Introduction
The Christian virtue of love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23), and descriptions of it can be found throughout the Bible. Such love differentiates believers from all other people. However, love is not confined in the Bible to a mere expression of self-giving and self-sacrifice between one person and another. In Scripture, love is manifested in various spheres. Chief among these is God’s love, which is supremely expressed in Christ (Rom. 5:8), but we also see a believer’s love for God (Deut. 6:5), man’s love for his neighbor (Matt. 22:39), and man’s love for impersonal things (Titus 1:8; 1 Tim. 6:10; 2 Tim. 3:4).
Explanation
God has an eternal and infinite love for His people, which is demonstrated by giving “his only begotten Son” to secure their eternal life (John 3:16). Dr. R.C. Sproul writes, “Love is so important to the Bible’s teachings that John tells us, ”God is love“ (1 John 4:7–8). Whatever else we say about the Christian virtue of love, we must be clear that the love God commands is a love that imitates His own.” The holy love expressed by the triune God within the Godhead is utterly perfect. God’s eternal love is freely extended to His people in Christ and never depends on circumstances, variations, or fluctuations. In the Old Testament, God’s love is often equated with the love of a father and mother for their child: “I will make them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble, for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn” (Jer. 31:9). “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you” (Isa. 49:15; 66:13). While God has expressed a kind of love that theologians refer to as common grace to all His creatures (Ps. 145:9), only those who are redeemed in Christ and have come into a right relationship with God through His Son (John 14:21, 23; 16:27) are the objects of His saving love, and only they fully enjoy the love of God.
Jesus declared that the first and great commandment of the law is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37; cf. Deut. 6:5). Not only is loving God a command given to His people, but it’s the proper response to the Lord who loved us and rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of light (Col. 1:13). To love God is to delight supremely in God as the most glorious and satisfying being. Love for God is expressed by understanding who He is in all His divine attributes and characteristics, known through His revelation to us in Scripture. To love God in this way requires faith, which is the “conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). Such faith enables and fuels our love for God. We must never think that our love for God merits His favor or benefits; rather, it is the proper and grateful response to His infinite love for us.
If a believer in Christ delights in God’s love and expresses that love back to God by delighting in Him, that love will be reflected outwardly to our fellow man (John 13:34). While the first great commandment is love for God, the second great commandment is that we love our neighbors as ourselves (Matt. 22:39). This commandment is found in Leviticus 19:18: “You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” This is love, and God does not limit it only to those in our own family, to our friends, or to our church but extends it to include the “stranger who sojourns with you” (Lev. 19:34). Therefore, with patience and kindness, all believers are commanded to love all those who bear the image of God (1 Cor. 13). In the New Testament, John said, “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). In other words, the love expressed to others reflects the infinite love extended by God to unworthy and undeserving sinners. This type of love is to be pursued by believers, for we should make it our aim to “stir up one another to love and good works” (Heb. 10:24). Moreover, while Christians are called to love all people, they are to especially love their brothers and sisters in Christ (Gal. 6:10; 1 John 3:11–18).
Another expression of love described in the Bible is man’s love for impersonal things. While we are to enjoy all good things given to us by God, we must never divert our affection away from God to the blessings He freely gives (1 Tim. 4:3; 6:17). Several passages speak of the danger of loving earthly treasures such as money (Matt. 6:24), pleasures (2 Tim. 3:4), and human praise (Matt. 6:5; 3 John 9). John even says that “if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15–17). The great danger in loving the things and pleasures of this world is that such love brings us into direct enmity toward God (James 4:4; cf. 2 Tim. 4:10). The “world” here is anything that would lay claim on our affections and draw us away from an absolute love for God and others.
Quotes
The love of God is utterly perfect. And we are called to reflect and mirror that love to perfection, to be perfect as He is perfect (Matt. 5:48). Now, of course, none of us loves perfectly, which is why we must be covered with the perfect righteousness of Christ by faith in Him alone. Nevertheless, it’s important for us to return time and again to Scripture to find out what love is supposed to look like, for we’re so easily satisfied with a sentimental, maudlin, romantic, or superficial understanding of love.
When Paul commands us to walk in love, the context reveals that in positive terms, he is talking about being kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving to one another (Eph. 4:32). The model for such selfless love is Christ, who gave His life to save His people from their sins. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). And “if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11). In other words, true love is always sacrificial, self-giving, merciful, compassionate, sympathetic, kind, generous, and patient. These and many other positive, benevolent qualities (1 Cor. 13:4–8) are what Scripture associates with divine love.
It is virtually impossible to exaggerate the importance of love. Nothing is more basic to true spirituality than this singular virtue. Nothing is more central to Christian living. At the very heart of authentic discipleship is love. Without love, we are nothing. When Jesus was asked, “Which is the great commandment in the Law?” (Matt. 22:36), He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37). Christ then added a second commandment that follows directly from the first: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:39). In this, Jesus asserted that our love for one another is the identifying badge of discipleship (John 13:35). The Apostle Paul further maintained that such love is the fulfillment of the Law (Gal. 5:14). That is to say, love meets every requirement of the divine standard. It is a debt that can never be repaid, so love must be given continually. In Christian living, love is not a secondary matter—it is a primary matter. Love is never incidental. It is fundamental.