True love is so deep, so broad, so high it is beyond understanding (Eph. 3:18,19).
In fact, somehow it is related to “all the fullness of God” (v.19). But if Christ indeed lives in us through faith we can be so established in the experience of love that we have the power to comprehend this greatest of all qualities (vv.17, 18).
To understand a biblical definition of love, different at every point from the typical human understanding of love, we must look at it from several different perspectives. Consider first of all the criteria by which we evaluate the quality of love, then the initiating and effective agent of love, the reason for love, the limits of love, and finally the objects of love.
I. DEFINITION OF LOVE
Love is indeed very difficult to define. It is so difficult that the Bible idea of love can’t be found in any culture or language, not even the Greek.
Greek has four different words for love but even in combination they were not adequate to describe the biblical idea. Agape was the word chosen to express love, but since it was a cold and intellectual concept of relationships, even this word had to be renovated and filled with a truer meaning. In Japan, ai is the word for love but it is basically the idea of the romantic relationship between members of the opposite sex. Even English has its problems. The translators of the Authorized Version of the Bible spurned the simple Saxon word “love” and chose the Latin, “charity.” And look what has happened to that! But even after centuries of influence by the wide-spread use of Scripture, our English is still inadequate–
“I love hot dogs and milkshakes. “
“Love me, love my dog. “
“Raw love. “
“John loves Mary. “
“For God so loved the world. “
For an abstract idea or a large concept it is often necessary to define by describing or illustrating. This is what Scripture does concerning love. “God is love” is the description (I John 4:8,16). This is the basic difference between the biblical concept of love and our concept of love. The Bible defines love by the nature of God. We tend to define love by the nature of man.
To say that God is love does not mean that God equals love. Love does not describe God exhaustively. He has other qualities such as wisdom and strength. But this does mean that as to His character, nothing in God’s nature violates love. God always acts lovingly.
Again, “God is love” does not mean that love equals God. Love is an emotion or at best a motive in our common use of the word. A dictionary definition is, “a feeling of strong personal attachment induced by sympathetic understanding, or by ties of affection; ardent affection.” Love is not an entity, having objective existence as an object, let alone personality. To say that love and God are equivalent would deify love and make it the absolute by which God Himself is controlled. Both situation ethics and Christian science would tend to do this. Rather, love gains whatever stature it has because God is that way. He forms the concept by His nature.
The loving nature of God is the basis for all of His activity. He created man because He is love. When man rejected this loving approach of God and broke the relationship, God continued loving because God is love by nature. And so we have the story of redemption. Thus all of life finds meaning in being loved by God and loving Him. As we shall see later, even sin and hell result from God’s love. God was not obliged to love by some external “ought.” Loving is the way He is. This is one of the greatest evidences for the Trinity. God the Father loves God the Son and God the Holy Spirit from all eternity. God the Son loves the Father and the Spirit; and the Spirit loves the Son and the Father.
Since God Himself defines love, human love is God-likeness. Not only is it true that “God is love” (I John 4:8) but also “Love is of God” (I John 4:7). And what is God like? God is true and faithful. He always promotes the happiness and welfare of the other, even to self-giving sacrifice.
Again, “Love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10). Therefore to love is to obey the will of God. “If you love me you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15, 23). In this way, it might be said that biblical love is more the verb than the noun. “Love” has no objective existence as an independent entity. Rather “love” describes a relationship, an attitude, an activity, an emotion. To love God is to obey Him. “Law” describes and defines how one who loves will respond, react, act, relate, and feel. Thus, in one sense one might say that law is love and love is law.
In summary, love is deliberately acting for the welfare of another.
II. THE AGENT OF LOVE
Man is a whole and cannot be divided, for example, into knowledge, will, and emotions. However, since a whole person does function at times volitionally and at other times emotionally, it is proper for us to say that the will “controlled” one action and the emotions “controlled” another. One can will to act contrary to the impulse of his emotions. From the Bible’s viewpoint, the ultimate initiating agent of love is the will rather than the emotions.
Merely human love–eros and philia–begins with emotion or passion and may lead to the action of the will. Agape begins with the will and normally leads to emotional involvement as well.
We are commanded to love. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God . . . thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:37-39). “If you love me you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). “This is love, that we should walk after His commandments” (II John 6). The first question Scripture asks is not, “how do you feel about this person?” but rather, “what choices must you make concerning this person?”
Biblical love is not exhausted by acting lovingly, a choice of the will. If we truly act in love, ordinarily the emotion will normally follow. True, one can love without liking. In fact it is required of us that we act lovingly no matter how we feel. However, if we are acting in true biblical love the liking will ordinarily follow along.
It is Christ’s command that we love our neighbor. Why doesn’t He command that we love “everyone”? Certainly God loves the world and He calls us to join Him in that love. However, love must act. A loving act springing from the choice of the will is sharply focused by pointing out one’s neighbor. Love is not just a soft feeling, much less mere tolerance. Love is active, it takes the initiative, it does specific things for the person who is near at hand.
The “Silver Rule” speaks of refraining from harming in a way that one would not himself like to be harmed. Some feel that this is the other side of the “Golden Rule” that we should do to others as we would have them do to us. However, biblical love is love-in-action. It springs from the choice of the will and is not merely passive, refraining from doing harm. It is not limited to the negative. It is positive and active.
The essential and primary agent or moving force in one who is like God is his will. He chooses to act for the welfare of another.
III. THE REASON FOR LOVE
Another great contrast between mere human love and biblical love is in the reason for love. Ordinary love depends on the worth of the object, the loved one. Biblical love depends on the quality of the subject, the lover. In Luke 6:27-35 Jesus explains this in great detail. To love those, who love us is nothing great.
It is when we choose deliberately to love those who do not deserve it, those who are in fact our enemies that we have reflected the divine love.
Human love demands a return on its investment. We might call it “swap-love.” Human love keeps on loving so long as there is a return on the investment or at least so long as there is hope of a return. Divine love is not conditional. This is not to say that biblical love desires no return on its investment. Certainly God, in loving us, longs for us to love Him in return. However, biblical love does not lay this as a condition to giving love. It is self-giving, not getting. Unredeemed human love is ordinarily self-centered, self-serving, self-seeking. Love for self.
Again in human love there must be something worthy of love in the object, ordinarily. There must be a reason to be loved. Therefore, eros and philia (love between the sexes and the love of friends) are selective and exclusive. But God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were yet enemies He made the ultimate sacrifice for us (Rom. 5:8). Divine love is unmerited.
Evil for good is devil-like
Evil for evil is animal-like
Good for good is man-like
Good for evil is God-like
In other religions, such as Confucianism and Buddhism there is strong teaching concerning love, and sacrificial love at that. However, these are always limited. For example, Jin in Confucianism has very strong obligations to sacrifice for another, even to the point of giving one’s life. However, these obligations are all within certain established relationships (ruler, spouse, parents, children, friends, etc.) while deliberately excluding others. But God accepts a person as he is (Rom. 14:15) and forgives not because the person is lovable or love-worthy but because God is love.
IV. THE LIMITS OF LOVE
The key question is this: Does my love for self limit my love for the other person or does my love for the other limit my love for myself?
Ordinary human love gives for another by degree. But when the cost of acting lovingly gets too high, love ends. It is usually limited. God’s love in a very real sense is unlimited. He loves to the giving of His only Son.
Thus, the quality of love may be measured by the sacrifice it stands ready to make. Jesus indicated this measurement when He said, “ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13). I know of no way other than sacrifice to measure this intangible quality. It may be present without sacrifice or cost. And it often is. But so long as there is a return benefit there is no proof that the love is truly other -Iove rather than self-love.
Do not seek to measure love accurately by instruments such as the emotional temperature or an esthetic scale or subjective analysis. But love can be measured, and must be.
Yet some are so strong on self-sacrificing love they hold self-love to be wrong. Did not Christ say that a person should hate himself? However, the same passage says that we are to hate our parents (Luke 14:26). Surely we are dealing here with a figure of speech, an absolute statement to emphasize a relative truth. The Bible actually assumes that we will love ourselves–“Love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:39). “No man ever yet hated his own body” (Ephesians 5:29).
If a person actually hates or dislikes himself, he is sick. There are many who confuse the biblical call to self-sacrifice and self-denial as a non-acceptance of oneself. Non-acceptance of self is indeed a great problem. Psychologists seek to solve this problem by convincing a person that he is truly great or that he is not guilty. His failure is the fault of society, or his inherited characteristics for which he has no responsibility. Rather, the biblical solution to this problem is the assurance that God forgives, God accepts us. We really are guilty but that guilt has been done away and if God accepts us we can certainly accept ourselves. Furthermore, Scripture teaches that we are created in the image of God and that we were created and saved on purpose. Though we may not be important or significant to anyone else, we are that important to God.
Yet if self-love is legitimate, how can one tell whether he is adequately loving another? The test comes when the best interest of self and the best interest of another are in conflict. At this point, no matter what our emotional response, if we choose to sacrifice what we perceive to be our own best interest for the best interest of another, we have loved as God loved.
Human love is limited by the response in the object, by the degree of sacrifice demanded, by the resources of time, wisdom, and strength that are at our disposal. God’s love is without limit.
V. THE OBJECT OF LOVE
Most people most of the time, including most Christians, choose what they choose and act the way they do from the motive of self-love. The highest loyalty is to self. Even in the most altruistic of humanistic ethics, the top priority is man.
But in biblical love, the ultimate, controlling love is love for God (Matthew 22:37, 38). The ultimate fulfillment, the integrating factor of life, the pivotal relationship, the comprehensive category, the top priority. the ruling love is love for God.
Once again, we cannot weigh or measure love. It is futile to worry about whether we have as warm an affection for God as we do for a child or wife or husband. The controlling love of life becomes quite evident when a confrontation comes. When the apparent best interest of another or ourselves and the best interest of God come into conflict, love must make a choice.
There is a hierarchy, then, among our three basic motivations. And love for God must control.
But not only does love for God control our choices, this love validates all the other loves. Love for God makes love for others and even for ourselves operate at the level He designed. If I fail to hold love for God as the ultimate, I do more than damage love for man or love for self, I may even invalidate the horizontal love. For example, when parents put a child on the highest throne of affection and sacrifice responsibilities to God and obedience to His will for that child, the relationship to the child himself becomes warped and grotesque. Besides, there’s a fallout in other relations as well.
VI. LOVE DEMONSTRATED
The cross of Christ demonstrates the love of God more clearly than any other act of any other person in all history.
Jesus demonstrated God’s definition of love by deliberately choosing to act for my welfare at the cost of total self-sacrifice. Again, this act was not controlled by His emotions. Emotionally, Jesus cried out to avert the cross. But in the end He made the choice, “Not my will, but thine be done.” Again, the reason for love is clearly seen. On the cross Jesus Christ did not offer Himself for one who is worthy of that love. His act depended exclusively on the quality of His love not on the potential return. Certainly this was the ultimate sacrifice and n0 limit was set. Finally, nowhere does the hierarchy of love stand out more clearly than on the cross. Of course, He loved himself and that is why He shrank from identification with sin and separation from His Father. That is why He endured–for the sake of the joy set before Him, the assurance that this was the way to victory, to winning a great multitude of those who would love Him in return. However, this was not the controlling love. Far stronger was the motivation of His love for us. “In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us ” (I John 4:10). “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16). “In this the love of God is manifest in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:8). But in the final analysis, when the showdown came in the garden of Gethsemane, it was His obedient love for the Father that made the choice, “Not my will but thine be done” (Matthew 26:39).