal life in the here and now in Christ. This is Life from eternity brought into time and space. There will be a day when his judgment and his life are fully manifested in his fully revealed kingdom, but until then the gospel is still “the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” and “the kingdom of heaven has come near to you.” Those things are revealed now in part and are increasing as believers move forward. Another subject you can research for yourself in the word.

All sin has been judged already in Christ’s death on the cross. Nobody needs to come under judgment for sin unless we choose to remain under it. It isn’t really God’s heart to judge anyone for their sin, but to let Jesus have the reward he paid for when he was fully judged for all sin: past, present, and future. That reward is redemption and life for all. This was always Father's intention, to forgive and redeem all, even before they ever fell. Jesus is the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world, we are not dealing with a good cop and a bad cop here, or someone who has lost a grip on things.

We really aren’t told in scripture that people will lose access to the option of allowing Christ’s redemption to take effect during the next life, although I don’t see clear, in depth explanation given on that subject in scripture in either direction. If the scripture, “it is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment,” was a hard and fast rule meaning that all judgment is finalized when you physically die, Jesus and his disciples wouldn’t have raised the dead, they would be breaking the rule of, “you die once and that’s it, no second chances.” I’m glad they broke that “rule,” and taught us to break it also. People through history have been raised from a glorious state, as well as from a tormented state. John G Lake, Sadhu Sundar Singh, Martin Luther, and many other well known believers, have been cited as well defending the possibility of one gaining faith and redemption in the next life. I wonder why so many react against it so vehemently? Is the idea of a forever, inescapable hell really something that they love so much that they will attack anyone who says people might get a way out?

We are only given a few glimpses in the word. We do know that people can choose rebellion, and that things are going to be very rough for those who persistently rebel. I’m not interested in spending one second in hell, let alone years, or “ages of the ages,” or however long people are there, but more than that, I’m looking for the truth about the one I love. He’s the only one who can keep me, and clarity on who he is and on his love so that I can love him in return, not just some excessive fear trip which makes him out to be a sicko.

There ARE various scriptures which seem to be saying that Christ’s redemptive work on the cross will be applied to all people. Not a lot of detail or discussion is given there, but just the statements. Many people have compiled long lists of those and posted them on the net. Even our faith is only a gift of grace. Do you think, at the end of it all, that he will have chosen to hold out on certain people despite that long list of scriptures indicating the contrary?

At the end of Revelation, death and hell are cast into “the lake of fire,” which is said there to be in the presence of the Almighty and of the Lamb. This lake of fire is different than hell, and it is in His presence. He is the consuming fire, Jesus came to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire and to thoroughly purge his threshing floor. It is called a lake of fire and brimstone, and brimstone is mainly known as a purifying agent. So what is this lake of fire? Is it purifying, redemptive, or merely torture for the sake of torture’s sake forever? All I know is that the New Testament never says people will be punished or tortured forever, and the nature of God is so different from someone who would torture anybody forever. He is an agape love driven redeemer of sinners, not Hannibal Lecter. He has no need to satisfy his wrath by torturing someone forever.

Why would anyone believe that about him when he simply hasn’t told us that? If you made an assumption like that about me, without good evidence, saying that I like to lock kids up and burn them with acetylene torches for as long as I possibly can because I’m in charge of the house and I’m just mad because my kids are worthless and they deserve that, you would be accusing me of great evil. I would think you have a serious problem. Maybe we should stop assuming that about our Father God when he hasn’t said it, and the evidence of his character is so different? I’ll leave that subject for you to explore with Him.

Back to other issues…

We all face tragedy in this world and we are all tempted to think that the pains of our negative circumstances and experiences in life are a reflection of God’s meanness or indifference and his heart of performance orientation towards us. The truth is that he has given mankind a freedom to choose, and so there has to be some room to choose evil, or love wouldn’t be a real choice either. As a result, evil has a certain amount of room in the world, for a time. Jesus stepped into an evil world and conquered evil with good, and we are walking in that Way. He is waiting for us to take our place of surrender and authority in Christ and to change circumstances in the world for the better through co-laboring with Holy Spirit. Jesus modeled that and invited us into partnership with him. We are joint heirs with him, both of his way and of his ability. Evil is not his heart towards us, but he is raising us as his very sons and daughters, partakers of his nature, overcomers of evil like he showed himself to be when he walked it all out, facing evil against himself.

There are promises in Romans 5, for instance, saying that even as death reigned over all men through sin, MUCH MORE Life will reign through the gift of grace and justification to all people. I have to look at promises like that along with the longer list of confirming verses commonly cited. (often by so called “fringe” or “heretic” groups of course, often labelled with various "isms," but popular religious opinion means nothing concerning the truth) I have to look at the nature of God revealed on the cross, and I have to think that all the evil experienced in human history is going to be swallowed up and made insignificant by the “much more” heavenly glory of the free gift of grace, justification, and sonship eventually received and chosen by all. As the evil done to Jesus on the cross resulted in such greater good to make even that great evil serve the overwhelmingly better purpose, so all the evil we’ve experienced will be turned into redemption and goodness as Jesus brings “many sons unto glory.” Nothing else really makes any sense. Paul was accused of preaching "let us do evil that good may come," although he was not... and you could be accused of that also if you are sharing this truth. Ask God. Search it out for yourself. Look up the scriptures.

Yes, he really IS love. Who could not love him as he really is, but who could not resent and resist the abusive tyrant who has been presented in his place? Instead of looking at the things that have gone wrong in our lives and thinking that God is out to shame us and punish us with them, or looking at some of the sick teachings of organized religion, or the way we’ve been judged and treated by people in the ranks of religion, let’s look at his oils. Let’s look at the works and fruit of his Holy Spirit revealed in the life of Jesus, his work on the cross, and in his miraculous works in our lives, his goodness and his redemptive purposes, and we will see that his nature is truly pure, and we won’t be able to help but be drawn into love with him as a byproduct.

SOS 1:1-2 CHRIST'S AFFECTIONS FOR HIS BRIDE

Chapter 1: 1-2

            “The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s. May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.”

This is a cry from the bride of Christ to receive his affection, and then a celebration of it. It has been emphasized before that Jesus isn’t going to have erotic (physically sexual) make-out sessions with us, but it is also clear here that the physical relationship between a man and wife are being used as a picture of our spiritual relationship with God. It is not, as some would say, a picture created by men clumsily using human sexuality as a metaphor to try to understand a God who is really above that. No, it is that God created human sexuality and romance in his own image, as a direct picture of what he is like, of how he relates to us spiritually. We are LITERALLY his marriage partner in Christ, it isn’t just an idea or a metaphor. We impact him that way. We are of his nature and likeness in the new creation, as Eve was made in Adam’s likeness out of his substance.

Put succinctly, that is the meaning, and plenty to meditate on, but a more in-depth explanation is added below.

First I want to say that this subject is going to be uncomfortable to us if we are looking at it from a mentality of lust, as in, "I can't think of God like that," but if we see the subject through the eyes of love rather than lust, it isn't uncomfortable. If our minds have gotten into the lust gutter, this subject can renew them in some serious ways, as long as we don't step back from it at the first reaction.

On to the in depth (a little more heady) explanation:


God transcends one gender or another, and we do as well in Christ. (in spirit) When he created man in his own image, man hadn’t yet been divided into male and female, and so he contained both aspects fully, as God does. (see Genesis 2) In spirit, we transcend one gender or another, as “in Christ, there is neither male nor female.” Our relationship with God is spirit to spirit, but the affections exchanged are not less passionate, they just aren’t erotic. (they aren’t physically sexual, but they involve the heart aspect) The bride is crying out to receive these affections, knowing experientially that “we love him because he first loved us.” She needs to receive his affections first.

In Ephesians 5, Paul reveals that the creation of man and woman and their joining in marriage are a picture of Christ and his bride. Just as Adam was put to sleep and out of his side was taken a “helpmate fit for him,” one like him, Christ went to the cross and out of his side poured blood and water, a sign of a birth. (Blood and water pours out of a womb while a woman is giving birth.) It was our new birth out of his side as a companion fit for him and according to his own nature and likeness as Eve was to Adam. These things happened to Christ as a fulfillment of that prophetic act of Eve’s creation.

We are created in Christ, new creations, a bride fit for him birthed out of his death and resurrection, when mere natural humanity could never fulfill that role just as the animals couldn’t fulfill that role for Adam. The fallen, carnal man is symbolized in scripture by the beasts, and has a beastly nature, “whose god is their belly and whose glory is in their shame,” according to Paul, centered on natural things and unable to change himself from the core. We however, have been made and are being made (“by one sacrifice he HAS perfected forever those who are BEING sanctified,” meaning it has been done in our innermost being which is already in him in eternity, but is manifesting outwardly in our natural bodies and lives as a process within time, all as a gift of grace) a divine natured creation fit to spiritually marry the son of God, to marry into the family of the trinity.

So, what Paul calls in Ephesians “a great mystery” is that man and woman are created as a sign of the relationship between Christ and his (new creation) bride, us. We are also told in Ephesians 4 that as we are nourished, we mature into “the fullness of the stature of Christ.” He will have a body proportional to the head, a bride at his own maturity level rather than a mere immature child who he has little in common with. That sounds daunting, but it is all a free gift of grace from beginning to end, based only on what he did for us. It is done, but our outward vessel still comes into it more and more over time. If Jesus was right with God but still had to mature, still had to grow in favor and wisdom, we can be right with God by faith and yet still mature in our outward lives. This is not legalism or performance, but just obvious reality to anyone who looks at anybody’s life.

The kisses of his mouth are his affections expressed to us spiritually by his word. Paul reveals in Ephesians 5:25-26 “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ has loved the church, and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.” We are cleansed by God’s affections expressed to us, his word. He is not beating us up with condemnation for our “spots and wrinkles,” but he is cleansing them by his affections, as revealed here. As his affections are revealed, our hearts become fulfilled in him. We come to know and trust him who is love. We take on that nature ourselves. We never grow past our need for this.

The bride cries out for his affections, knowing that “we love him because he first loved us.” Practically, this can look like receiving a new experience of his expression of love for us, or it can look like meditating on what has already been revealed, in his word or in our past experiences with him, drawing life out of that. Just remembering can be as spiritual as an open vision or a trance. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, so our past revelations of his affections are no less true about him today.

This issue is in not just hearing or reading his words, but his "voice." This implies the tone and heart behind the communication rather than just the form of it. Are we seeing the heart behind his communication with us and work in our lives? Everything he does is about revealing his love. Are we hearing the "voice" of our bridegroom in what he does and has done, or are we missing the point?

“Your love is better than wine,” –chapter1, verse 2b, means that his love is better than his blessings, that the relationship we have with the giver is even better than his best gifts. Wine is not used here in a negative sense. Wine is typically used in scripture as a symbol of the blessing of God, especially that which delights the heart. The bride is seeking relationship above blessings, the best thing more than the good things. Her focus is on receiving his affections, knowing that the rest will fall into place as a result.

INTRODUCTION TO SONG OF SOLOMON REVEALED

I’ve made it a major emphasis in my life to search out the revelation in Song of Solomon over the last year or so, and I’ve found it very rewarding. Much light is being shed on the heart of God, how he relates to us, and on our walk in him.

I’ve found some resources helpful for interpreting this often confusing book which is full of unusual symbolism and ancient cultural references. (“your hair is like a flock of goats descending from mount Gilead… your nose like the tower of Lebanon which faces towards Damascus” and such things that are incredibly meaningful and spiritually significant, but a little hard to understand right away) My study has included the materials of some who’ve done much more scholarly exploration, but it has been mostly prayerful and drawing on my own present communion and history with the author. Although there is a wealth of scholarly writings out there on Song of Solomon, it defeats the purpose of such a thing to overemphasize a scouring of the earth for all the opinions of man’s intellect to the neglect of communion with the one being theorized of. We either find him within, or we will never find him anywhere. Finding him within is what needs to stay central and to be emphasized, or we might as well do something else. I share what I’ve found because it has become heart fulfilling and life changing.

Mike Bickle has spent decades emphasizing the study of Song of Solomon, as a response to a clear call from God to make it a core message of his, and he has made his audio materials on the subject, along with his much more in-depth several hundreds of pages of written notes fully available to the public on the web. I really felt Holy Spirit’s presence strongly when I started getting into those notes, and I found the info in them very helpful. I also found Brian Simmons (missionary, pastor, and bible translator of “the passion translation”) to have insightful, well presented, impacting messages on the subject available online, free to the public as well. (on youtube) My take will be different, but I recommend those sources highly. Different catholic mystics got into this subject heavily also and recorded some of what they found. I didn’t find what I got into there as helpful.

Some today have teachings on SOS which emphasize the natural relationship between man and wife, which is great, but that is more of a surface level of the meaning. In this writing which ancient rabbi’s have called the holy of holies of all scripture, my aim  is to get to the spiritual core which sexuality and romance between the genders are only a sign and shadow of. On one level, SOS is a story of a love affair between King Solomon and a common maiden, on a deeper level though, it is a picture of Christ and his bride.

Many truths and revelations and experiences are beneficial, but a few are central and essential. This unveiling of the heart to heart reality between Christ and his bride is central and essential, maybe even as much so as the revelation of the cross and resurrection, yet it is not commonly explored beyond the surface. It is one thing to say statements like “it’s all about love,” or “God is love,” but another to actually start to get what that love looks like. I hope, my journey of learning what that love looks like will help you on yours.

You may have noticed that SOS contains explicit sexual references, the kind that you wouldn’t be allowed to explain publicly in most churches. While that’s great, and it is a testimony that God isn’t prudish, and is something that may help us to become more comfortable in our own skin with our sexuality, it isn’t the emphasis of this study. Even those passages in the book which allude to physical sex acts also contain a whole different direction of symbolism and meaning which applies powerfully to our relationship with God, who is a spirit, and who we don’t have physical sexual relations with. We are created to relate to and be deeply fulfilled with him on the heart level in such a way that physical sexuality is, as said before, only a sign and shadow of. It is created intentionally as a good thing in itself, but also as a sign pointing to that perfect spiritual reality which is meant to fulfill our hearts with God, and the heart of God with us.

I’ve made the distinction very clear because some people do have physically sexual encounters with spirits, and some of these people think that’s Jesus. Those are incubus and succubus spirits and the like, it’s definitely not Jesus. He said that in the resurrection, we become like the angels of God who neither marry nor are given in marriage. So, in that reality in heaven, when we see him more fully as he is and we more fully become like him, physical sexuality passes away even though the aspects of the heart involved in it don’t. Physical sex is only for this mortal life. Physical sexuality is good and is a sign of the spiritual reality, and engages aspects of our deeper selves which are also engaged in the spiritual reality with God, but I’m being sure to put the disclaimer in there so that things aren’t taken in a strange way and so that nobody can say I encouraged them to have erotic encounters with something that they think is “Jesus.”

The sexuality in SOS, spiritual and natural, are in both cases, a powerful fuel for a pure life; one that is deeply fulfilled at the heart level in God due to the spiritual side and which doesn’t need cheap substitutes to fill the void. It is also one that views the physical side of our sexuality in a healthy way, not as something inherently dirty or shameful. Those other views can lead to a spiral of self-hatred, repression, abuse, and back again, instead of seeing things in the light and living in the light as a result. This leads to more purity, not less purity. I wonder if the reality in SOS could even be the most empowering source of self control available to us in this area, yet that isn’t my emphasis here. I’m focusing on the spiritual relationship, not behavior management or marriage tips. Song of Solomon is meant to empower us in a broader sense, to live more and more enraptured with God and spiritually centered in all areas, not only in the area of our sexuality.

Going forward, I’m looking to explore the heart of SOS, mostly verse by verse, and I’m going to draw from other places in scripture for support. I’m going to interpret these OT passages in light of Jesus Christ and his good news, as we see being done throughout the NT with many OT passages. In these verses are found many of the most impacting truths that I’ve stumbled upon anywhere. They are foundational, essential, yet mysterious and oftentimes neglected or completely missing.

This is not something to read for mere intellectual understanding, only to leave it there and move on to another subject. The revealed heart of God in SOS needs to be marinated in over time consistently. I continue to go back to SOS to meditate on these things, and my eyes are continually opened to new aspects. I can write down meanings of verses, but that is only a doorway, not the banquet itself, the value is in this becoming transformational rather than merely informational, as you yourself go through the doorway and into the substance it leads to, and come back again and again and again until it becomes such a part of you that you never leave.