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 taken to find out how young people today think about marriage. There were all sorts of answers, but the one that caught my eye was that as long as a partner has earning power, it makes no difference whether it is a first marriage or a second. Hearing that the measure for a partner to spend a lifetime with is earning power left a chill in one corner of my heart, as a parent with children of my own.

When we married, whatever conditions the other person had, love was the first condition, and you decided to marry only if you loved. Most young people today marry because they love, of course, but on the other hand some seem to look for a partner putting conditions ahead of love. And it is true that living in the world, you cannot live on love alone. Without earning power a home and children cannot be kept, and so people abandon the heart that loved to the death and struggle with resentment instead. That is why we have to live in earnest in order to keep love and keep a home.

I sometimes counsel young people about marriage and courtship. And there is something I always tell them. To a young man I say, marry when you love the woman more than she loves you. To the sisters I say the opposite: you must love the man too, of course, but you can be happy if you marry a man who loves you, the woman, more. This assumes, of course, that the two of them love each other now; I am talking about the degree of the love.

A woman is more attentive to detail than a man, but her eye for the whole is decidedly weaker. When it comes to keeping a home safe from the world, a man has a broader field of view, so he can carry the work of a fence keeping the family secure. And a woman does well at the work of making the home warm and beautiful inside that fence, so she can have a life at peace only if she marries a responsible man. Once a husband loves his wife deeply, he will live giving his best against the world in order to be a sure fence around his wife and children. When that happens, the harmony of husband and wife makes that home happy.

But if a partner is chosen and a marriage made on worldly conditions rather than on a responsible love, then when those conditions disappear the home cannot be kept. It is when you love your family deeply that a sense of duty to take responsibility for them appears; marry without love, looking only at conditions, and when the earning power disappears there is no sense of responsibility and no sense of duty, and the man ends up useless. When a man loses his sense of responsibility and duty, he can become an egotist who thinks only of himself. He has no idea that he is a fence, so he does not try to build up his family and protect them; he looks only at his own suffering. With a selfish heart rather than understanding and consideration for the other person, he cannot come through a hard situation and will rush to judgment, and this can be a great obstacle to building a happy home.

Proverbs says that when the love of a husband and wife has cooled, there is nothing so painful as living together under one roof. With a stranger you can simply not see them; but a husband and wife have to be inside one fence, so a nest that ought to be happy becomes hell, and there is the pain of feeling that the person you thought was everything to you is worse than a stranger. The way to come through a crisis like this wisely is for husband and wife each to look back over their own faults and reflect on them. Add to that reflection a generous character in the husband and the problem will probably be settled far more easily.

Just as God took the whole human race in his arms without conditions, a husband’s sacrifice in taking his wife and children in without conditions gives the family a heart that obeys. God did not tell us to obey first. He set his throne aside first and carried the cross, and that is why we, having grasped that love, were able to obey without conditions.

God created the husband, Adam, first. Understand that women, made from one rib of the man who was made in the image of God, cannot help being weak, and take them in, and a wife will obey her husband. If the husband, the fence of the home, takes her in with a great love first, the wife will work to make a beautiful home inside the fence he has built. When a wife who builds the home with care and wisdom inside her husband works together with him, the children will dream of a stable and comfortable future.

Look at the love of Solomon and the Shulammite and you can see that the two of them truly love each other. That love was possible because Solomon did not weigh her conditions and took in and covered all her weakness. Had he married looking at conditions, he would never have chosen a Shulammite who was a vineyard keeper. He chose love, and he was a man with wisdom and a high character, a vessel large enough to protect her in any situation.

For a husband’s character to stand straight is a very great blessing for a wife. That your husband is a man who takes his wife in his arms again with a generous heart, even after she has behaved as foolishly as the Shulammite in sending away a husband who came at night, is truly a great blessing. Generosity like this is possible when a man makes God his own master, and it is behavior he can manage when he holds a determination to keep his wife and his home.

People tell Solomon that he is a blessed king and that they respect him, because he is a king; but if Solomon lost every worldly condition and met hardship, the only person left at his side would be his wife, the Shulammite. Because she has a husband who will love her in any situation, the Shulammite is dancing the dance of happiness in front of many people. A home is a place of rest made like this by the love of a husband and wife, and it is the fortress of the two of them.

And when a husband and wife work to keep their home and work to serve each other, God too keeps that home safe from the world. If the couple are a lamp, God will carry out the work of the lampshade that keeps the wind off, and he will protect them so that the flame does not go out and can give light to the whole world. When a couple who have lived hard in faith grow tired, he will fill them with the oil of the Spirit, and he will be a Father who keeps off whatever storm blows. As God loves believers like this, husband and wife must encourage each other so that each can use the precious abilities they have.

Just as believers who receive the great love of God bear more fruit, a child who has seen his father love his mother deeply will learn that deep and true love from his father 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 her husband Solomon. Not the officials at his side, not the soldiers escorting him, not the splendid palace — she wanted to be with her husband, just the two of them. She wanted to go out and talk deeply with him, not as the king ruling a nation but simply as her husband, not in a splendid palace but in a village where the two of them could talk with their minds at ease. Believers, too, if they treat God only as a king in heaven, cannot hold a deep conversation about the problems that arise in their lives. Only by talking with God alone, with no one interrupting, as a father and a child, can we receive his answer.

God is not someone who merely looks down at the earth from a throne. He comes into his children’s lives and helps them actively, and he takes an interest in their futures and leads them. Had the Shulammite treated Solomon only as a king, she would have remained one queen among many rather than a wife loved by her husband. If you too treat God not as a Father but merely as a god in heaven, you are only one churchgoer among a great many Christians.

The Shulammite asks him to go out with her to the field and lodge in the villages. In the same way you must bring God into the home and the heart and the life you are living, set out your hardships and your pain and your worries, and work life out together with him. When you give him your most honest heart, God will carry your pain in your place, as your Father and your protector, and he will settle it. Solomon came to her holding the power of a king with the heart of a kind husband. For the believer who makes plenty of time alone with God, Christ will hold the power of a king and will help you, his bride, in your difficulty without conditions.

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 says, let us go to the vineyards and see whether the vine has budded, whether the blossom is open, whether the pomegranates are in flower; and there, she says, I will give you my love. She wanted to rise early, walk around the flowering vineyards with Solomon, take in the fragrance, look at the pomegranate blossom and share the gladness. The happiness of walking around a vineyard with a solid husband and looking together at the flowers that will become fruit must be a greater joy than anything.

Seeing this, it seems a good thing for a husband and wife to travel. Setting out on a journey for the two of them alone, with no one interrupting, sharing their hearts and finding rest through nature, must be a great happiness. The people around us are precious too, but not as close and as precious as a husband and wife are to each other. The wise are people who cut off firmly every circumstance and person and problem that damages a marriage and know how to keep the home God allowed them.

Just as she wanted to show Solomon the budding vine and the blossom and the pomegranate flower, believers must show God the fruit of the labor of faith they have put into the saving of souls. As a vine has to bud before it can flower, believers must always want to show the God they love whether the seed of the gospel they scattered has budded, or has grown already and is in flower; only then will they not be lazy, and will carry out their commission.

How far has the seed you scattered grown? Even if it has only now broken through and a small shoot has appeared, it would be good to invite God to that place and show him the vine and the pomegranate growing through your labor. How glad would God be? Would he not think that he did well to love this child so? God does not ask great things of you. What he wants is a thankful heart and a confession of love.

Cut a pomegranate open and the seeds packed tightly inside are striking. In Israel it is said to stand for a woman bearing many children, and the pomegranate is seen as a blessing of fruitfulness.

The clothing worn by the high priest who serves in the tabernacle is divided into breeches, a woven tunic, an inner garment, the robe of the ephod, the ephod, the shoulder pieces, the sash and the turban. Among these, the hem of the blue robe of the ephod has pomegranates and golden bells alternating around it. Who is the high priest? He carries out the work of taking the blood of a dead animal into the most holy place once a year and sprinkling it, in place of the sins of the people of Israel. Pomegranates were hung on the robe of the high priest who carries the precious work of sprinkling the blood of atonement.

Split a pomegranate open and look at the seeds and you see the seed inside and the red juice surrounding it. The red juice stands for the precious blood, so it means the Christ who would make atonement. The precious blood of Christ, who atoned for every sin, lifted sinners out of death, and it surrounds sinners so that they can receive forgiveness of sin from God.

A believer must hold the fruit of the pomegranate. If believers who are loved by Christ have no pomegranate fruit, they are people who do not know the truth and who do not know thankfulness for the atonement. Christ loved sinners with no conditions at all. He did not love those who held the world’s wealth, and he did not love those who kept the law well. It was a love without conditions, a love that made no distinction between one person and another. Ought we not to show a Christ this precious how well we have tended the vineyard he entrusted to us, as the Shulammite did? We must show him how hard we have worked and labored for the heart and the home and the church and the country he trusted us with.

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.

The mandrake was a plant people ate believing it helped a woman conceive. There is the incident in which Rachel told Leah to lie with Jacob and got mandrakes from her in exchange. From this we can see that the Shulammite too wanted to bear Solomon’s child.

When a woman loves her husband, an instinct rises in her to bear that man’s child. This is an instinct every woman has had from birth. That she asked Solomon to lodge with her in the villages, just the two of them, means she wanted to share love with him and produce children with no one interrupting.

You must always give birth to fruit that resembles Christ. When you work to give birth to many souls who resemble Christ, God will remember your zeal and will write the reward for it in the book of remembrance.

Just as the Shulammite prepared all kinds of precious fruits, new and old, for a quiet time with Solomon, believers must give their best to the life they have been given in order to make Christ their bridegroom glad. To repay the love of the Christ who came holding a love without conditions, I hope you will always scatter the seed of the gospel for the Lord, in faith and thankfulness and fullness, and gather the fruit. For a husband and wife there is nothing so precious as a love without conditions. When you build precious characters for each other and lift each other up for the sake of the husband or wife who chose a love without conditions, and when the two of you become a fence together, that love will shine more.

What fruit will you offer God? As a grain of wheat that dies certainly sprouts and bears fruit, if you die in faith in the world you will be born again as a believer inside God. Only a believer can offer fruit God will accept. The love of the Shulammite and Solomon is deep and beautiful and unchanging, like the love of God and believers.

Christ loves you always. May you share that love. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.