All You Need Is Love

A Commentary on John 13:34-35

Khen Lim



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The late John Lennon rarely gets it correct within Christian circles but there was one time in June 1967 when he and Paul (McCartney) got it spot on. Here are some familiar lyrics from the song they wrote together:

“There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known. Nothing you can see that isn’t shown. There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be. It’s easy…

“All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love. Love is all you need.”

The apostle John would have wholeheartedly agreed with these lyrics. He recorded Jesus saying to His disciples:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (Jn 13:34, NASB)

In ‘Commentary on Galatians’ (trans. Andrew Cain, Catholic University of America Press, Washington, 2010. 260), Jerome told of a story of the same John who, as a frail old man, was frequently carried into meetings by his disciples. And whenever he was being carried as such, he would unfailingly say, “Little children, love one another.” And he would say the same thing every time the disciples carried him. One day, tired of the repetition, his disciples asked, “Why do you always say this?” John replied, “Because it is the Lord’s commandment and if it alone be kept, it is sufficient.”

John knows abundantly about love. He writes about it in some of the most memorable ways. One of the most famous and oft-quoted verses in the Bible belongs to him (3:16) in which God so loved the world that He gave His One and Begotten Son, Jesus. John frequently records the love that the Father has for Jesus (3:35, 5:20, 10:17, 15:9, 17:23).

In fact Chapter 13 encapsulates perfectly not just the Fatherly love that Jesus experiences but in recounting them for our benefit, He too demonstrates His perfect love for His disciples in return. In one of the most stunningly poignant moments in Scripture, Jesus takes on servanthood to serve us by washing His disciples’ feet and by doing so, He imparts the teaching of humility in the way we are to conduct ourselves (13:15).

The Lord becomes our servant. It can’t get any more moving than this. We can forget about our contemporary sense of entitlement when we understand what Jesus is teaching us. We think the world owes us a living and we think we have the right to be this or that but stop for a moment and think – we can forget the things we think are important and not understand that in imitating Christ, we have the greatest gift endowed on us by our Father – love. And so when Jesus made His disciples understand that where He is going, they cannot follow, He raised the expectation that they were to love one another as He has loved them.

Love is a very important and elemental feature in Christianity because God is love (1 Jn 4:8). Other than John, Paul is another who speaks about the profound reaches of love. In 1 Cor 13:13, he recounts, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” But then here is a noteworthy point – when Jesus said, “By [love], everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13:34-35, 1 Jn 3:14).

Read this verse carefully. Jesus didn’t say that by doing so, they would be His disciples. Instead he says that, by doing so, the world will know they are His disciples. We don’t get saved simply because we love others. On the contrary, if we continually manifest a growing sense of love for others in our lives, then we show the world that true salvation exists in our lives that is found in Christ.

“But someone may well say, ‘You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.’ You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe and shudder. But are you willing to recognise, you foolish fellow, that faith without work is useless?” (Jms 2:18-20, NASB)

What James is saying is that in Christ, true faith will reveal itself in true works of which one of them is love. In recent months, I have given much thought to God’s miraculous gift of life to Marianne and me. If all goes well, October’s end will see a pair of twin girls in our lives. They will be the greatest honour God can give us to take charge of and for that, I have been doing some wondering.

Will they have big eyes like their father? Or fair skin like their mother? Will they be pretty like their mother? Outspoken like their irascible father? Or super-smart like their grandfather? Resilient and tolerant like their grandmother?

Will they be giggly and charming, intelligent and inquisitive? Musically inclined or will they take to the pen and write prodigiously? Maybe a camera?

Will they love the Lord as much as we desire them to? What will they be when they grow older? Who will they become when I am no more? If I can wonder like this about the children who will fill our lives, will we also wonder about our church and what it means to us? Do we envision what we want our church to be? How much do we desire for our church? Can we even love our church?

If we say we love our church, have we done enough to demonstrate it? True love is always expressed not in words or ideas but in deeds. The only way our love can be fully expressed for God is in our obedience to the things that He has enjoined upon us. If we reject – or wilfully neglect – the call to obedience, we might find our overtures of love equally rejected with Jesus’ words ringing in our ears:

“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Lk 6:46)

Perhaps we should also take in the rest of the verses as well:

“Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and act on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when the flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.” (vv.47-49)

Professing love is easy but words must be honoured. It is pointless to hear well if we do not carry it through. It’s been many years now that we have been touched by opportunities for growth but like a wind that passes through, they inevitably get blown away. It is time to grow our roots deep, anchor ourselves in the Word, learn, embrace and practise love the way John speaks so profusely and eloquently about. That inevitably means we must be obedient to the Lord.

Jesus reminds us in John 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” and in verse 21 again, “He who has My commandments, and keeps them, is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” We don’t need special education to understand these words – they are simple enough to nourish us spiritually.

So let us all start heeding Jesus’ call today: “Even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” Find a brother or sister in church and let us all wash one another’s feet. Sacrifice time and make special effort for another sibling in Christ. Lay out your love for the young and old, for the infirmed, for those who least expect it from you. Love those you know who cannot repay you.

Then set your deeds to what 1 Peter 4:8b has to say: “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

Now that is a truly blessed church; a church that loves like Christ loves.