Is Love All You Need?
John Lennon wrote “All You Need is Love” in 1967. Speaking about the song a month after its release, Beatles manager Brian Epstein said, “The nice thing about it is that it cannot be misinterpreted. It is a clear message saying that love is everything.” [1] It sounds nice, but is it true? Let’s consider it.
What is love? To many it’s an ethereal thing that is hard to put in words. The first three definitions for love according to dictionary.com are:
1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3. sexual passion or desire.
As can be seen, the definition is contextual. Most will agree that the first definition is likely closest to the type of love Epstein is referring to.
The ancient Greeks had three different words for love: agape, philia, and eros. [2] Agape is the word most Christians would apply to the word love as expressed in Lennon’s song. Agape goes a bit further than “a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.” It includes the idea of willingly putting the needs of the loved ahead of your own in a sacrificial sort of way. This is the word the Scriptures use most when you see the word love as coming from God.
The apostle Paul went so far as to express that the whole law is fulfilled in loving your neighbor as yourself. [3] And that if you loved your neighbor, you fulfilled the law. [4] John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, wrote that God is love and that anyone who loves is born of God. [5] According to Paul and John (not McCartney and Lennon but the apostles), it would appear that Epstein and the Beatles have a point. In fact, I have read and heard people say, it is not important whether or not the gospel is true or if someone believes in Jesus. All that matters is that we love people. That shows we are from God, regardless of our beliefs about Jesus, the resurrection, or the gospel.
Beloved, carrying the message of love to this extent makes us idol worshippers. Love has become the idol. Yes, God is love, but love is not God. Love does not exist apart from truth. Consider further the words of Paul and John.
Paul’s teaching on love fulfilling the law has its foundation in Jesus teaching on the greatest commandment where love of God precedes love of neighbor. [6] This is not absent from Paul’s writings. [7] Paul did not preach love, he preached the gospel! [8] It is the gospel that gives love meaning.
John’s teaching in the book of 1 John is even more direct. Many times when there are large passages of scripture in writing like this we skim over them. We think we are familiar with their message and don’t take the time to read and meditate on the written word. I implore you, read and consider what John had written about love in the context of what he wrote. Allow his words to grip your heart.
Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us – eternal life.
I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie-just as it has taught you, abide in him. [9]
By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. [10]
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. [11]
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” “All You Need is Love” may have been a hit song, but it is not the gospel. Brian Epstein may have been a great manager, but a prophet he was not. Love is not everything. Love is a person who has a face and a name. Jesus.
1 – Vancouver Sun Article
2 – Greek_words_for_love
3 – Gal 5:14
4 – Rom 13:8
5 – 1 John 4:7-8
6 – Mat 22:34-40
7 – Phil 2:1-10; Phil 3:8-15
8 – Acts 17
9 – 1 John 2:18-27
10 – 1 John 3:19-24
11 – 1 John 4:1-3