What is love? What is the definition of love?

Thus things are followed to their full result, as we have seen them traced to their hidden sources before God. How different was all with Christ! "Hereby perceive we the love" … To add "of God" spoils the sentence. There is no ground for interpolating any words. But One showed such love, and He was man as surely as God. "Hereby perceive we the love, because he laid down his life for us." If you want to know what love is, look here. This was love indeed. "And we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." The same life of which we live was in Him: ought it not to be exercised in similar love? We may not often be called to lay down our life for our brethren; but are there not plain, simple, common ways by which it may be tested every day? My brother may have need: it is no use talking about readiness to die for my brother, if I at once shrink back from meeting his ordinary and perhaps urgent necessity? There is nothing great here; it is homely, but how practical! How it puts the heart to the test, and one that might be presented any day of the week!

But what is love? Verses 4 to 7 show how it expresses itself. It suffers long, and in suffering still remains kind. It "envieth not," for it is honestly glad that another is favoured. Nor does it vaunt itself: unseemly advertising of oneself is not love for others. "Is not puffed up." However one may be used of God, if love is the motive, he will not be thinking of his own importance, but still of the need of others. Its conduct is not unseemly, not offensive to any sense of decency. It does not seek its own, for it is an outflowing stream. Nor is it easily provoked, because not occupied with its personal feelings. And it does not suppose evil, apart, of course from manifest evidence. It rejoices not in evil, but in the truth: being genuinely ungrudging. Believing all things is being not suspicious without clear reason; then even when things seem to the contrary, love continues to hope all things. And finally it endures all things: it does not give up.

We have a blessed description of love in this chapter. "God is love." It is sovereign goodness, coming out of itself. It goes beyond "The love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost." It is the same love, but here it is in its different characters. "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity (love), it profiteth me nothing." It is not a definition, but the way love works. But what we find here is divine love in the world; which is such a different thing from law. It is what is above all the evil that is round it, and therefore can feel for all the evil; love is affected, but never touched in itself by it. That is what I see in its working. So we see Christ going through this world. Love is a sovereign thing. There are two kinds of love, both divine: a downward love which is sovereign in its nature - God really - which is in our hearts in a certain sense through the Holy Ghost; and then I find another which goes upward, and there is a holy affection to which I am subject. We find an analogy to it in husband and wife. Thus, where divine love is working in my heart towards others, it goes downwards; but when I get the state of my soul, I must look up and I am subject. In "walk in love as Christ also hath loved us, and given Himself for us," we have divine love. This is the giving up of myself altogether; and then I get to God, who is the object. And therefore it is said that we are light, but it is never said that we are love, because love is sovereign, and we cannot say we are that.

The only true love is love that will bear and do in behalf of its object. The chapter which our text concludes is one grand anthem on love. The grace which is enjoined, described, and almost sung throughout, is not a name, but a substance. Its two elements are action and suffering. The two sides of living love are meekly to bear evil, and energetically to do good, in behalf of every brother, according to his need and your opportunity. Christ's example is its rule — "Love one another as I have loved you."

Desire and love may be very exactly distinguished. Desire supposes the capacity to enjoy the thing we desire, that is to say spiritual affections, which as to their very nature, have God for their object; it supposes one to be born of Him, though Satan often, in an astonishing manner, imitates this class of feelings; but this state also supposes that one does not possess what one desires. Love supposes that we have full possession of the object of our desires. It is no longer a need for oneself, but it is enjoyment, appreciation, in delighting in it, of the object itself. Now mysticism, while boasting much of its feelings, never gets beyond desire; while simple Christianity, giving the knowledge of salvation, puts us into full possession of the love of God. I know that He loves me as He loves Christ; that love has saved me; it was He who desired me. In love He had need of me; and this love is perfection in Christ. In peace I contemplate this love, and I adore it in Christ. I dwell in Him and He in me.

Next we come, not to a definition of love, but to its qualities as in this world, specified for our instruction. It is what Christ was here, active as well as suffering in love above evil. "Love is long-suffering, is kind; love is not emulous, is not vainglorious, is not puffed up, doth not behave unseemly, seeks not its own things, is not easily provoked, reckons not the evil, rejoices not over iniquity, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (Vers. 4-7.) Patience in the midst of trial is the first-mentioned attribute of love, which even shows positive kindness instead of harbouring a vindictive thought. Again, as it does not indulge in envy or jealousy of another, so there is no self-display (or, as some think, forwardness), nor the arrogance whence it springs. Hence indecorum, or rude behaviour, is incompatible with love, as it is marked by disinterestedness and slowness to anger, and by readiness to forget the wrong that is done.

"Thinks no evil" scarcely expresses the clause, but rather not having the evil in the mind and tongue. "No evil" would answer to the phrase if anarthrous. Here it is an actual evil done, which would rankle but for love, which is ever above evil, always free and always holy.

Hence love does not rejoice over unrighteousness, as malice does, too glad to cover its own evil by that of others; the joy, the sympathies, of love are with the truth, which is personified here as elsewhere. Thus love bears all vexations, believes all possible good (cf. Acts 9:27; Acts 11:22-26), hopes all, in spite of evil manifest enough at present, endures all things, persecutions or afflictions, knowing that we are set for this. God being seen in Christ raises the heart above the depressing power of evil or even suspicion.

Divine love is not to be mistaken for natural amiability, or sentimental gush. Divine love is begotten of the knowledge of God. It partakes of His nature, for “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Love “is the bond of perfectness” (Col 3:14). “Love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God” (1 John 4:7). This gives us the character of the love. There is no abatement of holiness and truth with God. These are upheld in all their integrity. The knowledge and power of this will preserve us from mistaking human sentiment for divine love.

Many are spiritually deaf and do not hear such things. They have intentionally closed their ears to the things of Christ. But the Lord then spoke to those who would hear. He told them, "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you." Love is not merely having a kind feeling, but being genuinely concerned for the true, proper welfare of another If that person returns hatred, it is all the more reason to be concerned for him, for he needs special help. Doing good in return for evil is both rightly representing God and providing an example that should touch the hearts and consciences of others. This, and returning blessing for cursing, requires the lowly dignity of true faith, as do those things that follow, such as praying for one who acts despitefully (v.28). Our natural resentment is greatly modified by the power of the Holy Spirit when we allow Him to work in us ungrieved and unquenched (Eph.4:30; 1Thes.5:19).

From verse 4 we learn what love is, and what it is not. It suffers long and is kind; it does not envy, nor is it insolent or rash. Some of the beautiful traits of love have marked the saints throughout the different dispensations; we see the kindness of God in such as Joseph and David, unselfishness and meekness in Moses and Paul, patience and endurance in such as Job and the great cloud of witnesses mentioned at the close of Hebrews 11. But in Jesus every feature of love was found in perfection, and all were perfectly blended together and expressed in all His ways. Longsuffering and kindness mark God's dealings with men from the beginning; they are features of the divine nature to be manifested by all God's children.

What love is by way of contrast is very striking; how very different it is to the flesh, the nature that we have derived from Adam. The flesh is envious, it is insolent and rash, it becomes inflated, it behaves in an unseemly way, it seeks its own, it is quickly provoked, it imputes evil where no evil is, and rejoices at iniquity. Not one of these features is found in love! Love "rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, love never fails." Whatever the circumstances of life, love does not turn away but bears all; it is marked by faith, hope and endurance, and never fails.

All that belongs to the present time will pass away, even the gifts through which the saints of God are helped, but love will never pass away. Love is eternal, it had no beginning, and shall never have an end. Its full expression came out in Jesus on the cross, it is the cause of God's activities in grace; it is the very nature of God. Of this we read in John's 1st Epistle, "God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:8-10).

In addition to this false restriction upon loving one's neighbour the Rabbis even concluded that if the neighbour was to be loved, the enemies, that is all other men (the nations, the unlearned Jews and also personal enemies) were to be hated. To support this they referred to passages such as Deuteronomy 7:2 where God forbids the people of Israel to join with the Canaanites and commands them not to show any mercy to them but to destroy them. This led to the conclusion "... and hate thine enemy" (which is not found in the Talmud, but is here referred to as a Jewish-made commandment by the Lord). Out of the commandment of love, which is the fulfilling of the law according to Romans 13:10, men had made the exact opposite. One only had to love the very few who shared the same views and could meet all others with arrogance, contempt and hatred.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies

But the Jews deliberately overlooked that God had also commanded them in the law to love their enemies (see Ex. 23:4-5; Lev. 19:33-34). By continuing, "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you," the Lord Jesus does not give new commandments to His disciples but judges the fleshly restriction of the old commandment and the human addition. According to God's thoughts every fellow human being with whom we have to do is our neighbour, even if he or she turns out to be our personal enemy. The Lord Jesus demands, not an emotional love, nor a friendly affection for enemies, but rather the much higher divine love (Greek: agapao).

The Lord Jesus was the revelation of this love of God: "But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him" (Rom. 5:8-10). While He hung on the cross He prayed for His tormentors: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). Our Lord therefore is also the perfect example for His commandment, "Love your enemies... and pray for them which. persecute you."