Love

ἀγάπη

אַהֲבָה

Self-giving goodwill that seeks another's good.

LOVE

1. An affection of the mind excited by beauty and worth of any kind, or by the qualities of an object which communicate pleasure, sensual or intellectual. It is opposed to hatred.

In Scripture, love begins with God himself: "God is love" (1 John 4:8). It is known most clearly in what he has done: "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10). God's love does not wait for us to be worth loving — "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

Human love answers his: "We love, because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). The Law already summed up what that love owes — to love God "with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might" (Deuteronomy 6:5) and to "love thy neighbor as thyself" (Leviticus 19:18) — and Jesus joined the two as the first and second commandments (Matthew 22:37-39).

Webster describes love as an affection drawn out by beauty, worth or pleasing qualities. Much human love is like that, and Scripture honors it — the love of friends, of husband and wife, of parents and children. But the love God shows goes further. He told Israel that he did not set his love on them because they were many, but "because Jehovah loveth you," and because he kept the oath he had sworn to their fathers (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). Such love is not caused by the worth of the one loved; it gives and seeks their good.

That is why biblical love is described more by what it does than by how it feels. "Love suffereth long, and is kind ... seeketh not its own" (1 Corinthians 13:4-5). It reaches even to enemies (Matthew 5:44), and it must be real in action: "let us not love in word, neither with the tongue; but in deed and truth" (1 John 3:18). So "love therefore is the fulfilment of the law" (Romans 13:10).

In the ASV love is heard most in 1 John, the Song of Solomon, the Psalms, John and Deuteronomy. Where the King James Version reads charity in 1 Corinthians 13, the ASV reads love; the Greek word is the same agape.

The Hebrew ahavah and its verb cover the whole range of love — for God, for a neighbor, a friend (1 Samuel 18:3), a wife, even a favorite dish (Genesis 27:4). In the New Testament agape and its verb are the usual words, alongside phileo, the love of friendship and affection. The difference between them is sometimes pressed further than the words allow: both are used of the Father's love for the Son (John 3:35; John 5:20), and Demas is said to have "loved this present world" with the agape verb (2 Timothy 4:10). Readers still discuss whether the change between the two verbs in John 21:15-17 carries weight. What gives agape its depth in the New Testament is not the word alone but the love it describes — above all at the cross.

Terms

• love

and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

The great command: love God with everything you are.

Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people; but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am Jehovah.

Love of neighbor is already written in the Law of Moses.

Jehovah appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

God's love for his people is everlasting, and it draws them to him.

but I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you;

Jesus stretches love to reach even enemies and persecutors.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.

God's love for the world is measured by what he gave.

A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

Jesus' love for his disciples is the pattern for their love for one another.

But God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

God's love comes to us while we are still sinners.

Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Love described by what it does and what it refuses to do.

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Love is defined by God's giving of his Son, not by our love for him.

We love, because he first loved us.

All our love is an answer to his.

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