What is love?
Many of the non-engaged, non-married Christians I am coming across recently seem to say that they have learned and understood what love really is. From everything that I have heard and seen of them, I humbly submit: I disagree–I don’t think so. What do you mean by saying that you’ve learned what true love really is? Are you talking about phileo love? agape? or eros? There is a tremendous difference between these 3 Greek words. Without differentiating how you have come to understand what you have learned… you’ll likely be in the wrong process of learning about the wrong type of love. (Not to say that any one of these types of love is wrong, but that you may not be understanding the one that God wants to teach you right now.)
I may be a bit traditional when I say this, but I don’t think one can truly begin to understand the depth of biblical love except by the Word of God. We cannot learn doctrine through experience or emotional highs. The story of our lives and the things that go on in them is how the Holy Spirit confirms and affirms what He has revealed to us through His Word. Our experiences and the movement of the Holy Spirit will never work independent of or contrary to the Holy Bible–they will only open the eyes of our hearts and minds & illustrate the God-breathed truth of His Word. Scripture is and should always be our primary source of truth. To get an understanding of love through anything or anybody else other than through what God has said in Scripture… is in itself hypocrisy, bordering on apostasy.
Excuse my harshness, but that’s the God-honest truth… I love you all who read this, and want you to know that I say what I say because I do love you and want to encourage you in the way of love (agape & phileo).
The typical book that people turn to when they speak of love, is 1 John 4. People usually quote verse 18 and 19, that says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.” I personally love verse 10–or any verse that has the word propitiation in it for that matter! “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
The Apostle John’s epistle there in 1 John 4 I consider to be an elaboration of what he wrote in the Gospel of John, so it is only proper that we take a deeper look to John 17 for a detailed explanation of the Father’s love. In the following weeks, with the help of John MacArthur and Don Carson, I hope to examine what Christ says about “love” and share some expositional notes on the passage that is commonly known as the High Priestly Prayer.
Here is love, vast as the ocean
Lovingkindness as the flood
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom
Shed for us His precious bloodWho His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten
Throughout Heav’n’s eternal daysOn the mount of crucifixion
Fountains opened deep and wide
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tideGrace and love, like mighty rivers
Poured incessant from above
And Heav’n’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in loveNo love is higher, no love is wider
No love deeper, no love is truer
No love is higher, no love is wider
No love is like Your love, O Lord(Here Is Love, written by William Rees and Robert Lowry; additional chorus by Matt Redman.)
