by John D. Johnson

Created on: October 29, 2010   Last Updated: November 10, 2010

To man, love is simultaneously the most abundant yet most elusive of all realities.  He is driven by love to seek an increase of love, but he does not completely comprehend love.  Humanity seeks and treasures love; people everywhere clamor to know it.  Some regard it almost as a commodity that can be compiled or stored in ever-increasing supply.  Others dismiss it as a peculiar side effect of “evolution”.  But love, or else the thought of love, is everywhere.  Categorical barriers cannot contain its influence; dictionaries cannot fully define it; wars and violence cannot silence its voice. 

Yet despite the human heart’s feverish pursuit of love that traverses seas and borders, there is a profound difference in the Christian understanding of love.  Whereas the popular imagination thinks of love as anything from a powerful force to a token emotion, the Christian is privileged to know that love is, in its ultimate essence, a Person.

Distilled to this single, colossal statement is the vast Biblical teaching on the matter of love: “For God is love, and he who lives in love lives in God, and God in Him.” (1 John 4:16)  From this mind-blowing insight into the most glorious reality of all, the Christian begins his exploration of love.  Unlike the voyager who sets sail in hopes of finding a distant port, the Christian starts his consideration of love from a secure position deep within the very reality at which he aims; he is enclosed within and consumed by the very love he aspires to study.  Unlike the archaeologist who must dig to unearth the evidence he has not yet seen, the Christian must allow the evidence of God and His handiwork to dig within him, the believer, so as to awaken those interior realms that have never before known understanding.  Unlike the secular humanist, who wearily strives to collect for himself a thousand seemingly disconnected virtues, the Christian sets his gaze upon God, knowing that in Him, every lesser good resides.

God’s first dramatic statement of love for man is made in the act of creating him.  But even this seemingly obvious reality must be brought to man’s attention, so God sets about to send man word of His good will.  Because truths of any sort are invisible to the human eye, God must undertake the task of showing them to man. He does this through two primary means of disclosure: creation itself, or general revelation,

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