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More from Mark Grant
But have you ever paused to consider why these videos are so powerful? Why do these moments move us so deeply? It’s because they point to something profound—something theological. These tear-soaked embraces, are more than just expressions of love or joy. They are our physical attempts to reclaim wholeness and communion – our longing for what was lost in Eden and what we were created for: perfect, unbroken, everlasting community.
In these hugs, we aren’t merely witnessing joy; we’re catching a glimpse of God’s design—a fleeting picture of the kind of unity we were created for, the kind fractured by sin, and the kind Jesus came to restore.
This is the theology of the hug.
Scripture tells us we are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27). But what kind of God do we reflect? God is not solitary—He is Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, eternally existing in perfect, loving communion. As Wayne Grudem puts it,
“God eternally exists as three persons… and each person is fully God, and there is one God.”
Rather than attempting to unravel the mystery, we should pause and reflect on what this means about God’s nature. Genesis 1:26 and Matthew 28:19 show us that God exists as community, while John 17:5 reveals that this divine communion has always existed. From eternity past, the Father, Son, and Spirit have glorified one another in perfect, self-giving love. As such, love—defined not as mere emotion, but as “self-giving for the good of others”—is not just something God does; it is who He is.
If God were a solitary being, love would not be central to His nature—power might be. But the Trinity shows us that relationship, not dominance, is His defining characteristic.
To be made in His image is to be made for communion. Loneliness sabotages us because it contradicts our design. Our longing to be known, embraced, and united with others reflects our origin in divine love. Jesus’s prayer in John 17:21 shows God’s desire to draw us into that eternal community. Worship, then, is not obligation—it’s overflow. And our lives are meant to reflect God’s core characteristic: self-giving love in relationship.
But we are not in Eden anymore.
Though we are made for communion, we live in a world torn apart by sin. Every human relationship bears this scar. Even our closest bonds are strained by selfishness, fear, pride, and death. The very thing we long for—perfect unity—is the one thing we cannot fully attain in this life.
These deep, soul-level longings for connection—for embrace, for intimacy, for union—are not wrong in themselves. In fact, they are part of how God made us. But in our fallen condition, what Scripture calls epithumia (ἐπιθυμία)—an “over-desire”—often corrupts what was originally good.
We don’t just want love; we lust for it. We don’t just long for union; we grasp for it in ways that ignore God and elevate created things into ultimate things.
This is why we cling to counterfeit forms of communion. We chase bad relationships, addictive sexual behavior, social media validation, pornography—not always because we’re driven by rebellion, but because we’re desperate for connection. Yet these things are not the source of joy —they are mere reflections. They are echoes, not the Voice. When we try to make them ultimate, we twist a holy longing into a hollow idol, and instead of restoring our loneliness, they compound it.
Recognizing this dynamic is essential for spiritual maturity.
It’s not enough to simply cut off sinful behaviors; we must trace them back to the misdirected longing at their root. We must see how our hunger for embrace, intimacy, and communion points to God—and only finds rest in Him. Only then can we rightly enjoy His blessings without worshiping them. Only then can we reclaim the hug, the kiss, the longing, as signs—not substitutes—of the union we were made for.
If the hug reveals our longing, then the gospel reveals its fulfillment. In Jesus Christ, God crossed the greatest separation of all. He did not remain at a distance; He came in the flesh, taking on a body to dwell among us. And throughout His ministry, Jesus touched—He held children, grasped the hands of lepers, and wept in the arms of His friends. He embraced the broken, the outcast, the lonely.
The resurrection affirms that our hope is not merely spiritual but physical. In the new creation, there will be no more separation. We will experience unending communion at the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7), and all things will be brought together in Christ (Ephesians 1:10).
To know Christ, we must train our souls to seek the Voice, not the echo—to pursue the Source of beauty and not merely its reflections. As David cries in Psalm 42, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.” This isn’t poetic exaggeration; it’s the honest confession of a soul that has learned where true satisfaction lies. In Psalm 27, David declares, “One thing I ask… that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,” and in Psalm 73, he cuts through every worldly distraction with the piercing line: “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.”
This kind of soul-training takes time. It grows through the slow work of meditating on Scripture, walking in prayer, and cooperating with the Holy Spirit. We must acknowledge our misplaced affections, repent, and remember what our hearts were truly made for: the presence of God.
As we walk this path, we are also called to walk it with others. When counseling, comforting, or encouraging those who are hurting, lonely, or tangled in the false promises of worldly intimacy, we must point them gently toward the deeper longing beneath the pain. Like shepherds, we wear them not to hollow comfort but to the rich, abiding truth: Your soul was made for God.
Final Thought
To hug someone is to press into the mystery of God’s design—to affirm that we were not made for isolation, but for communion. Every full-bodied embrace, every tearful reunion, every clinging moment of love is a quiet sermon.
Mark Grant was raised in Columbus, Ohio, and attended Ohio State. He married Lesa as he finished his MS in Mechanical Engineering. He moved to Los Angeles to work in the Aerospace Industry. After 5 years of a difficult marriage, he and Lesa were saved. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Portland, Oregon and were blessed with a daughter. He currently works for the Navy as a civilian engineer. He lives outside Philadelphia.
