Love

The English word "love" translates a family of Greek words that carry distinct nuances:

(1) Agape (ἀγάπη, unconditional love, willing the good of the beloved regardless of the beloved's response; a love that originates in the lover's character, not the beloved's worth; the word most used in the NT for divine love and commanded love). The verb agapao. The word was relatively rare in classical Greek and is given new theological freight in the LXX (translating ahavah, love, in Deuteronomy 6:5 "love the LORD your God with all your heart") and especially in the NT.

(2) Philia (φιλία, affection, friendship, the love of mutual relationship; the love of those who enjoy each other's company). The verb phileo. Jesus "loved" Lazarus in this sense (John 11:3, 36, "Lord, he whom you love [phileis] is ill"; "See how he loved [ephilei] him!"). The Peter-restoration dialogue of John 21:15-17 plays on both agapao and phileo, though the significance of the distinction is debated.

(3) Eros (ἔρως, passionate desire, attraction; often romantic/sexual love; not used in the NT). The absence of eros from the NT does not make it theologically negative; the Song of Songs celebrates erotic love within the covenant of marriage. The Platonic elevation of eros to a principle of ascent toward the Good is transformed in Christianity: the movement toward God is not eros (the creature's ascending desire) but agape (the Creator's descending gift).

(4) Storge (στοργή, natural affection, especially family love, the love of parents for children; rare in the NT; appears in compounds: philostorgoi in Romans 12:10, "love one another with brotherly affection").

The NT's dominance of agape: the NT chooses the word least tainted by conditional, merit-based, or primarily-erotic associations to describe both divine love and commanded Christian love. The choice of agape signals that what is being commanded is not a feeling but a decision of the will toward the good of the other.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

The four elements:

(1) The source: "God", the love originates in YHWH, not in any quality of the world that warrants it. The world (kosmos in John carries the full weight of the fallen creation in its hostility and darkness, 1:10, 7:7, 15:18-19) is not loved because it is lovely; it is loved because YHWH is love.

(2) The scope: "the world", not Israel alone, not the elect alone (in the context of John 3), but the entire human world toward which YHWH extends his Son

(3) The gift: "he gave his only Son" (edoken ton huion ton monogene), the Trinitarian gift of the Son; "gave" here encompasses both the incarnation and the crucifixion; the Son is given as the representative gift

(4) The condition and the promise: "whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life", the universality of the offer (whoever, pas ho pisteuo) and the double consequence: not perishing and having eternal life

John 3:16 is embedded in the Nicodemus dialogue (3:1-21) and is followed immediately by 3:17: "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." The missional intent of the incarnation.

1 Corinthians 13 is not a generic meditation on human love; it is Paul's argument, embedded in his discussion of spiritual gifts (chapters 12-14), that love is the superior gift without which all other gifts are worthless:

1 Corinthians 13:1-3: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal... And if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing... If I give away all I have... but have not love, I gain nothing." The gifts without love = noise, nothing, nothing gained.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7, the character portrait of agape (15 attributes, all behavioral, not emotional):

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

1 Corinthians 13:13: "So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." The argument: faith will give way to sight; hope will give way to possession; love alone is eternal in its nature, in the fullness of the kingdom, it is love that remains.

The great commandment (Matthew 22:37-40): "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." The double love command (Deuteronomy 6:5 + Leviticus 19:18) is the summary of the entire Torah. Romans 13:10, "love is the fulfilling of the law."

The Sanctum holds that love is not merely the highest human virtue but the disclosure of YHWH's own being (1 John 4:8, "God is love"). This means love is not a feeling to be waited for but a practice to be chosen; not a response to the lovely but an orientation toward the other's good. The agape that YHWH exercises toward a hostile world is the same love that is commanded of the community that bears his name, "as I have loved you, so you also are to love one another" (John 13:34). The measure of the commanded love is the love of the cross.