Unconditional Love resolves the Curse of
Sin on Marriage; James
The royal
law or the doctrine of unconditional love—James 2:8. This is a quote from Leviticus 19:18. When Jesus
Christ summarized the Mosaic law He summarized it
under two categories: a) You shall love the Lord your God will all your soul,
mind and strength; b) You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
Why does James rename this the royal law? In the Old Testament it was an
establishment principle. It is part of the Decalogue, part of the Mosaic law, and remember the Mosaic law was designed for every
person in
1)
It was renamed
the royal law because it exemplified in the first advent, the incarnation of
the Lord Jesus Christ, during His life and especially when he went to the
crucifixion, where He demonstrated for all time and eternity the essence of
unconditional and impersonal love. It is called the royal law because it was so
exemplified by the King of kings and Lord of lords.
2)
It is called the
royal law because it is the unique characteristic of the church age believer
who is a member of the royal family of God. The model: John 13:34, 35. This is
a hard act to follow and can only be followed when we are utilizing the filling
of the Holy Spirit and we understand a lot of doctrine. This is not something
that the immature, baby believer can produce, at least not in a consistent
manner.
3)
It is vital to
advance to this level in preparation for our future role as those who will rule
and reign with Jesus Christ. Part of the characteristics of those who will have
that inheritance, joint heirs with Christ, who will rule and reign with Him, is
that we have learned true and genuine humility, understanding the principle of
being a servant and serving in the context of how divine viewpoint expresses it
and not as men do, which is in terms of domination and tyranny, but that we
would lead on the basis of being a servant. So this character quality has to be
developed in us under the filling of God the Holy Spirit in preparation for our
future role in the
4)
It is very
difficult for us to apply this because we want to react emotionally to many people that we run into. Sometimes that is good and
sometimes that is bad. But this tells us that this kind of love is not
emotional, it is not the silly, superficial, simpering, weak feeling that
people have for one another. It is not emotion at all because too many people
we are commanded to love whom we can’t know at all and yet we still have to
love them, and if we do get to know them we don’t want to love them at all
because they are not very lovable. Yet we have to operate on the basis of
volition and application of doctrine, do what Scripture says to do and respond
on the basis of doctrine which calls into play mentality and volition and not
reacting on the basis of emotion.
5)
To understand
this we must rely on a dispensational distinctive. That is, that mandates in
the Old Testament are all fulfilled by Jesus Christ at the first advent and at
the cross. The Mosaic law does not continue in its
operational aspect into the church age. However, any mandates that are
reiterated in the church age continue to be part of the spiritual life. We see
that it is reiterated in the Sermon on the Mount in relation to the Millennial
kingdom, and it is stated by Jesus Christ during the first advent, and it is
stated again in James chapter two and Galatians chapter five as part of the
spiritual life of the church age. So this is not something that can be just
thrown off into some other dispensation and say it has no relevance for today.
It is clear that this principle is to characterize believers, and uniquely
believers, in the church age.
6)
This takes us
back to the context of Leviticus 19:18 which shows us
that this is an establishment principle for believer and unbeliever alike, and
in the context of Leviticus it is explained primarily in a passive sense as an
absence of mental attitude sins.
James 2:8 NASB “If,
however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF,” you are doing well.” Notice the verse begins with a
conditional clause, an “if” clause. In English “if” usually implies pure
hypothetical possibility: maybe it will be, maybe it won’t, we
are not sure. The Greek has four different ways of expressing an hypothesis. It can’t be a 1st class condition,
which includes the idea of if and it is so; 2nd class condition: if and we
assume the condition to not be true; 3rd class condition: if and
maybe it is and maybe it isn’t; 4th class condition: if and I wish
it was true but it is not. This is a first class condition, if and it is
assumed to be true for the sake of argument. But there is an interesting
construction here between verse 8 and verse 9. When there are two clauses, the
first beginning with the particle EI [e)i], roughly equivalent to the English “if,” and then
there is the protasis and then the apodasis, and then
the next sentence begins with another A, it should be translated “If on the one hand, but on
the other hand.” There is a contrast in the midst of this condition. This is
how these two verses should read. “If on the one hand you are fulfilling the
royal law….but if on the other hand you show partiality…” There is a contrast
going on: either you are fulfilling the royal law or you are not. “…you are
fulfilling” is the present active indicative, second person plural from the
verb TELEO [telew], which means to bring
to completion, to cause something to happen for some end result. It always
seems to be focusing on an end product. It also means to obey as a mans of fulfilling the purpose of a rule or standard, and
it is used in tuis way in Romans
The apodasis
is, “you are doing well.” This is a key phrase that will break this open. The
phrase in the Greek text is KALOS POIEITE [kalwj poieite]. KALOS is the adverb which means to accomplish a goal, to do
well, to accomplish the task, to do well in accomplishing the task. It is a
word of high praise. POIETE is from the verb POIEO [poiew],
the word we have seen back in
The word for “neighbour” in
the Greek is the word PLESION [plhsion].
The basic meaning is a position that is quite close to another position, with
the possible implication of being contiguous. It means to be quite near or
nearby. Thus when it is applied to a person it doesn’t mean a neighbour in the
sense that we use the term neighbour, i.e. somebody who lives next door, this
means anybody who comes into your sphere of life.
Let’s apply the concept of
impersonal love to the doctrine of marriage, and see how the royal law reverses
or begins to reverse part of the devastating consequences of the curse of sin,
especially as it applies to marriage.
1)
In no other arena
are we tested as much and have to deal with mental attitude sins, rejection,
anger, insubordination and humility as within the realm of the family and the
realm of marriage. The reality is proverbial and has come to be known as the
battle of the sexes.
2)
Without
impersonal love—advancing to this level of maturity and having the capacity for
love—you will never have the experience, the kind of stability, success and
happiness that God has originally intended. It won’t happen. Without doctrine
you can never get there. This is not to say that the unbeliever or the immature
believer or the carnal believer cannot have some measure of happiness in
marriage, because they certainly do. But it is not the kind that God intended.
It is only when you get along in the advance to spiritual maturity that you
have the capacity for love and to appreciate all that you have in marriage. At
best, without it, you can experience a modicum of happiness and stability but
it is often tenuous and shaky because it is built on human viewpoint systems of
problem-solving and not on divine viewpoint systems of solving problems.
Remember, at the very root all human viewpoint systems of problem-solving are
going to a) misdiagnose the problem, and b) because it is a misdiagnosed
problem they are going to misdiagnose the solution. Because human viewpoint is
always built on arrogance, whether it is overt arrogance or pseudo-arrogance,
arrogance blinds the minds of men to the truth. So fallen and carnal man is to
one degree or another living in a state of denial, divorced from reality, and
unwilling and unable to honestly face the ultimate realities of any problem.
Thus they cannot openly and honestly face or appropriate the true solution.
While man can opt for human viewpoint solutions to make him and his marriage functional,
and they can experience a degree of happiness it in only when two believers who
are operating on the basis of divine viewpoint under the filling of the Holy
Spirit that they can achieve what God intends for Christian marriage.
3)
Marriage is the
second of five divine institutions. The first is individual responsibility. God
holds each individual responsible for the decisions that they make, and this is
exemplified in the original test related to the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil in the garden of Eden. The authority of
individual responsibility is the individual’s volition. The second divine
institution is marriage. It is for every member of the human race. The third
divine institution is family. The authority in the family is the husband; the
authority in family is the parent. The fourth divine institution is human
government. This is established in the Noahic
covenant. God delegates judicial authority to man at that point, specifically
in the realm of capital punishment. The fifth is individual nations—national
identities and distinctions. That was established at the
4)
Marriage was
originally designed by God as a partnership between two people for the
fulfilment of God’s plan for the human race in the perfect environment of the garden of Eden. This partnership was designed with an authority structure and role distinction which are
determined by the inherent qualities which God created into the male soul and
the female soul. They are about 90% similar but it is that ten % difference
which makes the distinction. The male is designed to be the authority and the
initiator and the female soul is designed to be the responder to the man and
his assistant. There is an inherent authority structure. Even in the Trinity
there is Father, Son and Holy Spirit there is absolute and total equality; they
are one in essence. But they are distinct in personality and they have distinct
roles. The Son is the Son from all eternity, the Father is the Father from all
eternity, the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit from all eternity, and they have
distinct roles and responsibilities; but that does not mean that is one less
equal than another. They are equal but subordinate, so equality is not a
contradiction in terms with subordination. This has been the typical stance of
feminism in the modern era, that if you have role distinctions then there is no
equality. The man was initially created to rule over creation as God’s
designated representative on the planet. But God never intended the man to function
alone so He created the woman to he his helper, his
assistant. The image that is presented in Genesis chapter two is that they both
have a common goal, the central responsibility being
upon the shoulders of the male, and the woman is to help him get there. This
authority structure in the marriage was present in perfect environment.
Authority is not something that God instituted after the fall because of the
effect of evil on the human race. Because authority is inherent in the roles of
the Godhead for all eternity it is not something God designed to deal with the
sin problem. It is necessary in order to achieve a goal and to fulfil any plan.
5)
The fall of man
in the garden involved at its very core a rejection of authority: ‘God, you can’t
tell me what to do, I have to have empirical data so that I can decide what is
really best for me, I am not going to take your word
at face value.’ So what happens is a) the woman acted independent of and in an
insubordinate manner to the husband’s authority as the head of the family, and
she disobeys God, and b) in her act of independence she is insubordinate to God’s
authority. She has rejected God’s plan that man is the head and he makes the
decisions, c) the woman then in another act of insubordination entices the man
to join her in her rebellion. Now you have role reversal, she is going to lead him,
and she leads him into sin, d) the man then succumbs to this role reversal
scenario. He allows her to put herself in a leadership position, he puts
himself in the responder position, submits to her leadership and eats the
fruit, e) the issue in the fruit was not inherent evil in the fruit. It wasn’t
poisonous, that is not the issue. The issue underlying the prohibition is, are
you going to obey God or not? The issue is authority orientation to God.
Failure to obey God introduced rebellion into the human race, which is the
antithesis of authority orientation, and put rebellion at the very core of human
experience and introduced chaos into every realm of creation, including
marriage. Every realm of creation, including marriage and human relationships,
is now chaotic.
6)
The first consequence
of the fall was spiritual death which is defined as separation from God and the
inability to relate to God. Everything else flows from spiritual death.
7)
The second arena
of consequences destroyed the perfect environment of the earth. God comes to
man, man runs and hides and tries to cover himself up in his nakedness. God
seeks out Adam and the woman and once He hears from their lips what they have
done He pronounces a curse. He announces what the negative consequences for sin
are. Several points to note re. Genesis 3:14-19: a) the context here is a
curse. Some have taken the meaning of “desire” here to refer to a physical,
sexual desire, that the woman will have a desire for her husband. That does not
fit the context, though it doesn’t mean it is not true; it is not what God is
talking about in v. 16. The context is delineating the negative consequences on
the participants in the fall; b) the curse here is written in the form of Hebrew
poetry. Hebrew poetry mirrors of rhymes ideas, not words. So you have two
stanzas, one will be somewhat synonymous stanza. The second stanza states, “And
he [the husband, the man] shall rule over you.” That term for rule is the idea
of despotic tyranny, control; it is not a positive word. The second idea in the
stanza relates to authority. In the first stanza the concept of desire must fit
synonymously with that concept of rule. So it is not talking about sexual
desire because that is not what is mirrored in the second phrase. What this is
saying, though, when it uses the word to describe man’s desire to rule is not
that the worst case scenario is going to be true in every man all the time.
What this is saying is that left unchecked by establishment training or good
manners, the tendency in the male sin nature will be towards a despotic
authoritarianism in the home. This is not that every man will be some totalitarian
dictator in the home, but that this will be the general characteristic of man
at his worst. Sexual desire is not an issue, it is not present in the idea and
so it has nothing to do with the context; c) in establishing the meaning of
this we have seen first of all that the context is the curse. We are talking
about a negative consequence here and a woman having a sexual desire for her
husband is not a negative idea. Secondly, the curse is written in the form of
Hebrew poetry and the parallelism here is of power and domination. The Hebrew
word that is translated here “desire” is teshuqah. It is only used three
times in the Scriptures. One time in Song of Solomon is in the marriage context,
it relates to the husband, and it is showing what happens in a reversal after
there is true love and doctrine applied in the marriage. But always remember something
as a principle of hermeneutics. A word like teshuqah that is used in the Song
of Solomon, written in roughly 950 BC, is going to very possibly have different nuances and
meanings than a word that is used in a document written in approximately 1400 BC and is used
twice in that context of Genesis 3:17 and 4:7. E.g. the word “charity” at the
time of the translation of the KJV and its use today. Genesis 4:7 NASB “…sin
is crouching at the door.” That is, sin is waiting to dominate you. Note: This
is the portrayal of the tendency and the consequences of sin on mankind left
unchecked. The New Testament mandate to the man to love his wife as Christ
loved the church is the antithesis of ruling over the woman as expressed in the
curse. Consequently, the woman’s mandate to submit to her husband is the
opposite of the curse. The point is that under the power of the filling of the
Holy Spirit the regenerated believers living out the mandates of the Christian
institution of marriage is able to overcome and reverse the devastating
consequences of sin on human relationships, and what makes this possible is his
ability to apply the royal law of impersonal love. The curse says this is the
tendency of the sin nature left unchecked; the hope that we have in the New
Testament is that because of the filling of the Holy Spirit and because of
doctrine in our souls we can reverse this, and the mandates that are directed
to the man and the woman are the direct antithesis of what God says is going to
be the natural tendency of the sin nature in Genesis 3:16.