Love: A Biblical Perspective
By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
Theological literacy for believers is important, particularly understanding key biblical concepts and even common words we think we understand. Common terms, like love, often differ in biblical context from cultural interpretations. Central to this is the Fruit of the Spirit, with love as a primary characteristic manifesting through believers, reflecting God’s nature and sacrificial commitment.
This is my effort to maintain a theological literacy among the saints, something I believe is critical. We have to know what we believe, why, and know the words to express it. Words like Justification, Immanence, and Perspicuity need to be included in our conversations, or at the least, personally understood when studying the Bible.
Similarly, when we discuss other words such as love, peace, and joy, we think we know what they mean, but often times these common words have a totally different flavor when used in a biblical context. It is true of the words pertaining to the Fruit of the Spirit. Even these ‘simpler’ biblical words are sometimes misunderstood.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23 NASB)
You notice the fruit is singular. The Holy Spirit develops fruit, not fruits. Believers can and do manifest all its elements simultaneously. The nine representative qualities refer to the whole work of the Spirit’s sanctifying labor in the believer. One doesn’t work on patience today and then love tomorrow and then joy, etc. The fruit is one fruit with various characteristics within the one.
Paul began with identifying love as the first fruit of the Spirit. Jesus said that love is the greatest commandment.
Love in the biblical context doesn’t mean what it means in the songs. The culture such as song lyrics from Pure Prairie League says we are always ‘falling in and out of love’, as if love was a tide we had no control over and washes in and out. The Band Whitesnake wanted to know Is This Love? They weren’t sure. Foreigner famously pleaded with the universe, that I Want to Know What Love Is.
Cultural Love addles people. Crazy On You. Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Romance is mistaken for love. So is lust. The world thinks it knows love as an external thing that comes upon people who must grab it and plead for it not to go away as it is so fleeting. As if it can dissipate like steam. But that is not what love is according to the Bible.
I found the section from the MacArthur/Mayhue systematic theology book Biblical Doctrine helpful and illuminating here. The section on the Fruit of the Spirit of love reads as follows:
Christ’s substitutionary death provided the ultimate example of love. (Greek: agape). He said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13). Paul called for this supreme love to be characteristic of a husband’s love for his wife: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” (Ephesians 5:25). First Corinthians 13:8 promises that “love never fails.” (NASB).
Thus, love is a communicable, divine attribute that is central to the Father’s character, (1 John 4:8), put on display by Christ at the cross, enabled in believers by the Holy Spirit. Love can be defined broadly as the conscious, sacrificial, and volitional commitment to the welfare of another person, in obedience to God’s Word (2 John 6), regardless of the person’s response or what one does or does not receive from him or her, or what love costs one to give. The love of Christians toward other Christians (Colossians 1:8), as might be expected, is the most commended “one another” response in the New Testament.
That’s what love is.
