William Faulkner was a well-known novelist in the 20^th century who won the Nobel Prize in 1949. But early on in his career when he was financially stressed he took a job writing screenplays for MGM. The story goes that when he later quit the studio and his desk was being cleaned out, a notepad was found upon which he had written the words: “boy meets girl” over and over; the point being that the screenplays were often—meaning usually—focused, ad nauseam, on men and women getting together through the course of the plot. And that continues to be the case in modern movies; people trying to resolve difficulties and doing so while developing relationships that involve “love” and sex. Whether it’s James Bond, a private detective, a mercenary, or a comedy of errors, the story invariably involves a love interest of some kind.

We’re fascinated by love; it’s part of what drives us in our quest for life: the desire to survive, to succeed, to gain, to make progress almost certainly includes obtaining a relationship with someone; hopefully the right one. And the stories that include this goal present it as a significant part of the resolution of the plot.  What have changed are the gender roles. It used to be that the man was usually taking the lead and the woman was supporting his efforts. Now the roles are often reversed, and alternatives to traditional heterosexuality are often displayed as well. But it’s still the case that people continue to feel the need to get together. Why is that? Certainly it’s apparent that this involves more than sexual satisfaction. Sex is often part of the equation, of course, but it seems that most people want more than just sex. They want a meaningful relationship with someone—and if possible sex. And this desire is utilized to sell stories. Books, comics, video games, and movies often include, to one degree or another, the effort to establish a meaningful relationship with someone. Even news items focus on our relationships. Reporting on catastrophes such as wars or earthquakes inevitably include a focus on the impact of these events on the relationships of the people suffering the devastation. Of all the horrendous results of the war in Ukraine the one that really got everyone’s attention was the deliberate attempt on the part of Russia to separate children from their parents.

Most of us identify with the need for relationships with others and go to great lengths to establish and maintain those relationships. But what informs relationships? Safety, propriety, obligation, necessity, they’re all part of what prompts connections with other people. But when it comes to personal relationships it usually includes a quest for love. The question is: what is it? What is love? The title of this post is the refrain from a song by the Beatles—“All You Need is Love”—which was written and presented for a global media presentation intended to promote worldwide good will. It was 1967 and the “Summer of Love” was being promoted by the counter-culture movement in an effort to stem the usual contentions between peoples throughout the world. This included a response to the ongoing war in Viet Nam and an emphasis on the ability of people everywhere to forsake their usual animosities and focus on human goodness. That effort has never succeeded. Not really.

Familiarity, camaraderie, personal safety, recognition of good character, or just an appeal based on appearance; all these things can stimulate an assessment or an evaluation that is labeled: love. I love her or him or them or it because of the way they look, the way they act, what they’ve done for me, what they, or it, represent. But is that really love? Moreover, it gets really confusing when sexual satisfaction is involved. I’m not talking about casual sexual intercourse; I’m talking about consensual sex, freely given as an expression of…”love.” Which begs the question, where do we get our ideas regarding such an important and influential concept? The answer to that is key to our understanding. And, for evangelicals, the source must be scripture first and foremost. Simply relying on consensus as a sufficient foundation for our take on love is not only precarious, it’s fundamentally dangerous. That’s if we believe the Bible’s self-affirmation, and the testimony of Christian tradition. Of course most people have heard about “the golden rule” which states that we’re called to love the Lord with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves. Meaning that it’s not enough to know about God, we need to love Him. And we need to treat others the way we want to be treated. (Deuteronomy 6:5, Leviticus 19:18, Luke 10:27) But that doesn’t answer the question: what is it? What is Love?

Some would say it’s what prompts people to sacrifice for others. People give up their wealth to help those in need, or they put themselves in harm’s way to “rescue” those who are threatened, and assume it is a reflection of love. Christian’s can think that love is indicated when they go to the trouble of presenting the Gospel to others, rescuing them from hell; or when they choose to serve in their Church they’re reflecting their love of God. The great example of course is our God who “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” so that we, as believers, wouldn’t “perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) This verse is so familiar to us that we don’t really think about it, we’re just glad it’s true. But if we compare it to 1 Corinthians 13 we can get some additional insight. It’s in that chapter that the Apostle Paul really challenges our understanding of love. Essentially he says that the things that we often associate with a Christian expression of love don’t necessarily exhibit real love; and that includes self-sacrifice to the point of death.

There are many facets to what Paul is saying in that chapter, but what I want to focus on for this discussion is what it tells us about the nature of God. The Lord didn’t sacrifice Himself in order to be recognized as our savior. He sacrificed Himself because of who He is, for God is Love. (1John 4:16)  He didn’t sacrifice Himself so that we would venerate Him; He sacrificed Himself because that’s His nature: God is love. And we can’t love Him to secure His provision of eternal life; we love Him because He loves us. Love is the product of a relationship not an action. Actions consistent with His will are products of His love for us and our love for Him. If they’re not, then even things attributed to Him amount to “holy” racket rather than praise worthy service. (1 Corinthians 13:1)

I don’t presume to know exactly what I’m talking about here. I say that I love the Lord and I believe I do. But as I continue on my path to know Him and to serve Him, I continue to be challenged to gain a greater understanding of what our salvation really entails. The Bible doesn’t challenge us to follow a set of rules, or to engage in a set of actions; it challenges us to know a person. He’s mysterious yet accessible. He’s challenging yet gracious. His demands can seem overwhelming but He provides for their fulfillment. And He knows who we are; He knows Mark and He knows you. He knows how we were raised, what capacities we have, what we’re capable of and what would be too much for us. We can trust Him, and as the saying goes, “to know Him is to love Him,” because love is who He is: God is love.

In some respects the Lord’s very nature as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit reflects His essence as love. This divine “Threeness” exists as One. How that happens is mysterious and defies our understanding, but the Church has gone to great lengths to preserve this understanding of our Lord. It’s the lynch pin for our understanding of salvation. Unless Jesus appeared as God in the flesh, His sacrifice on the cross would be insufficient to deliver us from the penalty of death for our sin. That’s because our sin is a violation of the divine, so our salvation must be the product of the divine. And the Spirit we receive when we repent of our sins must be divine as well in order to provide communion with God. Intimate relationship with God is a communion with One who exists as a communion of Father, Son and Spirit.

Now I know that this is deep waters. People have been scratching their heads for centuries in an effort to delve into the nature of our Lord. But it shouldn’t be surprising that our creator God isn’t completely understood by His creation. We’re made in His image, and that enables us to have communion with Him. However, understanding Him is another matter. We don’t have the capacity to understand Him completely, but understanding Him essentially as a Trinity, Three in One, is important nonetheless. Alternatives that affirm God as essentially one, denying the divinity of our Savior, can’t be accommodated. We can’t compromise on this understanding as if it were or no consequence. We can have discussions—hopefully friendly ones—but we can’t compromise our view. And it does bring us back to our recognition of God as love.

I’ve said it before that one of the primary dilemmas of being lost and alienated from God is aloneness. We’re all alone behind our eyes and aloneness is what drives our behavior. The emphasis we give to finding a love interest of some kind, and the focus on family in various forms is rooted in this basic feature of human existence apart from God. We need to be connected to others somehow even if it’s just to a pet. And that need is derived from being created in God’s image. God is essentially a Trinity of oneness and He desires us to have fellowship with Him eternally. This is who we’re meant to be: creation in fellowship with Creator; and the fellowship is good because God is good and God is love. No facsimile of love is sufficient to produce the fellowship that we crave as bearers of God’s image. Only the real thing will do.

Having said this, I affirm that love is all we need; the Beatles were right. But love is not something that we can manufacture on our own. It’s not based on a decision that we make to act a certain way. It’s something that we obtain through God Himself. Our communion with the One who is love is the basis for our love of others and the platform from which we serve His interests through our actions.

“Love is all you need” but only the real thing will suffice.