How the Bible Defines Love

Everyone talks about it, but do we really know what it means?

Love today seems so…cheap. Couples profess their love to one another, and in a matter of years (sometimes months!), they’ve broken up or divorced. Maybe a figure in your life claimed to love you and yet used you and manipulated you.

Or, even if they didn’t outright betray or abuse you, maybe things felt one-sided, as though they didn’t really care about putting effort into the relationship.

And this is the love that God supposedly has?

It can’t be.

Thankfully, the Bible gives us a different picture of love—not of empty words and shallow emotions but of true expressions of love and noble feelings propelled by choice. God Himself embodies this love, showing how love gives and sacrifices for the other.

As we uncover this picture, you can expect to learn:

• What love is, according to Scripture
• The types of love
• The type of love we find in God
• What Jesus says about love

You just might find that love is very different from what you imagined—and so much better.

What is love according to Scripture?

Love, as described in the Bible, is selfless and unconditional, focusing on what’s best for the other and offering the freedom to choose whether to love in return. God Himself demonstrated this love by giving Jesus Christ to die for the sins of the world (John 3:16; Romans 5:6-8). He gave selflessly and unconditionally, yet He doesn’t push this gift on anyone; He allows us to choose whether we’ll reciprocate.

The clearest description of this love is in 1 Corinthians 13. This passage gives us an idea of what true love is and isn’t. Let’s take a look:

The one word that summarizes all of these character traits is selflessness. And it goes beyond words:

“Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18, ESV).

Here’s what that looks like according to God’s Word:

• Serving one another (Galatians 5:13)
• Doing what’s best for the other (Romans 13:10)
• And even giving one’s life for another (John 15:13)

All of this can be summarized in the Ten Commandments, which provide the principles for loving God and loving one another:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40, ESV).

The Ten Commandments express what it means to love, and when we love God, it’ll be natural for us to want to follow them (1 John 5:3; 2 John 1:6).

In the same token, sin and selfishness are the opposite of that love because they break the law (1 John 3:4). They include behaviors like adultery, murder, theft, covetousness, and hatred of others (1 John 4:19-21).

The good news about this law is that it helps to set clear boundaries around love. Loving someone doesn’t mean that anything goes in the relationship. Sometimes, the most loving thing to do is not allow unhealthy behavior (Proverbs 3:12), whether emotional or physical abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, or more.

Theologian Jiri Moskala, ThD, highlights this aspect of love:

“Love is also tough: It cannot tolerate sin, hatred, selfishness, and pride; in that sense, it is exclusive. Strong and healthy love understands but does not compromise with injustice and other forms of evil.”¹

And as we mentioned, a key component of biblical love is freedom. A person with this kind of love will recognize that people are free to accept or reject that love.

This love looks so different from what we often see. But it’s what makes relationships safe and healthy.

What are the types of love in the Bible?

The English language only has one word for love, but Greek uses numerous words—many of which appear in the New Testament. The main ones, in English, are self-sacrificing love, brotherly love, self-love, and romantic love. These categories can help us understand more about God’s love.

We’ll look briefly at each one and how they show up in the Bible.

Agape

Agape is the Greek word for unconditional, selfless, and self-sacrificing love. It’s a love based on principle, and it’s “primarily a function of the head, the mind, the intellect.”²

This is the kind of love that chooses to do what’s best for someone else, even when you might not feel like it. It goes beyond emotions or attraction.

Here are a couple of examples in the Bible:

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44, ESV).

“We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19, ESV).

Phileo

Phileo is brotherly love or friendship love. It’s “more a matter of the heart, the emotions.”³ After all, you are usually friends with someone because you enjoy them and feel a sense of closeness to them. You don’t have to be around them—but you want to be.

It’s the kind of love Jesus had for his friend Lazarus (John 11:3). The word is also used to describe the love that believers in Christ are called to have for one another (Titus 3:15).

A couple of other Greek words are closely connected to this one:

• Philoxenia: hospitality or love toward strangers (Romans 12:13; Hebrews 13:2)
• Philostorgos: affection, especially between relatives or family members (Romans 12:10)

Philautia

Philautia can refer to either self-love or self-obsession.

The first kind—self-love—isn’t selfish.

In fact, it’s biblical. Jesus calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:39). This involves recognizing our value and caring for who God has created us to be so that we can most effectively serve others.

Self-obsession, though, is what we find in passages like 2 Timothy 3:2, which describes the characteristics of people in the last days: “lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy” (ESV).

Though the word lover is used to describe people who are “lovers of self” or “lovers of money,” this is far from the definition of love we’re describing throughout this article. Obsession and fixation are not love, though they may masquerade as such.

Eros

Eros is the Greek word for romantic or sexual love (not to be confused with lust, which is selfish).

The word itself is not actually used in the Bible, though we do see examples of it. The most prominent ones are in Song of Solomon, where the deep intimacy of sexual love is glorified:

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—For your love is better than wine…. Draw me away!” (Song of Solomon 1:2, 4, NKJV).

What type of love is God’s love?

Many Christians have identified God’s love as the selfless, principled, freedom-giving agape. And no doubt, it is. However, the Bible also speaks of God’s love as phileo. And if you think about it, doesn’t the purest and truest of each kind of love give us a peek into who God is?

Nonetheless, let’s start with agape.

The Bible tells us that “God is love [agape]” (1 John 4:8, NKJV).

Pastor Ty Gibson points out that this verse is the “only definitive total-identity statement” about God in the Bible.⁴ It doesn’t say, “God is loving.” Instead, God is love in His very essence. And to represent this perfect love, God is a living relationship—the Trinity. The Godhead is a “picture of God as a three-way unity of perfect love.”⁵

Think of it this way:

Without someone else to love, it’s easy for an individual to be selfish—to be concerned with their own needs, wants, and interests. As a single person, you don’t have to think about a significant other when you want to hop on a plane for a spur-of-the-moment vacation, stay out later this evening, or take a new job.

Add another person to that picture, and now, you have to think about someone else. You’re giving and receiving love. But in this situation, it can still be easy to stray from pure love and become selfish as you both focus on getting your needs met by one another.

But perfect love that is never selfish and is always uplifting of others is what comes from God.

We can see this in the Trinitarian Godhead.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in a constant rhythm of serving one another and giving love to us. The Old Testament brings out this love of God, using the word hesed, which is equivalent to the Greek agape.

Hesed has incredible depth. Gibson discusses this in his book A God Named Desire:

“As the Hebrew prophets endeavored to describe God and reach out to Him, hesed is the word they employed more frequently than any other, often coupling it with other words in an effort to expand its rich meaning.”⁶

Hesed is translated as mercy, goodness, lovingkindness, and everlasting kindness—to name a few biblical examples.⁷

It carries the ideas of:

• Loyalty
• Integrity
• Faithfulness
• Consistency
• Commitment

That’s the kind of love God has for each one of us. It’s a love so deep that He wouldn’t break His promise to us but instead came and died for us—even if we choose not to accept that gift:

“God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, NKJV).

As this passage emphasizes, that love is also unconditional. Theologian John Peckham, PhD, who has written whole books on the love of God, says:

“God’s love is always unmerited. It’s never deserved. It’s never earned. It’s never something that you have to measure up to in order to receive.”⁸

And God chose to love us in this way, regardless of whether we would love Him in return. He gives us complete freedom to enter into a relationship with Him or not because He knows that true love cannot be forced.

But does God love us only out of principle—because He sees it as the right thing and chooses to? Or does He actually enjoy us and want us?

The picture gets better.

Agape or phileo?

If we stop at agape, we’re missing an important aspect of God’s love. Passages in the New Testament also use phileo to express it.

Take a look at this example when Jesus was speaking to His disciples:

“The Father Himself loves [phileo] you” (John 16:27, NKJV).

And the apostle Paul uses phileo to express the love we should have for God (1 Corinthians 16:22).

In other words, God has not only a principled, self-sacrificing love. He also directs affection and emotions toward us. Both agape and phileo represent His love.

Peckham agrees:

“We’ve traditionally been taught that agape is the only unique word for God’s love, and it’s a better kind of love, and all the other kinds of love are deficient. But in John 16:27, the kind of love that God Himself has is described as phileo.”⁹

Agape and phileo work hand in hand, as another Adventist author writes:

“Both kinds of love are constantly operative and both are an authentic way of expressing love; both being a part of God’s creation. Both kinds of love are potentially operative in human-to-human, God-to-human, and human-to-God relationships.”¹⁰

As we learn more about God’s love, it still leaves some questions, though, about God’s anger and justice. How do those fit into the picture?

God’s love versus His justice?

If God is love, then everything that is true of Him must be true because He is love. He is merciful because He is love. He is kind because He is love. And He is also just because He is love.¹¹

As Peckham puts it, “God’s love and justice go together. Because if you love someone, you’re going to be upset about any injustices perpetrated against them.”¹²
Just think about how you’d feel if someone kidnapped your child and harmed them in some way. You’d be furious and set on getting justice.

And how much more does God want justice for His children who have been wronged? Adventist theologian Angel Rodriguez, ThD, is clear:

“Love and permissiveness are incompatible…. God’s love is tough love.”

We can take comfort in that because it means God will bring justice on our behalf.

But this can feel like a tricky topic. You may wonder why you haven’t seen justice served for people who have hurt you or wronged you. Why does life seem to be going so well for so-and-so who caused so much pain in your life? How come they got away with what they did?

Here’s where we circle back to an important aspect of love: freedom.

God has created every single person on this planet—and they are His children. His greatest longing is for them to experience His love and, as a result, show that love to others. But He will never force them to receive His love and live by it, which means that His children sometimes make choices that harm His other children.

That puts God in a tricky dilemma, doesn’t it?

Because He values freedom so much, He has to allow evil to take its course. Otherwise, the devil, in this conflict between good and evil, would have an opportunity to accuse God of forcing His love upon us.

Thankfully, though, a time will come when justice will be served—when all have clearly had the opportunity to choose for or against God. During the judgment in the last days, He will acknowledge the decisions that people have made and bring ultimate justice for all His children who have been hurt.

For more on the topic of God’s justice and the question of evil,

What does Jesus say about love?

Jesus came to this earth to show us the Father and thus show us His character of love. His life was a living, breathing example of agape and phileo love as He healed the sick, touched lepers, embraced the outcasts of society, blessed children, and called out the hypocrisy of religious leaders.

His actions gave power to His teachings about love, which we’ll summarize in three points:

God the Father loves us

Perhaps some of the most powerful—and most-remembered—words Jesus spoke are these:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16, NKJV).

It’s easy to skip over these words, to miss what they’re really saying.

Notice the sequence: God loved. Therefore, He gave.

And when Jesus came, He loved us with that same self-giving love (John 15:9). He demonstrated the greatest love in laying down His life for us (John 15:13). Now, He calls us and empowers us to do the same.

Love is central to the Ten Commandments

Jesus taught that the Ten Commandments are principles for loving God and loving others:

“‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40, NKJV).

He emphasized that obedience to these commandments don’t earn salvation. Rather, they’re evidence of love for Him and for others:

“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me” (John 14:21, NKJV).

These Commandments reach beyond outward rituals to the very heart. Jesus wanted followers who revealed His love more than followers that just went through the motions (Luke 11:43).

Mark 12 records the same words of Jesus that we quoted from Matthew 22. After Jesus explained how love was central to the Law, someone in his audience responded with these words:

“And to love Him with all the heart, with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (Mark 12:33, NKJV).

Jesus affirmed him:

“Now when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God’” (Mark 12:34, NKJV).

God values true obedience, spurred by love, far above following rituals or ceremonies.

Loving one another is part of discipleship to Jesus

Jesus called all of His followers to love the way He does:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35, NKJV).

This is part of the discipleship process—of becoming like Him. And as we show love for one another, we reveal the love of Christ to the world (John 17:23).

It sounds good written out, but this kind of love is not easy. It requires loving those who don’t offer us love in return:

“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matthew 5:44-46, NKJV)

How do you treat that friend who betrayed you by gossiping about you, or that co-worker who seems intent on making your life miserable? It’s these situations where the principled agape love of Jesus is most difficult to carry out.

But it’s also in these situations that we can depend on Him to fill us with that kind of love.

Love: choice first, feelings second

Love in its purest form, as we’ve learned, is quite unlike the ever-changing feelings we often think of as love. It’s deeper than that. It’s the kind that endures through challenges, that chooses to stay when things get tough.

As Gibson pointed out, “Love is an action. It’s a principle of commitment and loyalty and faithfulness, come what may.”¹³

This doesn’t mean it’s without feelings, though. But it has an important foundation of self-sacrifice and what Gibson calls “relational integrity.”

With that foundation, the feelings become deep and meaningful.

That’s the kind of love God has for each one of us. And the love He’s inviting us to have for one another.