Love
can be a challenge to define at the level of how a person experiences it. Love
can involve personal affection, sexual attraction, platonic admiration,
brotherly loyalty, benevolent concern, or worshipful adoration. To accurately
answer the question “what is love?” we need to go to the origin of love. The
Bible tells us that love originates in God.
In
the English language, the word love is forced to bear the
burden of a multitude of meanings. We “love” everything from pancakes to
parents, but in vastly different ways. The languages in which the Bible was
written, Hebrew and Greek, are more precise in that they utilize different words
for the different types of love. The ancient languages differentiate among
sexual, brotherly, and familial love, and also the kind of love that God has
for creation and that we may have for Him.
The Hebrew word yada and the Greek word eros are
the words used to indicate sexual love. In Genesis 38 Judah makes
love with a woman he assumes is a prostitute. In the original Hebrew of verse
26, the word is yada, meaning “to know” and in this context “to
know carnally” or “to have sexual intercourse with.” In the New Testament, the
Greek word eros is not found because there is no context in
which it might be used.
The second type of love is the brotherly love that exists between close friends
regardless of gender. There is no sexual connotation; it is the love for and by
a friend. The Hebrew word is ahabah, and it is used to describe the
love between David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel 20:17. The Greek word for
brotherly love or affection is phileo, as used to refer to
friendship in John 15:19, Romans 12:10, and Hebrews 13:1.
Of family or tribal love, the Hebrew word is once again ahabah,
indicating a deep affection, and the Greek word is storge. We
find ahabah throughout the Old Testament because of its broad
range of meanings, but the Greek word storge is only found in
the New Testament as a negative word, astorgos, meaning
"without natural love" (e.g., in 2 Timothy 3:3).
Finally, there is the Hebrew word chesed and the Greek
word agape, which are used to express the kind of love God
demonstrates toward His elect. Chesed is often translated as
“steadfast love” or “lovingkindness.” A good example of chesed is
found in Numbers 14:18, “The Lord is slow to anger and abounding
in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression”. God’s chesed love
is why He never gives up on those He has adopted as His children. Throughout
the Old Testament, God’s people repeatedly fell into idolatry and sin, yet He
always preserved a remnant; He never gives up on His people. The reason is
His chesed love.
A similar idea is found in the New Testament with the Greek word agape. Agape love
is the goodwill and benevolence of God shown in self-sacrifice and an
unconditional commitment to the loved one. Agape is similar
to chesed in that it is steadfast, regardless of
circumstances. Agape love is the kind of love we are to have
for God in fulfillment of the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:37).
Jesus wants to instill agape in His followers as we serve
others through the power of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 22:39; John 13:34).
In the most basic sense, love is the emotion felt and actions performed by
someone concerned for the well-being of another person. Love involves
affection, compassion, care, and self-sacrifice. Love originates in the Triune
Godhead, within the eternal relationship that exists among the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit (1 John 4:7–8). Loving is unique to the human experience of being
an image-bearer of God. A pet owner may love her dog; she is concerned for its
well-being and cares for it. On the other hand, her dog doesn’t truly love her.
Oh, it wags its tail, sits by her, and comes when she calls, but all of those
responses are based on the fact that she feeds it and keeps it warm. Animals
cannot love in the same way that humans, created in God’s image, can love.
Here is the bottom line on love: “This is how God showed his love among us: He
sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This
is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an
atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also
ought to love one another. . . . We love because he first loved us” (1 John
4:9–11, 19).
- Provided by "Got Questions Ministries"