Redemptive Desire
I was feeling pretty bad about myself recently, one night this week so — needing reassurance from God — I asked Him to show me how He felt about me. Immediately afterward I opened my Bible to Song of Songs 7:10: “I am my Beloved’s, and His desire is for me.” I was captivated by this word “desire” that expresses the heart of God toward me, so I dove a little deeper into the meaning of the Hebrew word for desire, Teshuqah, which means “longing.” In Hebrew exegesis it is important to find the initial use of a word because that usually sets the interpretation for the remainder of its use in Scriptures, so I was fascinated to find that Teshuqah was first used in Genesis 3:16 which says “Your desire (teshuqah) will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Here is what God showed me…
Initially, man and woman were created to be co-regents, exercising dominion over the earth. In this perfect paradise man’s longing was toward woman and her longing was toward man, and both longed for God. However, after the fall, God stated that as part of the curse, woman would long after man (“your desire will be for your husband”), but instead of returning that desire, he would reign over her — not beside her as they were created to, mind you, but “over her.” Now what is interesting is that God does the opposite. He is a prototype of the perfect Husband (cf. Isaiah 54:5 “For your Maker is your Husband”). We see God not only return the desire, but initiate it — “His desire is for me”! (cf. “For God so loved the world that He gave his Only Begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will not die by have eternal life.” John 3:16) Not only that, but rather than ruling over us, as is common in the male-female relationship under the curse, Christ redeemed the paradigm by raising up His Bride (the church) to sit and reign with Him in heaven — we are co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), seated in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6)!
So we see that even though the curse damaged the relationship between man and woman, Christ redeemed it through how He treats His Bride, thereby nullifying and triumphing over it! My next thought was then, “So what does that mean for the curse that is over men?!” I will have to ponder that one for a while. I have no doubt that if Christ perfectly redeemed one part of the curse, He did not fail to redeem every part of the curse! He is so good!!
