What is Love?

I often hear Christian leaders define love as if it were little more than a decision. We are reminded that Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15), and so we are told that love is obedience. Love, in other words, is keeping His commandments. It is what we do, not how we feel.

These days we are often reminded that love is not niceness. On the contrary, it is said that genuine love doesn’t care what people think. It cares only about upholding God’s standard.

I can understand the impulse to say such things, especially in an age that often appears marked by soft sentimentalism and virtue signalling. But this is not how the Bible defines love, nor is it how our forefathers understood it. Biblically speaking, love is what constrains us to obey. It is not merely what we do; it is why we do it.

Consider the Pharisees. They were doers. They were often exact in their obedience. Yet Jesus said our righteousness must exceed theirs (Matthew 5:20). Why? Because for all their zeal and obedience, they lacked love.

To miss this is to miss one of the most important teachings of Scripture. Consider the two great commandments. We are to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and our neighbour as ourselves. On these, Jesus said, hang all the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22:37-40). Paul likewise said that “he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8).

I have heard it said that if we want to know what love looks like, we need only turn to the commandments. But that is to miss entirely the point of what Jesus was saying when He quoted those Old Testament texts. He might have said that the greatest commandment is to obey God. He didn’t. Instead, He chose to say that the greatest commandment, and the one like it, are to love God and to love our neighbour. In other words, there is a difference.

When people equate love with obedience to the commandments, they are essentially turning Jesus’ teaching on its head, as though He meant to say, “The greatest commandment is to obey the commandments, for on this hangs all the Law and the Prophets.” Or as though Paul meant to say, “Obedience to the law and keeping the commandments is the fulfilling of the law.” In this way the biblical teaching regarding love becomes almost meaningless.

Love does involve the mind and the will—and, like doctrine, it has legs—but it also includes the affections. Genuine love feels deeply. It is tenderhearted and kind. It is charitable and hopeful. It is patient and longsuffering. It weeps with those who weep and rejoices with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15). It blesses enemies (Matthew 5:44), pursues sinners (Luke 15), and forgives (Ephesians 4:32).

But love is not merely the doing of these things; it is what constrains us to do them with gladness and joy. Love explains why the Father gave His Son for the world (John 3:16). Love explains why Jesus went to the cross. Love explains His willingness to drink the cup, His strong crying and tears (Hebrews 5:7), and His intercessions for those for whom He died. It even explains the joy that was set before Him (Hebrews 12:2).

Love doesn't need to be told to pull a child out of harm's way. Love doesn't need to be told to hold a brokenhearted child. Love, of course, does these things, and does them willingly and instinctively—but love is also the why. It explains why a man might give his life for a friend, and why a father would run to greet a returning prodigal.

Many readers will be familiar with this wartime story. A soldier was carrying a wounded comrade on his back. Someone looked at him and said, "That's a heavy load." The soldier replied, "He ain't heavy. He's my brother."

That story has endured because everyone immediately understands what it means. It was love that made the load light.

And so the Bible says that His commandments are not grievous (1 John 5:3). In fact, we can say with the Psalmist that they are our delight (Psalm 119:24, 47, 143, 174). We do not merely perform them like automatons. We do them instinctively, willingly, and gladly.

A man may have a checklist that tells him how often to tell his wife he loves her, reminds him to kiss her before she leaves the house, and instructs him to help with the chores. But this is a far cry from the man who does these things not because he has been told to, nor merely because it is his duty, but because he loves her. His words of affection, his kisses, and his help mean more not only because they are natural, but because they flow out of a heart that truly loves.

The one does what he does because he must. The other does it because it is what he wants.

And this is what makes the new birth such a miracle: that God can take a hard-hearted sinner and make him love God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, so that obedience becomes a joy, worship becomes a delight, and communion with God becomes the very heartbeat of his life.

When love is reduced to decisions and actions, it becomes something cold and legalistic. And that is the religion of the Pharisees. It seems to me that we do not pay nearly enough attention to the Pharisees. They got so much right, and yet it was against them that Jesus pronounced woes (Matthew 23). Though He refused to condemn the woman taken in adultery (John 8:1-11) and showed compassion toward the worst of sinners, He was severe with the Pharisees, despite their theological precision, doctrinal fidelity, and dutiful obedience.

Ironically, Jesus never blamed them for caring too much about the law. And yet somehow they were so unlike Him. They did not have love, and because they did not have love they were without compassion, mercy, and grace. They heaped up heavy burdens upon their people but would not lift a finger to help them (Matthew 23:4). They zealously made converts, but their converts were worse than themselves (Matthew 23:15). Instead of helping people into the kingdom, they closed the door on them (Matthew 23:13). And though they were careful to tithe the mint and the cumin, they neglected the weightier matters, such as mercy (Matthew 23:23).

Contrast the Pharisees with Jesus. The Bible says that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16), and the single characteristic most commonly attributed to Jesus in the Gospels is compassion. When God revealed Himself to Moses, the Bible says,

“The LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin...” (Exodus 34:6-7)

As we read the Bible we learn that God hates sin and that He loves righteousness, and yet the emphasis is placed rather on His love and mercy. Though He hates sin, His posture toward sinners is repeatedly one of mercy, compassion, patience, and invitation. And so we find Him often threatening judgment and then relenting. We find Him showing mercy again and again and again.

In fact, this was Jonah’s complaint, that God seemed more merciful than he was. As he put it:

“I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.” (Jonah 4:2)

And so we read that God pities us like a father (Psalm 103:13), that His love is greater than that of a nursing mother (Isaiah 49:15), that He is a Friend who sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24), that He rejoices over us with singing (Zephaniah 3:17), that He delights in His bride—His joy (Isaiah 62:5), that He sympathizes with sinners (Hebrews 4:15), that in this the love of God is revealed, that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8), and that like the deer skipping upon the mountains He came with joy to save sinners (Song of Solomon 2:8-9).

Though He hates sin, this never seems to be His posture toward sinners or the world. In fact, we are told that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son...” (John 3:16).

Consider the prodigal's father. Where some might have been repulsed by the sight of the prodigal and the knowledge of what he had done, the father ran to greet him and fell upon him with hugs and kisses (Luke 15:20). This is love. It thinks, it wills, and it acts, but it also feels. More than that, love is the motive or spring from which flows all true obedience and all that is lovely about Christianity.

I will not attempt to reconcile this with the impassibility of God, for I do not think the Bible itself makes the attempt. It is enough for me that the Bible speaks of God's love in terms that we can understand: love that stores up our tears in a bottle (Psalm 56:8); love that makes our bed in sickness (Psalm 41:3); love that pities like a father and is tender like a mother (Psalm 103:13; Isaiah 49:15); love that binds up the wounded (Psalm 147:3), carries the lambs close to His heart (Isaiah 40:11), rejoices with singing (Zephaniah 3:17), weeps over a reprobate Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), prays with strong crying and tears (Hebrews 5:7), washes the feet of sinners (John 13:1-17), weeps with those who grieve (John 11:35), heals the sick, sets captives free (Luke 4:18), rescues the lost (Luke 19:10), and forgives sinners.

Which brings me back to how I began.

I fear that in our effort to guard against soft sentimentalism, we are in danger of falling into the opposite extreme. By putting all the emphasis on duty and obedience, we may miss the very heart of the gospel. For the thing that sets us apart from the world, the thing for which the early Christians were known, is our love—our love for our Saviour and our love for our neighbour (John 13:35).

And if our love is genuine, then it will be patient and kind. It will be charitable and hopeful. It will be marked by tenderheartedness, sympathy, and compassion. Genuine love wants what is best for the object of its love. And what is the object of the Christian's love? First God, then our neighbour; first God, then the world.

I realize that there is evil all around us, and there are things that we see and hear that leave us feeling something like revulsion. And yet, if we are to learn from the Pharisees and imitate Jesus, what should our posture be toward a crooked generation?

We should abhor what is evil (Romans 12:9), but we should shine as lights in the world (Philippians 2:15). We should remember our Saviour's prayer from the cross: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). We should remember that God so loved the world, and we should regard men and women as lost sheep and wandering prodigals, striving with compassion and mercy to see them rescued and brought home.