I once read a passage in the Bible that spoke of God’s love. As I read it, I suddenly realized that I knew nothing about love. Everything that I was accustomed to thinking of as love became a pale and, in many cases, badly distorted image of true love in my mind. I will return to this revolutionary insight a little later.
Love in the Bible
The phenomenon we call love is a popular theme in literature, stories, music, and movies. Love is undeniably important and ever-present in our lives: in addition to our loved ones, we love Harry Potter, spring, and McDonald’s, we value neighborly love, and we smile at those who are newly in love. Love between people brings deep and significant content to life. Being loved is a gift that makes life more meaningful and sometimes even seems to save it.
The Bible talks a lot about love. However, our problem is that we do not understand the enormous difference between God’s love and human love. We are misled by the fact that both are described as ‘love’, when in reality comparing them is like comparing a toothpick to a rainforest or a grain of sand to the Rocky Mountains. Of course, there is something similar about them—love is always connected in some way to caring —but it is impossible for us to comprehend the magnitude of God’s attributes.
In many languages, there is only one general word for love. This makes it difficult to grasp the essence of love. Imagine that in your native language there was only one word to refer to fish. You are swimming in the sea with your friends and you tell them you see a fish. From their point of view, it is quite important whether the fish you see is a sardine or a white shark. When it comes to essential matters, a general term is not enough; more precise concepts are needed.
The Greek language has four words to describe love: Philía means affection and love between friends. This word is used in the Bible to describe, for example, the relationship between Jesus and his friend Lazarus. Storgē, on the other hand, means the loving bond between family members or relatives. This word appears only once in the Bible (Rom. 1:31). The third type of love in Greek is érōs, which means erotic and romantic love. This word does not appear in the Bible.
The fourth type of love, agapē, is the most important. In the New Testament, agapē describes the divine love that God himself shows or that God inspires in people. Agapē is the rainforest and the Rocky Mountains that we cannot comprehend with our limited understanding. It is love without ulterior motives, conditions, or reservations. It is love that is perfect at all times, regardless of the object of that love and whether that object deserves it. It even lays down its life for its friends (John 15:13). At best, we have only a tiny glimpse of the immeasurability of God’s love.
Agapē – divine love
The Bible passage about love that I mentioned at the beginning, which became one of the most important ones for me, was Romans 5:5. It reads as follows:
“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us”.
This is one of the Bible passages that speaks of agapē love.
When talking about the deepest essence of love, we must forget all our previous conceptions of love. Love is not essentially a feeling toward another person. Its core is not actions or deeds directed from the doer to the object of the deed. Strictly speaking, we should not even ask what love is, but who it is. The apostle of love, John, answers this question:
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1. John 4:7-8)
The two Bible verses above show what love really is. It is two things. First, as John says, love is eternal God Himself. He is Righteous, He is Holy, He is Love. Second, as Paul points out in Romans 5:5, love as an earthly phenomenon is, at its deepest level, God within the heart of the believer.
God loves sinful people and wants to forgive their sins. This is the first form of agapē. The second form of agapē becomes apparent when sinful people are preached about the forgiveness of sins based on the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Then they receive the Holy Spirit, and with it, perfect love – God Himself. Let us read again that passage from the Epistle to the Romans: “God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.”
John, on the other hand, writes:
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
Human beings are incapable of producing or demonstrating agapē, even to the extent of a speck of dust. Instead, human beings’ tendency toward evil is as absolute as God’s love is absolute. John states: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).
This is a shocking picture of humanity. What is most shocking is that John uses the word agapē. People therefore love darkness with all their hearts, unconditionally and without reservation, regardless of what that darkness is. In the words of Paul: “there is no one who does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:12).
Love Chapter
At Christian weddings, the Love Chapter is often read. It describes what love is like:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Cor. 13:4-8).
But can anyone claim that their love for their spouse has always been like that? I don’t think so, because no one can be perfect in this matter either. There can be arguments, bitterness, harsh words, and memories of injustices suffered between spouses.
However, in his Love Chapter, Paul does not refer to the love between spouses or to human love in general. Instead, he describes what God’s love, agapē, looks like in human beings. At the same time, he tells us about the ideal we should strive for in our relationships.
Years ago, I was the best man at my brother’s wedding and gave a speech. In my speech, I compared marital love to faith: both are gifts that we can only ask God for, because we cannot find them in ourselves. And if He gives us faith or love, without His help we are unable to keep it. If faith fades or love ends, we can only blame ourselves for no longer wanting to believe or love.
In both faith and marital love, maintaining one’s will requires constant humility and awareness that one has failed again. The best way to nurture both marital love and faith is to ask for forgiveness for one’s failures again and again. Marriage can last a long time if both spouses genuinely strive to love their partner according to Paul’s ideal. Or, conversely, the more unforgivable sins and tensions there are between spouses, the more difficult it is to remain in the kind of lifelong marriage ordained by God.
Faith affects love
In addition to marital love, believing spouses share the agapē love that unites all believers and can work miracles. When a person has been forgiven their own great sins, God’s grace begins to teach them in everything—including relationships. Only a branch that is part of a living tree can bear fruit (John 15:1-6). Similarly, the fruits of the Spirit are only visible in a person once they have been connected to God’s church and have become partakers of the tree’s sap, the Holy Spirit, and God’s love (Rom. 11:17-24).
God’s love thus begins to be seen in a person who has been forgiven their sins, and that is why its effect is also called the effect of grace. Paul wrote to Titus:
“For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:11-12).
To the congregation in Galatia, he wrote:
“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Gal. 5:6).
The love of God shines through a believer. According to Paul, it can also be called the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ, which surrounds all true believers and can also be perceived by outsiders (2 Cor. 2:14-16). On the other hand, if a believer does not nurture their faith but allows it to fade, God’s love in them will grow cold. Jesus said, “Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:12-13).
Jesus’ warning is appropriate, because stubbornness leads to the loss of faith and God’s love. He rebuked the shepherd of the church in Ephesus:
“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first” (Rev. 2:4-5).
Therefore, believers must ask God for strength to put away sin and to preserve faith and love (Heb. 12:1).
Love between believers
The two Bible passages mentioned at the beginning teach us not only about the loving nature of God, but also about the agapē love between believers. As John put it: “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God.”
A person who has had their sins forgiven and received the Holy Spirit has also received God’s love in their heart. The central manifestation of this is love for the congregation, for other children of God: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.” According to Jesus, it is precisely through mutual love that people can recognize His disciples (John 13:35).
A friend of mine felt God’s call already in her youth. She pondered on her faith, read the Bible, and prayed. She got to know many churches and joined some, but later left them. She found friends and experienced a sense of kinship, and sometimes her mind was calmed for a moment. Deep down, however, she was restless and worried about her sins. Then she became acquainted with the teachings of God’s congregation. She contacted them, asked questions, and discussed things with them—and eventually ended up in the services of believers. There, all her sins were forgiven in the name and blood of Jesus. God gave her the power and the right to believe (John 1:12), and she found peace.
My friend told me that as she visited different churches and congregations, she saw many kinds of spirituality and teaching, worship and prayer, sacraments and devotional practices, friendship and caring — but nowhere else had she seen the wonderful connection between believers that was evident among God’s children. And it is wonderful, because it is God’s love.
The Old Testament describes the relationship between two close friends, David and Jonathan: “Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself”. Later, David mourns the death of his friend:
“I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women” (2 Sam. 1:26).
I have heard a theory suggesting that there was an inappropriate romantic relationship between David and Jonathan. In light of the overall message of the Bible, this cannot be true, because if it were, David would have been severely judged in the Bible for a homosexual relationship. Besides, readers of the Bible who have experienced divine agapē among believers will recognize the same love in the description of David. Agapē is even more beautiful than marital love.
God’s love can only be found in God’s church
If you want to see what God’s love is, you must find God’s church on earth. It is not found anywhere else, for it is precisely on the basis of this wonderful mutual love that God’s church can be recognized on earth. Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35). The love between God’s children does not come from themselves, but it is God’s love that binds them together so tightly that they are as one.
And in fact, that is what they are. In his farewell prayer, Jesus describes the connection between God’s children by praying three times that they might be one:
“Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one” (John 17:11).
He later continues:
“I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one” (John 17:20-22).
Just as Jesus Christ, God, and the Holy Spirit are one, God’s love not only binds believers to one another, but truly makes them one as it made David and Jonathan. It makes them a bride who is still waiting for her groom (Eph. 5:31-32).
“The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life” (Rev. 22:17).
Author: Kingdom of Peace
Image: Erkki Alasaarela, Credits: SRK