Love Without Conditions

10I am my beloved’s. His desire is toward me. 11Come, my beloved, let us go out into the field. Let us lodge in the villages. 12Let’s go early up to the vineyards. Let’s see whether the vine has budded, its blossom is open, and the pomegranates are in flower. There I will give you my love. 13The mandrakes produce fragrance. At our doors are all kinds of precious fruits, new and old, which I have stored up for you, my beloved.

I once read the results of a survey on young people’s views of marriage. There were many different answers, but the one that caught my eye said that, so long as a spouse had financial means, it made no difference whether it was a first marriage or a remarriage. Hearing that money was the standard for choosing a lifelong partner, I felt a chill in one corner of my heart as a parent with children of my own.

When we married, love came first, whatever the other person had to offer; only if we loved someone did we decide to marry. Granted, most young people today still marry because they love each other, but some seem to look for a spouse by weighing conditions ahead of love. Having lived in this world, I know it is also true that we cannot live on love alone, because without the means to provide, people cannot keep their home and children safe, and they cast aside the heart that once loved to the point of death and fall into bitter conflict. So if we want to protect our love and our home, we must work hard.

From time to time I counsel young people about marriage and dating, and there is something I always tell them. I tell a young man to marry when he loves the woman more than she loves him. To young women, by contrast, I say that they must of course love the man, but they will be happy only if they marry a man who loves them more than they love him. This assumes that the two love each other now; I am speaking of how much.

Women have a finer eye for detail than men, but they are clearly weaker at seeing the whole. In shielding the home from the world, a man has a somewhat wider view, and so he can serve well as the fence that keeps the family secure. And because a woman is good at making the home warm and beautiful within that fence, she must marry a responsible man for her life to be at peace. When a husband comes to love his wife deeply, he will give his best in facing the world, so that he can be a sturdy fence for his wife and children. Then the harmony between husband and wife makes that home a happy one.

But if we choose a spouse and marry on the strength of worldly conditions rather than out of responsible love, we cannot protect the home when those conditions disappear. It is when we love our family deeply that a sense of duty to care for them arises; but if someone marries for conditions without love and the money disappears, they end up ineffectual, because they have no sense of responsibility or duty. When a man loses his sense of responsibility and duty, he may turn into a selfish man who looks after no one but himself. He has no thought of being a fence at all, so instead of building up and protecting his family, he stares only at his own pain. Selfishness, rather than understanding and consideration, will leave him unable to overcome hard circumstances, rash judgments will take the lead, and this could become a great obstacle to building a happy home.

Proverbs says that when the love between husband and wife has cooled, nothing is as painful as living together under one roof. A stranger you can simply avoid, but husband and wife must stay within one fence, so the nest that should be happy turns into a hell, and the one you thought was your everything comes to feel worse than a stranger. The wise way through such a crisis is for husband and wife each to look honestly at their own faults and examine themselves. If a husband’s generous character is added to that self-examination, the problem will likely be resolved far more easily.

As God embraced all humanity without condition, so a husband’s sacrifice in embracing his wife and children without condition makes the family willing to obey. God did not tell us to obey him first. Because God first set aside his throne and bore the cross, we who came to understand that love were able to obey him without condition.

God created the husband, Adam, first. Woman was made from one rib of the man formed in God’s image, and so she cannot help but be frail; if a husband understands this and embraces her, his wife will submit to him. If the husband, the fence of the home, embraces her first with great love, the wife will work to build a beautiful home within the fence he has made. When a wife who builds up the home with care and wisdom under her husband’s shelter works together with him, the children will dream of a stable and secure future.

Look at the love of Solomon and the Shulammite, and you can see that the two truly love each other. That love was possible because Solomon did not weigh the Shulammite’s conditions but embraced and covered all her weakness. Had Solomon married for conditions, he would never have chosen the Shulammite, a keeper of vineyards. He chose love; he was a man of wisdom and of noble character, and because of that he had a heart large enough to protect the Shulammite whatever came.

It is a great blessing for a wife when her husband’s character stands upright. Like the Shulammite, a wife may foolishly send her husband away when he comes to her at night; even so, to have a husband who will generously take her back into his arms is a great blessing indeed. Such generosity is possible when a man makes God his master, and it is what he does when he is resolved to protect his wife and his home.

People tell Solomon, because he is king, that he is a blessed king and that they respect him; but if Solomon were to lose every worldly advantage and fall on hard times, the only one left at his side would be his wife, the Shulammite. Because she has a husband who will love her in any circumstance, the Shulammite is dancing the dance of happiness before many people. This is how a home is built by the love of husband and wife: a place of rest, a fortress for the two of them.

God too protects a home from the world when husband and wife strive to keep it and to serve each other. If husband and wife are a lamp, God will take on such roles as shielding it from the wind, and he will watch over it so that the flame does not go out but shines toward the whole world. When a couple who have lived faithfully grow weary, he will fill them with the oil of the Holy Spirit and be a Father who shelters them from every storm. As God loves his people in this way, husband and wife must encourage each other, so that each can use the treasured gifts they have been given.

Those who receive God’s great love bear more fruit; so too a child who sees the father loving the mother deeply learns from him a deep and true love and will build a finer future.

Song of Solomon 7:11

11Come, my beloved, let us go out into the field. Let us lodge in the villages.

The Shulammite wanted to be alone with Solomon, her husband. Not the officials beside him, not the soldiers escorting him, not the splendid palace: she wanted only her husband, the two of them alone. She longed to go out, not with the king who ruled a nation but with her own husband, not to the splendid palace but to a village where the two could talk freely, and there to share their hearts deeply. Likewise, if we treat God only as a king in heaven, we cannot talk with him deeply about the problems that arise in our lives. Only when we speak with God alone, undisturbed by anyone, as children with their Father, can we receive his answer.

God is not one who merely looks down on the earth from his throne. He comes into the lives of his children and helps them actively, and he cares about their future and guides them. Had the Shulammite treated Solomon only as king, she would have remained not a wife loved by her husband but one queen among many. If you, too, treat God not as your Father but only as a deity in heaven, you are just one more churchgoer among countless Christians.

As the Shulammite asks to go out into the field and lodge in the villages, you must bring God into your home, your heart, and your life, lay your hardships, pains, and worries before him, and work through life together with him. When you offer him your most honest heart, God, as your Father and protector, will bear your pain in your place and resolve it. Solomon came to her with a king’s power and the heart of a kind husband. If you make much time to be alone with God, Christ will come with a king’s power and help you, his bride, in your troubles without condition.

Song of Solomon 7:12

12Let’s go early up to the vineyards. Let’s see whether the vine has budded, its blossom is open, and the pomegranates are in flower. There I will give you my love.

The Shulammite asks to go to the vineyards to see whether the vine has budded, whether its blossom is open, and whether the pomegranates are in flower, and she says that there she will give her love to her husband. She wanted to rise early and go round the blossoming vineyards with Solomon, breathing in their fragrance, looking at the pomegranate blossoms, and sharing her joy. No joy could be greater than walking through the vineyard with a husband she could lean on, gazing together at the flowers that would become fruit.

This makes me think it is good for husband and wife to travel together. To go away on a trip for the two of them alone, undisturbed by anyone, sharing their hearts and finding rest in nature, would be a great happiness. The people around us matter too, but no one is as close or as dear as a husband or wife. Wise people know how to cut off decisively every circumstance, person, and problem that harms their marriage, and how to protect the home God has given them.

As the Shulammite wanted to show Solomon the budding vines, the open blossoms, and the pomegranate flowers, so we must show God the fruit of the labor of faith we have spent for the salvation of souls. As the vine must bud before it can flower, we must always long to show the God we love whether the seeds of the gospel we have sown have sprouted, or whether they have already grown and come into bloom; only then will we keep from idleness and fulfill our calling.

How far have the seeds you have sown grown? Even if they have only just broken open and put out a small shoot, it would still be good to bring God to that place and show him the vines and pomegranate trees growing through your labor. Think how glad God would be! Would he not think he had done well to love this child? God is not asking great things of you. What he wants is a thankful heart and a confession of love.

When you cut a pomegranate open, the seeds packed tightly inside are striking. In Israel, it is said, the pomegranate symbolizes a woman bearing many children, and so it is seen as a blessing of fruitfulness.

The garments worn by the high priest who served in the tabernacle consisted of the linen undergarments, the checkered tunic, the robe of the ephod, the ephod, the shoulder pieces, the sash, and the turban. Of these, the blue robe of the ephod had pomegranates and golden bells hanging in turn along its hem. Who is the high priest? He is the one who, once a year, takes the blood of a slain animal into the Most Holy Place and sprinkles it there for the sins of the people of Israel. It was on the robe of this high priest, who carried out the sacred task of sprinkling the blood of atonement, that the pomegranates were hung.

Split a pomegranate open and you will find each seed sitting inside, wrapped in red juice. The red juice symbolizes the blood, and so it points to Christ, who would make atonement. The blood of Christ, who atoned for every sin, rescued sinners from death, and he surrounds them with his blood so that they may receive forgiveness of sins from God.

We must bear the fruit of the pomegranate. Those who are loved by Christ and yet bear no pomegranate do not know the truth; they do not know thankfulness for the atonement. Christ loved sinners without any condition. It was not those with the wealth of the world that he loved, nor those who kept the law well. His love was unconditional, and he showed no one partiality. Should you not, like the Shulammite, show this precious Christ how well you have tended the vineyard he entrusted to you? We must show him how hard we have labored and striven for our hearts, our homes, our church, and our nation, which God trusted to our care.

Song of Solomon 7:13

13The mandrakes produce fragrance. At our doors are all kinds of precious fruits, new and old, which I have stored up for you, my beloved.

Mandrakes were eaten because they were thought to help a woman conceive. There is the account of Rachel telling Leah to lie with Jacob and getting mandrakes from Leah in return. From this we can tell that the Shulammite, too, wanted to bear Solomon’s child.

When a woman comes to love her husband, the instinct to bear his child awakens in her. It is an instinct every woman is born with. When the Shulammite asked Solomon to lodge with her in the villages, it was because she wanted to share love with him, undisturbed by anyone, and bear him children.

We must always bear fruit that resembles Christ. When we strive to bring forth many souls who resemble him, God will remember our zeal and record its reward in his book of remembrance.

The Shulammite stored up all kinds of precious fruits, new and old, for the quiet time she would share with Solomon. We too must give our best to the life we have been given, to please Christ our bridegroom. To repay the love of Christ, who came bringing unconditional love, I hope you will always sow the seed of the gospel for the Lord and reap its fruit, with faith, with thanksgiving, and with fullness of spirit. For a husband and wife, nothing is as dear as love without conditions. When you each cultivate a fine character for the husband or wife who chose that unconditional love, lift each other up, and together stand as a fence, that love will shine all the brighter.

What fruit will you offer to God? A grain of wheat that dies will surely sprout and bear fruit. If you die to the world through faith, you too will be born again in God as one of his saints. Only his saints can offer fruit that God will accept. The love of the Shulammite and Solomon is, like the love between God and his people, deep, beautiful, and unchanging.

May you, who are always loved by Christ, share that love as treasured saints. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.