What is love? Love is what a person needs most. Why? Because God is love. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8, ESV) Everything good is contained in the word love. “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Romans 13:8–9, ESV) And “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Galatians 5:14, ESV)

God desires only one thing from us—love. Christ makes this clear: “And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’” (Matthew 22:35–40, ESV) Thus all of God’s commandments rest on love. They exist to help us understand what love truly is. By them we can determine whether what is in us is the love that comes from God or the love that comes from the world—carnal love. “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.” (John 14:21, ESV) “Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.” (John 14:24, ESV)

God is love. Love is a powerful feeling that manifests itself in the need to love someone, to care for someone. Love must be directed toward something; otherwise, the feelings of love cannot be expressed or realized. I believe this is the main reason why God has a Son. Christ is “the beginning of God’s creation.” (Revelation 3:14, ESV) And why God created angels and man. So that love could be expressed. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, ESV) Love requires mutual relationship. This is God’s only desire toward us—that we love Him in return as He has loved us.

The entire Holy Scripture (the Bible) is essentially a book about love. It is the axis of the whole Bible. It clearly depicts the triangle of love: God (Father and Son), man, and the devil. Throughout the entire Scripture there is a battle for the human heart—to whom it will belong: to God or to the devil.

Since we are created in God’s image, man’s primary need is also love. A person without love is like a withered flower. The main reason for disappointment in life is the absence or lack of love. Without love, life loses its meaning. And here the devil puts forth all his effort to draw man away from God’s love. He distorts it or adds his own elements. The devil offers simpler solutions. Love for pets, for example. This is not sin, but it is vanity that distracts from God. I have seen many advertisements where a dog takes the place of a child. For example, a furniture store advertises a sofa on which a joyful young couple sits with a dog instead of a child. And this is the devil’s trick—to fill the emptiness, the need to care for something, to give part of oneself. Of course, not everyone can have children, or they may be unmarried, or the children have already grown up. Yet even in such cases, it simply takes God’s place.

The Apostle Paul wrote that the unmarried can serve the Lord better: “I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:32–34, ESV) It was the Apostle Paul who wrote the famous hymn of love (1 Corinthians 13), in which he describes the characteristics of love and its importance. Let me remind you of a few lines:

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1–2, ESV) Every person, like King Belshazzar of Babylon, will be weighed on the scales. And his weight will be determined by how much love he has. Without love, as the Apostle Paul writes, a person is nothing. Even a person’s works mean nothing without love. “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:3, ESV) I believe those who did many works but without love—from some other motives—will fall into this category. “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:22–23, ESV)

Another deception of the devil is tolerant, permissive love—that God loves us just as we are. Yes, Christ died for us while we were still sinners: “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8, ESV) Yet here we must distinguish two cases of love. The first is between father and son, the second between bridegroom and bride. The requirements are different for a child—everything is tolerated and forgiven—and different between bridegroom and bride. Or the relationship before marriage (or betrothal) and after it. For example, God chose Abraham and his descendants. Until the marriage with the nation of Israel, when the first Covenant was made, God practically placed no requirements. After the Covenant came the main requirement—to love God with all the heart and all strength and to have no lovers (other gods). That is the natural requirement of marriage. The marriage bed must be undefiled. All the punishments upon Israel were precisely because of unfaithfulness to God—adultery with lovers. “You played the whore with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; yes, you played the whore with them, and still you were not satisfied. You multiplied your whoring also with the trading land of Chaldea, and even with this you were not satisfied. How sick is your heart, declares the Lord GOD, because you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen prostitute, building your vaulted chamber at the head of every street, and making your lofty place in every square. Yet you were not like a prostitute, because you scorned payment. Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband!” (Ezekiel 16:28–32, ESV) “Because you have forgotten me and cast me behind your back, you yourself must bear the consequences of your lewdness and whoring.” (Ezekiel 23:35, ESV)

Christ acted in exactly the same way during His visitation. Until the New Covenant (between Christ and all humanity), Christ did not punish for sins; on the contrary, He accepted everyone, healed, cast out demons, comforted, and invited into the kingdom of God. Before making the Covenant and sealing it with His blood, He explained the rules of betrothal (the Covenant), which were often even stricter than the first. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:27–28, ESV) Thus the betrothal took place. Christ sealed it with His blood. We enter this covenant at baptism. (More about baptism in the sermon “Baptism.”) For now I will only remind you that one is baptized (confirming the betrothal from our side) already as a mature person—you give vows of faithfulness to Christ. Therefore infant baptism means nothing. Christ blessed the little children, but He did not baptize them. Who makes betrothal with an infant?

“For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:2, ESV) Here the Apostle Paul introduces a new element—jealousy, which after betrothal takes on new meaning. God punishes for unfaithfulness. God’s servant Joshua, who brought Israel into the Promised Land, understood this well: “But Joshua said to the people, ‘You are not able to serve the LORD, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good.’” (Joshua 24:19–20, ESV)

The same is true of Christ. “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.” (Matthew 25:31, ESV) He will come to take His bride—the church—not to become betrothed. To those who have been unfaithful, He will say: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’” (Matthew 25:41, ESV) For Christ does not share His love. In love there is no tolerance for lovers—the world. “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:4, ESV) So let us not provoke the Lord to jealousy, as the Apostle Paul said: “Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?” (1 Corinthians 10:22, ESV) Let us be faithful to the Lord as we promised. And if you have not yet made a covenant with Christ—do it as soon as possible.

What is love? It is the beginning and the end, the reason and the purpose.

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