On July 29, 1981, Diana Frances Spencer walked down the aisle in a beautiful wedding dress complete with a 25-foot train to marry England’s future king, Prince Charles. It was an absolutely gorgeous wedding that was watched around the world by an estimated 750 million people.
The youthful 20-year-old Diana married her 32-year-old dashing prince and they both lived happily ever after. Well, not exactly. It appears that the only thing that was a true fairy tale was the wedding itself. As for the marriage, that would spiral down and eventually end in tragedy.
The wedding of the century would soon become the love triangle of the century. As Princess Diana vividly put it, “Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”
Love triangle defined
By definition, a “love triangle” typically refers to two people who compete against each other for the undivided attention of a single love interest. In one corner of this particular competition Princess Diana, in the other corner, Diana’s arch-nemesis Camilla Parker-Bowles.
Even though Diana was married to the Prince, it was Camilla who had the advantage of familiarity. You see, almost a decade earlier, after meeting at a polo match, Prince Charles began seeing the young Camilla Shand as she was known at that time. However, the pair broke up and Camilla married Andrew Parker-Bowles in 1973. Charles, as we know, went on to marry Princess Diana eight years later.
Love triangle hidden
Unbeknownst to Diana at her wedding, Charles was still madly in love with Camilla, but she would have to get a divorce to marry Charles which was not acceptable by those of the Commonwealth at that time. So, Charles found a respectable young lady who would be able to produce the future heirs to the throne of England. To Charles, it was an act of duty; to Diana, it was an act of love, she just did not understand the situation.
Fast forward a few years and the marriage greatly soured when Charles took up again his relationship with Camilla once Princess Diana had borne him two boys. This resulted in Camilla’s divorce in 1995 and Charles and Diana’s divorce in 1996. Tragically, Diana was killed in a car accident while Charles went on to marry Camilla in a civil service at Windsor chapel in 2005, where she became the Duchess of Cornwall.
Love triangles can be messy affairs. Emotions run deep and there is so much at stake for the participants. Heartbreak and harsh consequences are almost certain to be the outcome.
Below is a list of three triangled relationships. They are not the divine love triangle that will be dealt with later, but they did bear large consequences on our history just the same.
Love triangle unsustained
By its definition, a love triangle cannot be sustained indefinitely. It is not a mutual agreement; it is a competition between two opposing forces. The question is, can a love triangle be avoided if the person in the centre of it prioritizes his/her affections towards the competing forces?
So often it is the two people competing that are judged. In reality, the blame must be laid at the person in the middle. Let me share with you another story of another love triangle that took place long, long ago. This triangle was so vicious that its effects touch each of us personally to this very day.
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Divine love triangle originated
In Genesis 3:17, we read:
“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life”
This is the biblical account of God’s curse upon His creation. Upon completing the construction of the universe God said that everything was “good”. In other words, there was nothing wrong with any of it, including the man and woman He had created. We know the first couple by their given names, they were Adam and his wife Eve.
So here we have only two people upon the entire earth who are in a state of innocence and their environment has absolutely no flaws. It would be nice to conclude the story right there with the statement, “and they lived happily ever after,” but that would be far from the truth.
Divine love triangle cursed
You see, in Adam’s life, there was a third person involved. Because of His stature, we often forget that God is a being who actually exists in three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. As a person, the Father has unique attributes and a personality. He is able to relate to others in a personal way.
Knowing this, let me break down Genesis 3:17 a bit further to reveal the divine love triangle. In this verse, God has just confronted Adam regarding his eating of the fruit from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. This tree was previously marked off-limits by God (Genesis 2:17). It was designed to be a test of Adam’s obedience to his Creator. Much focus is placed on the fruit but look at the initial response from God:
“Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife”.
The real reason behind Adam’s sin was that he was caught in a love triangle for which he would choose wrongly. God’s initial warning was to not eat the fruit from a particular tree. However, during God’s judgment of Adam, He begins with Eve, not the tree nor its fruit. God says that the root of the sin is that Adam listened to his wife over his God.
The old English word “hearkened” means to hear with attention or interest.
There was only one restriction upon Adam in the very beginning – the forbidden fruit. Much is made about this fruit, but the real transgression was that of not heeding God’s command. God equated obedience to love.
Thousands of years later Jesus summed it up in John 14:15, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
In God’s eyes, love equals obedience.
So, what?
There are three conclusions we can draw from the divine love triangle that caused the fall of man into sin and the resulting curse:
1. The love triangle of God vs. Eve for Adam was not one of romance, but it was a true love triangle just the same. Both God and Eve were vying for the love of Adam. What makes this situation tragic is that Adam prioritized his love in error. He put God in second place. God never wanted Adam not to love his wife, in fact, He created Eve so that she would be Adam’s love interest. The sin was that God always wants to be the primary relationship of every person.
Jesus taught this in Matthew 22:35-39 …
“Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
2. The actual sin was not eating a particular fruit from a particular tree but rather from disobeying God’s command. The fruit was only the object of the test, the real purpose was to prove the love of Adam toward his Creator.
3. Adam’s disobedience not only broke his personal relationship with God, but it also brought a curse upon the entire planet for which Adam was to be the leader. As in most love triangles, the consequences seldom affect only the three participants. To this end, each of us today still negatively impacted by the ongoing curse upon this earth.
Additionally, the problems with biblical love triangles did not end in the garden of Eden. Click here to read about another famous triangle that ended in destructive consequences.
So, the second step in God’s DIVINE SCHEME (after CREATION) is the CURSE. And this curse came as a result of a divine love triangle.
Care to comment on this?
What would have happened to Eve if Adam had obeyed God rather than her? Would she had been struck dead and damned forever? Would God have given Adam a new wife from another rib? Or, would God permit the human race to have continued through Adam and Eve whereby their children’s souls would be holy because of Adam, but their bodies still left to age and die through Eve?
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Until the next post, keep searching the DIVINE SCHEME!
Regards,
Mike MacDonald
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About Mike MacDonald:
As an ordained theologian, Mike has served in many gospel ventures.
He has been a church pastor, chaplain, seminary vice-president,
Christian school principal, and creation evangelist. These roles have
built up an expertise in Mike’s ability to help people discover the true
essence of the Bible and how to make it apply in everyday life.