Love
"Love" in the Old Testament
The Hebrew word for “love” is “אהבה” (ahava). The root “אהב” occurs 209 times in the Old Testament in slightly different forms. Throughout Genesis it is used to describe love for a family member, a woman or, as in the case of Isaac in Genesis 27, for food, and we could replace “love” with “favor” or “preference” in these cases. Later it will also include love for a friend. Then in Exodus 20, in the second commandment, we hear for the first time about love for God:
You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath.You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments.
We can see here that love involves aligning your will with God’s will by keeping his commandments.
In Leviticus, we are given a new concept of loving our neighbor:
Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.
Here it’s not about favors or preferences, but “neighbor” means “another person” or anyone around you. Now we see the unconditional side of “love”: we are commanded to show favor to another person whether we like them or not.
And then it goes even deeper when God commands to love a stranger, and that sounds exactly like Jesus' words hundreds of years later:
You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am Yahweh your God.
Note God’s signature "I am Yahweh" in these commands. In Deuteronomy, Joshua repeats the things we have just discussed and summarises them for us:
12 And now, O Israel, what does Yahweh your God ask of you but to fear Yahweh your God by walking in all His ways, to love Him, to serve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to keep the commandments and statutes of Yahweh that I am giving you this day for your own good? 14 Behold, to Yahweh your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, and the earth and everything in it. 15 Yet Yahweh has set His affection on your fathers and loved them. And He has chosen you, their descendants after them, above all the peoples, even to this day. 16 Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and stiffen your necks no more. 17 For Yahweh your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awesome God, showing no partiality and accepting no bribe. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and widow, and He loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. 19 So you also must love the foreigner, since you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt.
In this Bible passage, we learn more about what love looks like and what God’s character is like:
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Love is complete, consuming heart and soul
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To love God is to fear Him by walking in all His ways
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Love is a choice
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Love is not partial
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Love is just
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Love takes care of another’s needs
Below are some other things we can take from Proverbs about God’s love:
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Love comes with discipline and rebuke
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God loves those who seek Him
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God blesses those who love Him
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God loves those who pursue righteousness
My son, do not reject the discipline of Yahweh, and do not loathe His rebuke; for Yahweh disciplines the one He loves, as does a father the son in whom he delights.
I love those who love me, and those who seek me early shall find me.
I walk in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice, bestowing wealth on those who love me and making their treasuries full.
Yahweh detests the way of the wicked, but He loves those who pursue righteousness.
Even though the word love is not used in the following scripture, it expresses God’s love for his people and summarises the concept of God’s love in the Old Testament:
17 Thus says Yahweh your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am Yahweh your God, who teaches you for your benefit, who directs you in the way you should go. 18 If only you had listened to My commandments, your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like waves of the sea. 19 Your descendants would have been as countless as the sand, and your offspring as numerous as its grains; their name would never be cut off or eliminated from My presence.”
"Love" in the New Testament
In the New Testament, the Greek word that replaces its Hebrew predecessor is “ἀγάπη”-“agapé”, it means affection, benevolence, love and goodwill, it occurs 116 times.
Below you will find a summary of the most important points about love we find in the New Testament scriptures:
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If you keep God’s commands you remain in His love
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The greatest love is to lay down one’s life for his friends or brothers
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God’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit
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Christ dying for sinners proves God’s love
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In Christ nothing can separate us from God’s love
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We owe love to one another
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Love is sincere, detests evil, clings to good, does no wrong to its neighbor
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Love fulfills the law
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Love does not envy, boast, keep account of wrongs, take pleasure in evil
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Love is not proud, rude, self-seeking, easily angered
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Love is patient, kind, rejoices in truth, bears all, believes all, hopes all, endures all and never fails
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Love is the fruit of the Holy Spirit
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Love is our breast plate
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Love covers over a multitude of sins
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Love is shown in action and truth, not in word and speech
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If we love one another God remains in us
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There is no fear in love
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God is Love
If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love. 11 I have told you these things so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.
But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Love must be sincere. Detest what is evil; cling to what is good.
8 Be indebted to no one, except to one another in love. For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,”a and any other commandments, are summed up in this one decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. 6 Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
8 But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and the helmet of our hope of salvation.
Above all, love one another deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
16 By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17 If anyone with earthly possessions sees his brother in need, but withholds his compassion from him, how can the love of God abide in him? 18 Little children, let us love not in word and speech, but in action and truth.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. 10 And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we remain in Him, and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit.
God is love; whoever abides in love abides in God.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. The one who fears has not been perfected in love.
Now that we have a much more detailed description of love from the New Testament, we should have a good understanding of God’s character, for He is love, and if we want to be one with him, we should reflect his character to others.