What is love according to the Bible?
Scripture does not treat love as a feeling to be defined but as something that has to be shown, and it locates the source of it outside ourselves — in God's own nature and in what He did about our sins. That raises two questions: what is this love in itself, and how would anyone recognise it in a person today?
Love as God's own nature
Commentators press that the statement is about God's being, not merely His conduct. One writer sets it beside the other great "God is" statements of Scripture:
Edward DennettThese three words are the foundation of everything that follows. This shows what God is in His own nature. He is also light, true — but that is said in relation to darkness: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). We also say God is righteous, that is, righteous in His actions and ways. But when the word of God speaks of what He is absolutely, in His nature, one word describes it, and that word is LOVE.
The grammar itself is doing the work, and another writer draws out how far it reaches:
J. N. DarbyHimself is love. He is love in all its fullness. He is not holiness, He is holy; He is not righteousness, He is righteous.
Not the same as natural warmth
Because the source is God, the thing itself is not simply human kindness scaled up. Writers warn against a counterfeit that feels similar:
A J PollockDivine love is not to be mistaken for natural friendliness, or sentimental gush. Divine love comes from knowing God. It shares His nature, for "God is love"… There is no relaxing of holiness and truth with God. These are upheld in full integrity. Knowing this, and having power from it, will keep us from mistaking human sentiment for divine love.
Love defined by the cross, not by our response
The Bible's definition runs in one direction only. It never says God had to be won over:
F. B. HoleThe teaching of the Bible is NOT that God is badly disposed toward us, a frowning Deity to be constantly pacified by sacrifices that change His feelings toward us. That is the corrupt heathen idea. The Bible presents the truth like this: "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" (1 John 4:10). Far from us having to change His heart toward us by a sacrifice, His heart toward man is the very source of all our blessing. Our sins made propitiation necessary, but He Himself provided the necessary sacrifice.
("Propitiation" means the sacrifice that answers what our sins deserved.) If you want to know how much God loves, commentators point away from your own feelings:
J T MawsonOur knowledge of God's love is small even at its best compared with its own greatness, and the Holy Spirit does not turn our eyes inward to find the measure of it there. He turns us outward and backward to the death of Christ… A righteous man has some merit, and a good man more… But who will die for a sinner? Who will die for a wretch who is neither righteous nor good, who has no merit at all?
The measure handed to us
Jesus made that same love the standard for His followers, and the standard is set impossibly high on purpose:
William Kelly"This is my commandment, that you love one another." But by what measure? "As I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends"… The disciples were now to love one another according to the pattern of Him who laid down His life for them as His friends.
What it looks like day to day
The famous chapter on love, commentators note, gives no dictionary entry:
William KellyNext we come, not to a definition of love, but to its qualities as seen in this world… Patience in the middle of trial is the first attribute of love mentioned, and it even shows positive kindness instead of holding a vindictive thought. As it does not indulge in envy or jealousy of another, so there is no self-display, nor the arrogance that produces it.
Love that removes fear
Where this love is believed, dread of God goes:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinIt has nothing to do with our love, as some take it, nor with seeking an experience of being "perfect in love." It is His love that casts out fear — believing that love and living in it. If we believe and know what God has made us in His infinite grace, what Christ is, that as He is so are we, how can we fear anything?
Summary
- Source. Love is not something God has; it is what He is — He is holy, He is righteous, but He is love.
- Proof. That love is measured outside us, at the cross: not that we loved God, but that He loved us while we were still sinners.
- Counterfeit. Natural friendliness and sentiment can imitate it, but divine love never sets aside holiness and truth.
- Shape. In daily life it appears as patience under trial, kindness instead of revenge, and no envy or self-display.
- Result. Believed, this love ends fear; passed on to others in Christ's own measure, it becomes the mark by which His disciples are known.