This God-man is the Bridegroom in the divine, universal romance (John 3:29), but His counterpart, being merely human, still does not match Him. A human without a divine source cannot be the counterpart of the God-man. Therefore, God regenerated His human elect. Regeneration is to put divinity into humanity, to uplift humanity to the standard of divinity. However, regeneration does not complete the process. We were regenerated in our spirit, but we are not only a spirit. We are even more a soul. In order to uplift our entire being, God first has to regenerate our spirit and then transform our soul. The transformation of our soul takes time.
In the romance in Song of Songs, we can see the process through which the seeker passes in order to be transformed. In chapter four Christ’s lover has been brought to live in His ascension (v. 8) as God’s new creation. She is no longer of Adam, who never lived in ascension. Now as a descendant of Adam she has been transformed to be another person to live in ascension as the new creation of God in resurrection. As I am speaking these things, I realize that I am speaking another language, a heavenly language. We must learn this language, the language of the divine-human romance in the whole universe. When the seeker is living in ascension, she and Christ are living in one condition, the condition of ascension, to be a couple. Christ is divine and human, and His transformed lover is human and divine. They are the same in life and nature, perfectly matching each other.
Through her living in Christ’s ascension as the new creation in resurrection for her growth in life and transformation by life, Christ’s transformed bride becomes four things: a garden to satisfy Christ (4:12—5:1; 6:2-3), God’s dwelling place with its protection (6:4a), the heavenly bodies as the universal light (v. 10a), and a terrible army which is the corporate overcomer—the Shulammite (vv. 4b, 10b, 13). This Shulammite, who is the duplication of Solomon, is a figure of the New Jerusalem. Revelation reveals that the overcomers will be collectively a bride to marry Christ. In 17:14 and 19:11-21 we see that following their wedding this bride will become an army to fight with Christ, her Husband, to defeat Antichrist, a human opponent to God, with all his human followers. Antichrist with all his human followers will be absolutely defeated by the bride helping her Husband, who will cast them into the lake of fire.
Through her living in Christ’s ascension as the new creation in resurrection, the lover of Christ becomes mature in the riches of the life of Christ so that she becomes a garden to Christ (4:12-15).
This garden is enclosed with a spring shut up and a fountain sealed for Christ’s private enjoyment (v. 12). The spring is the Spirit of life and is seen in Revelation 22:1 as the river of water of life. The fountain is the source of the spring, which is God’s throne. The sealed fountain is for Christ’s private enjoyment. As seeking Christians, in experiencing Christ we must have something private, hidden, shut up, and sealed which is just for Christ. This is different from the practice of Pentecostalism, in which everything is on the surface for open exhibition and hardly anything is sealed. We must have something sealed for the One whom we love the most.
The garden is also full of the choicest fruit and the chief spices with their beauty and fragrance (S.S. 4:13-14). A rich garden grows many kinds of plants, which produce fruit and are full of fragrance and color. This becomes the lover’s beauty to the Lord. Eventually, this holy garden becomes the green bed (1:16b) for the lover and Christ to live together in mutual rest and enjoyment. The lover of Christ is now rich in life, producing fruits to nourish and refresh, giving forth sweet fragrances, and displaying beautiful colors to become a restful bed of green for Christ’s rest and enjoyment.
In the garden are a fountain and a well of living water, which are streams from the resurrection and ascension life (4:15). The fountain and the spring stream out from the overcomers. They flow out from what they are and from where they are. We need to be such people in resurrection and ascension, flowing with the essence, the flavor, the fruit, and the beauty of resurrection and ascension.