Love is Love? Not so Fast
What is love in the Bible? It may not be what you think. When you see the word “love” as in the passage below, what come to your mind? What is your conception of love? Whatever your understanding of love, it may not be what the apostle John or the other New Testament writers had in mind when they wrote.
1 John 3:1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
The Problem with English
The problem is with our English language. English like most modern languages has only a single word for love, a single word that is so over used and misused and abused that it has nearly lost all meaning. And having only a single word for love in our language makes it difficult when we read of love in the Bible to understand the full range of meaning.
This is especially true where one word for love is being played against another word for love. A classic example of this word play is John 21:15-17. Look at it as it typically appears in our English bibles.
John 21:15-17 So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Feed My lambs.” He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep.”
In English it looks like Jesus has asked the same question three times, and that Peter is answering in kind each time the question is asked. But that is not the way it reads in the Greek. Two distinctly different Greek words for love is being used in this passage. Agape and philos. The first two times Jesus asks the question, “Do you agape me?” And Peter answers “Yes, Lord, You know that I philos You.” The third time Jesus asks. “Do you philos me?” At which point Peter becomes upset. But still Peter answers “Yes, Lord, you know that I philos You.” This will become more significant once you learn the distinction between these two words.
The Four Words for Love
The New Testament writers had four Greek words to choose from when describing divine and human love, and each of these words had a distinct meaning describing a particular kind of love. These four are:
1. Storge. This is family love or love for one’s own kin.
2. Philos. This is brotherly love, an affectionate love between two people.
3. Eros. This word had two distinct meanings. The first and most common meaning of this word is love between the sexes. This is where we get the word “erotic.” And so we will call this first definition “erotic Eros” to distinguish it from its second definition.
Plato took the word Eros and gave it a spiritual meaning. He called it “heavenly Eros” and defined it as a love detached from sensual or materialistic interests. To the Greeks, this “heavenly Eros” also known as “platonic Eros” was the highest possible form of human love.
The fourth Greek word for love was an obscure and little used word.
4. Agape. This is love pure and untainted by any selfish motive whatsoever. Agape love is a love that is self-giving, unselfish, unconditional, unchanging, independent of and unaffected by the mood or circumstance of the moment. It is stable, it is reliable.
Of these four words, the word most commonly used by the New Testament writers to describe human love was philos. And they all used that obscure, little used word agape to define God’s love. Never once did any of them use the word Eros. It does not appear in the New Testament at all, not once. All the New Testament writers snubbed it.
Human Love is Always Conditional
Now all human love is infused with a healthy dose of self. All human love is, at some fundamental level, based on what’s-in-it-for-me. It is always conditional. It is fickle, changeable, unstable, unreliable, and dependent on the mood or circumstances of the moment, always self-seeking. This is true whether you are speaking of Storge, or Philos or Eros (heavenly/platonic or erotic).
God’s Love is Always Unconditional
God’s love, Agape, however is in complete contrast with all human love. Agape is unconditional, unchangeable, rock solid, wholly independent of mood or circumstance, always self-sacrificing, always self-giving. That is why Christ did not cling to His equality with the Father, but emptied Himself and became God’s slave, obedient even to death on a cross. And it is because of this agape love that the gospel is unconditional good news. Agape is the foundation of God’s saving grace – God’s undeserved, unmerited favor.
Now with this understanding, go back and read the passage in John 21:15-17 again. The once proud and boastful Peter now no longer claims agape. He now knows himself too well. To Jesus’ questions, “Do you agape me?” Peter dares to claim no higher love than the fickle philos. But that is enough. It is an honest answer. And Jesus now commissions him to feed His sheep.
To us fickle humans, God declares, “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” (Jeremiah 31:3). And John writes;
John 13:1 Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved [agapao] his own which were in the world, he loved [agapao] them unto the end.
But this is not the end of the story.
There is a Fifth Word
Satan hates Agape, and so it should come as no surprise that one of the very first things he attacked in the Christian church was the concept of God’s agape love.
After the passing of the apostles, the leadership of the church fell into the hands of the so-called church fathers, most of whom were of Greek origin. And these Greeks were insulted that the apostles had snubbed, ignored, what they considered to be the highest and purest form of love — Plato’s “Heavenly Eros” in favor of an obscure Agape. No doubt, they reasoned, the oversight was simply due their relative ignorance of the Greek language. And they felt that a correction needed to be made.
As early as the 2nd and 3rd centuries two of the Greek Fathers attempt to make a straightforward substitute of Eros in the place of Agape, thus making “God is Agape” to read “God is Eros.” However, this solution was not satisfactory. These Greek Fathers realized that something more was needed than a simple substitution of Eros for Agape. It was Augustine who came up with the solution.
Augustine’s Solution to the Agape Problem
Instead of doing a simple word substitution as others had tried, he did something much cleverer and much more dangerous. Using arguments from Greek logic, he combined the concept of Agape with the idea of Eros and produced a hybrid concept of love which he called (in Latin) Caritas. This is the word from which we get our English word Charity, which is the word the King James most often uses to translate Agape.
Augustine’s Eros/Agape hybrid worked. Christianity wholly embraced this new hybrid “love” of Augustine. And Caritas became the universally accepted definition of divine love. So, with this blending of Eros and Agape the world now had three fundamental concepts of love, Eros, or self-love. Caritas, which is a blending of self-love with self-sacrificing love. And Agape, which is pure self-sacrificing love. And each of these three concepts of love produces its own distinctive gospel.
- The Eros Gospel is a gospel of works. If you do all the right thing, and don’t do all the wrong things, and if God happens to be in a good mood, and etc., etc., etc., then maybe, if you are really lucky you won’t end up in the hot place when you die. The Eros Gospel is the legalistic gospel of salvation by works. This is the foundation of all non-Christian religions including Islam.
- The Caritas Gospel is what you might call Eros-lite. You still have to work for your salvation, go on pilgrimages, do penances, jump through hoops, etc., etc., etc. But if by some chance you fall short God will step in and make up the difference. In other words, in the Caritas Gospel God is willing to meet you halfway. Much of Christianity is still trapped in a Caritas Gospel of faith plus works.
- The Agape Gospel is the gospel of the Scriptures. In complete contradiction to both the Eros and Caritas Gospels, the Agape Gospel teaches that, while we were helpless, ungodly sinners, even enemies, God demonstrated His agape toward us through the death of His Son Jesus Christ. The Agape Gospel is Christ from beginning to end. In the Agape Gospel not one thread of the robe of righteousness is of our own making.
Both the Eros and Caritas Gospels are conditional. Under them salvation is as fickle as the all too fickle human love that underlies them. Only the Agape Gospel is unconditional good news. It alone rests on the unchangeable foundation of an eternal love.