The Beatles famously sang, “all you need is love.” This phrase, sung ad nauseam in the track, does very little to actually aid in filling the “need” of the audience if one does not know the meaning of love. Interestingly, along these lines, this song came about at a time when there was a cultural shift from what one might call objectivity to a more relativistic understanding of many “truths,” including “love,” during the so-called “Summer of Love.” The culture was indeed changing, and from this point forward, there has been nothing if not a continual relativizing of the word love.
Beyond the rather unidentifiable meaning of love in these examples, the word is also used without much specificity in our everyday language. We love our baseball team, and we love our family. We love our favorite fast-food restaurant, and we love our spouse. While we might feel strongly about any one of these things, the hope is that we do not intend to flatten the meaning so that we are expressing love equally for a hamburger and our marital partner. Considering all the data above leads us to the need for an objective definition of love.
As Christians, we believe that truth is objective because God is a God of truth and because God has spoken by his word; therefore, we should turn to his word to understand the meaning of love. If you are familiar with God’s word, the first thing that may come to mind is 1 John 4:8, which states that “God is love.” The word used here for love is one that most Christians know, agape. This word carries the sense of strong affection, and when applied to God, we understand it as unconditional.
Further, when speaking about God in himself, if we say that he is not composed of parts, then when God declares through his word that he is love, he is not saying that some part of him is love, but rather that he is the very essence of love. Therefore, if we want to define love, we must start with God.
A Definition Based on Scripture
Scripture helps define God’s love when it says that he demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8). The heart of the gospel we believe is that those who were unlovable, God—who is the very essence of love—reconciles sinners to himself through the great plan of redeeming love. In this plan, the Father sends the Son into the world to assume humanity, live the life we could not live, die the death we deserve, and be resurrected three days later to show his victory over sin and death. He then ascends to the right hand of the Father, who with the Son sends the Spirit as love poured out in our hearts (Rom 5:5).
Stating that first and foremost God is love does not mean that there are not other ways that the Scriptures express love. This truth does not diminish the objectivity of love but rather shows what we by nature know—that there are kinds of love. Taking our example from above, we should not speak of love equivalently as if we love our favorite sports team in the same way we love our family.
Different Types of Love
The Bible does distinguish certain types of love with different words. For instance, there is what is known as brotherly love (phileo). This word is often used to express familial love. When Jesus gets word about Lazarus being sick, his sisters send word to him saying, “Lord, he whom you love is ill” (Jn 11:3). Closely related to the idea of brotherly love is the term storgē, which essentially means natural affection. This term is used rarely in the New Testament, but conveys that there is a natural affection as in that for the family of the church (Rom 12:10), and an unnatural affection or disordered affection translated as heartless in one of Paul’s vice lists (2 Tim 3:1-5).
You may have also heard of the word eros as related to love, but this word is not found in the Scriptures. It was, however, a word generally used during the time of Jesus and the Apostles, and has been associated with sexual desire, though it does not necessarily carry this meaning always.
These distinctions demonstrate in the language of Scripture (as well as in the language of the time of the Bible) that which is rarely captured in the English language. However, seeing these differences does lead us to some conclusions. First, we need to see that even though there are various kinds of love, we should not see the meaning of love as subjective.
The kinds of love mentioned above are not open to interpretation because Scripture addresses love that is both ordered and disordered. Concerning ordered love, Jesus says that the first and second tables of the Ten Commandments are summarized in these words: Love God and love neighbor. We cannot negotiate the primacy of loving God and loving neighbor over the love of self.
Clearly, we are to see ourselves rightly as those made in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27), but selfishness does not define love; rather, sacrifice does (Eph 5:25-31; Phil 2:1-10). Understanding these ordered loves also helps us to see the distinction between love amongst spouses, family, and neighbors. We can have a fond affection for our neighbor, but clearly, this kind of love should mean something greater when applied to our spouse. There are, of course, disordered “loves.” Scripture clearly states that there are things we are not to love. The Apostle John states:
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world (1 Jn 2:15-16, ESV).”
Of course, as fallen humans, we do love the things in the world, and here John describes these loves as disordered because they are not from the Father, who is love. That which God calls evil, mankind must not call good (Is 5:20). Loving what God calls evil does not diminish love’s objectivity, but we should not say that this love is righteous. Biblical love is therefore both objective and demands that the objects of our love are in line with God and what he has revealed to us. As Christians, we need to understand love as defined by the God who is love and then love according to what he has shown us.
