It’s so easy to make rationalizations to get what we want, isn’t it? After all, Tamar wasn’t really Amnon’s sister, for they didn’t have the same mother. And as Jonadab pointed out, Amnon was the son of the king – in fact he was the oldest son, the obvious heir to the throne. Didn’t he deserve to have the woman he wanted? And hadn’t his father David done the same sort of thing with Bathsheba? Why shouldn’t Amnon sleep with Tamar if that’s what his feelings led him to do?

No, Amnon’s sort of thinking isn’t strange to us at all, even if we wouldn’t go to the same extremes. For even those of us who place our faith in Christ also tend to put a high priority on feeling good, don’t we? “If it feels good, do it! Be true to yourself!” These are the watchwords of our generation, under the spell of Romanticism as so many of us are.

But Amnon should give us a warning as to where Romanticism ultimately leads. For by placing feelings ahead of commitments, it actually destroys the love it claims to nurture. Yes, Amnon was obsessed with Tamar. Yes, he had a powerful desire for her. But instead of focusing on meeting her needs or making her happy, instead of making a lifelong commitment to her by asking their father for her hand in marriage (II Samuel 13:13), he raped her. He used her to please himself, to make himself feel good.

And after his lust had been satisfied, he demonstrated that he had never really loved her at all. For he didn’t care that, having lost her virginity, she would never be able to marry anyone else. He didn’t care that his actions made her sob with grief. No, he threw her out because, in his lust, he was only concerned with himself – and with his feelings. And no matter what the Romantics tell us, that’s the opposite of true love.

No, true love is what we see on the cross of Christ. For He was also the Son of the King, the One Who deserves to get everything He wants. But instead of trying to please Himself, He set His love on unworthy, undeserving sinners like us. And to prove that love, He was willing to go to the cross for us because that’s what we needed. Yes, that’s true love – a determination to bless the beloved regardless of the cost to the self, and regardless of how it makes us feel.

So, we can follow the Amnon and the Romantics, focusing on our own feelings and callously neglecting the needs of others. Or we can follow Christ to the cross and let our selfless love for others bring life to them.

II Samuel 13:1-19 (NASB)

Now it was after this that Absalom the son of David had a beautiful sister whose name was Tamar, and Amnon the son of David loved her.
2 And Amnon was so frustrated because of his sister Tamar that he made himself ill, for she was a virgin, and it seemed hard to Amnon to do anything to her.
3 But Amnon had a friend whose name was Jonadab, the son of Shimeah, David’s brother; and Jonadab was a very shrewd man.
4 And he said to him, “O son of the king, why are you so depressed morning after morning? Will you not tell me?” Then Amnon said to him, “I am in love with Tamar, the sister of my brother Absalom.”
5 Jonadab then said to him, “Lie down on your bed and pretend to be ill; when your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘Please let my sister Tamar come and give me some food to eat, and let her prepare the food in my sight, that I may see it and eat from her hand.'”
6 So Amnon lay down and pretended to be ill; when the king came to see him, Amnon said to the king, “Please let my sister Tamar come and make me a couple of cakes in my sight, that I may eat from her hand.”
7 Then David sent to the house for Tamar, saying, “Go now to your brother Amnon’s house, and prepare food for him.”
8 So Tamar went to her brother Amnon’s house, and he was lying down. And she took dough, kneaded it, made cakes in his sight, and baked the cakes.
9 And she took the pan and dished them out before him, but he refused to eat. And Amnon said, “Have everyone go out from me.” So everyone went out from him.
10 Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the food into the bedroom, that I may eat from your hand.” So Tamar took the cakes which she had made and brought them into the bedroom to her brother Amnon.
11 When she brought them to him to eat, he took hold of her and said to her, “Come, lie with me, my sister.”
12 But she answered him, “No, my brother, do not violate me, for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do this disgraceful thing!
13 “As for me, where could I get rid of my reproach? And as for you, you will be like one of the fools in Israel. Now therefore, please speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you.”
14 However, he would not listen to her; since he was stronger than she, he violated her and lay with her.
15 Then Amnon hated her with a very great hatred; for the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her. And Amnon said to her, “Get up, go away!”
16 But she said to him, “No, because this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other that you have done to me!” Yet he would not listen to her.
17 Then he called his young man who attended him and said, “Now throw this woman out of my presence, and lock the door behind her.”
18 Now she had on a long-sleeved garment; for in this manner the virgin daughters of the king dressed themselves in robes. Then his attendant took her out and locked the door behind her.
19 And Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore her long-sleeved garment which was on her; and she put her hand on her head and went away, crying aloud as she went.