The Meaning of Love

The Bible defines love not as emotion or desire but as God Himself: "God is love" (1 John 4:8). In Scripture, God's love (ahavah in Hebrew, agapē in Greek) is righteous action flowing from His nature, never human passion (pathos) or sexual desire (epithymia), both of which must be crucified (Gal 5:24; Matt 5:28). Christian love is therefore not driven by feeling but by righteousness, because love is the first and foundational fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22), and from this righteous love all other fruits flow — joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. This love aligns with truth (1 Cor 13:6), acts toward the undeserving (Rom 5:8), and fulfils Christ's command to love as He loved (John 13:34). True love is righteous, Spirit-produced action; passion and desire are human impulses, but love is God's own life expressed in us.

Love is the theme — the only theme. Every section of this commentary looks at the same subject from a different angle: the Love of God.

The work is finished

It is finished, Christ declared it from the cross. What God now requires of us is not that we labour to complete what He has already perfected, but that we yield to the finished work, so that the righteousness thereof is fulfilled in and through us. That we walk in love, so that the finished work of Calvary may be fulfilled through us by the Spirit of God.

That walk begins with a seed — God, in his love for mankind (John 3:16) gave his word. The Word of God, planted in the heart. The seed grows by grace. The Spirit cultivates it. And the fruit it bears is love. He is the Sower, the Fruit, the Harvester, the Weaver, and the Host. He authors the whole story and He finishes it.

Love is all of these things

The first fruit. The first commandment. The first gift.

Love is the first fruit, from which all fruits spring forth.

Gal. 5:22 — love is listed first; all other fruits flow from it. John 15:4-5 — abiding in the vine, love is what the branch produces. 1 Cor. 13:4-7 — every fruit of the Spirit is a face of love.

It is the first commandment, from which all commandments take their light.

Matt. 22:37-40 — on these two commandments of love hang all the law and the prophets. Rom. 13:10 — love is the fulfilling of the law. 1 Tim. 1:5 — the end of every commandment is The Love of God out of a pure heart.

It is the first gift, from which all gifts must flow.

Rom. 5:5 — the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit — love is the first gift poured in. 1 Cor. 13:2 — every gift without love profits nothing. 1 Cor. 13:8 — all gifts are temporary; love alone never faileth.

The most excellent way

Paul has spoken of spiritual gifts, of prophecy, of tongues, of mighty faith — and then he pauses. "Yet shew I unto you a more excellent way." Everything else may pass away. Tongues will cease. Knowledge will vanish. Prophecies will fail. But love — The Love of God — never faileth. It is the highest way, the greatest gift, the crown of all virtues. Without it, all the rest amounts to nothing. With it, everything is complete.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not The Love of God, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

— 1 Cor. 13:1

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not The Love of God, I am nothing.

— 1 Cor. 13:2

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not The Love of God, it profiteth me nothing.

— 1 Cor. 13:3

The Love of God suffereth long, and is kind; The Love of God envieth not; The Love of God vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

— 1 Cor. 13:4-7

The Love of God never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

— 1 Cor. 13:8

And now abideth faith, hope, The Love of God, these three; but the greatest of these is The Love of God.

— 1 Cor. 13:13

God is Love

Not that God loves, or that God is loving, or He is equal to love — but that God is love. Love is not one attribute among many; it is His very nature and essence. To know love is to know God. To walk in love is to abide in God, and God in us.

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

— 1 John 4:8

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

— 1 John 4:16

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

— John 3:16

We love him, because he first loved us.

— 1 John 4:19

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

— Rom. 8:38-39

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