Love is one of the central themes of the New Testament. The most-often quoted text in the New Testament is “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). God’s love for the world is manifested in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, and that love is available to all for the transformation of life into a love-filled life. At the center of the New Testament is St. Paul’s eulogy on love—the thirteenth chapter of his first letter to the church at Corinth (I Corinthians 13). This passage by Paul refers to the love that humans need to express toward one another. He ends that chapter with these words: “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love” (I Corinthians 13:13).
The idea of love within the New Testament may be divided into three categories: God’s love for the world, human love toward God, and human love toward one another. The New Testament maintains that the very nature of God is love; and that is why it is possible to say “God is love” (I John 4:8,16). Love is not simply one of the attributes of God, but it is what God is. Although love is the essence of God, it is not simply an idea—it is a relationship of love that accepts the other unconditionally.
This view is illustrated beautifully in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). God, like the father in the parable, is patiently waiting for his wayward son to return home. When he returns home, the father accepts him completely. Similarly, God accepts the sinner as he or she is. The supreme manifestation of God’s love of humanity is the sending of God’s own Son, Jesus the Christ, into the world for the well-being of the world and its peoples (I John 4:9-10). Therefore, the life, ministry, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ are a symphony of love. The cross of Christ is seen as the place where God’s love is powerfully expressed as self-giving and suffering love.
Although God, through Jesus Christ, loves the world and its peoples, humans are expected to love God as well. Human love for God is neither a duty to be performed nor an obligation to fulfill. Human love is only a response to the ever-existent and manifested love of God. As St. John expresses it, “We love because he first loved us” (I John 4:19). Since God has loved the world unconditionally, humans are called to love God unconditionally as well. Jesus says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with your entire mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).
Human response to God’s love is expressed not only through one’s love of God with one’s entire being; it is primarily expressed through the love of the neighbor. After citing the Jewish commandment to love God, Jesus invites his disciples to love their neighbors as themselves: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). The love of neighbor is not only a response to God’s love; it is also a litmus test for one’s love of God. St. John states, “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen” (I John 4:20).
The love of one’s neighbor is concretized in the love of one’s family as well. The New Testament speaks of the love between husband and wife. St. Paul writes, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Given the patriarchal setting of those days, when the New Testament instructs wives to be obedient to their husbands, such obedience is an expression of love. Similarly, the relationship between parents and children is that of love and care (Ephesians 6:1-4). Neighborly love is that which expresses itself in friendship among humans. Jesus addressed his disciples as friends and speaks of friendship in highly appreciative terms. Jesus said, “no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). The greatest challenge for love is to love one’s enemy. Jesus taught that one should love one’s enemies and pray for those who persecute them (Matthew 5:44).
Another way to come to grips with the New Testament teaching on love is to look at the Greek words used in the New Testament to denote love: eros, philia, and agape. In earlier New Testament scholarship, the words eros and agape were set off against each other to emphasize the unconditional and self-giving love implied in agape in contrast to the more sensual love of eros. Scholars no longer maintain such stark contrast, although the centrality of unconditional and self-giving love in the New Testament is affirmed.
Another way to understand the various layers of the meaning of the word love is to examine the idea of love as expressed in each of the twenty-seven writings of the New Testament. Each topic has its own nuances and unique meanings in extolling the primacy of love in the life of a Christian. However, the New Testament never fails to present love as the “fruit” of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22), and as that which is poured into the hearts of those who believe in Jesus the Christ (Romans 5:5).
