The doctrine of love

1. At the point of salvation every believer passes the point of propitiation, placing himself under maximum divine love. The principle is found in relationship to that love in 1 John 2:2. Positional truth further guarantees that God the Father will love every believer with the same amount of love which He possesses for Jesus Christ — 1 John 3:2.

2. Therefore God can love every believer with maximum love in spite of the believer’s spiritual status in phase two.

3. There are three basic categories of love. As far as man is concerned category #1 is love toward God. Category #2 is love for a member of the opposite sex who is categorised as either right man or right woman. Category #3 is friendship. All of these categories are limited. Category #1 is limited to the three members of the Godhead. Category #2 is limited to one person of the opposite sex. Category #3 is also limited and will never include too many real friends. When it comes to the command to love the brethren (members of the family of God) that is strictly a mental attitude love produced first by the filling of the Spirit and also produced by growth and spiritual maturity. It is strictly a mental attitude, nothing more.

4. There is also a relationship-type love in the Bible. It comes from the Attic Greek noun storgh and it means love of parents for children, love of children for parents when they mature a little bit. There is another Attic Greek word which connotes an aspect of category #2 love, e)roj, which is called sex love. Relationship love does exist, except of course where Bible doctrine divides a family, as in Matthew 10:34-37; Luke 12:51-53.

5. In the New Testament vocabulary for love we have two verbs and two nouns. They are cognates within the framework of the two. We have a)gapaw which is the verb, and the cognate is a)gaph. We have filew which is the verb, and the noun is filoj. A)gapaw and a)gaph is a special love, a limited type love because it refers only to the mentality of the soul. it is strictly a mental attitude and, by the way, excludes emotion. It means freedom from mental attitude sins, it means a relaxed mental attitude towards its object. The second category is a general type love and covers every facet of the soul. This type of love includes emotion and it is actually more mature. To be called the filoj of God like Abraham was is a very, very high honour. This type of love is more mature and expresses greater capacity for love, as illustrated by the indignation of Peter when Jesus said he didn’t have filew or filoj — John 21:17.

6. Principle of documentation. It was Archbishop Trench who first observed the correct distinction between a)gapaw and filew. He observed this by going to a parallel and almost an exactly parallel language at the time of the Roman empire. At that time Latin was spoken in the western part of the empire and was the most dominant language. In the eastern part of the empire Koine Greek was the dominant language. At the time of the Roman empire Latin and the Koine Greek became exact equivalents. It was the study of these two languages at the time of the writing of the New Testament which brought Trench around to the conclusion that the verb in the Latin, diligo, is equivalent to a)gapaw; and that the Latin word amo is equivalent to filew. He cites the writings of Cicero and he finally concluded from these and other writings from which he took a lot of authors: “We conclude that amo which answers to filew is stronger than diligo which corresponds to a)gapaw” — page 41, The Synonyms of the New Testament, by Archbishop Richard C, Trench.

7. Summary of the distinctions. The noun a)gaph is strictly a mental attitude love which emphasises the actions of mental attitude sins. The noun filoj is stronger and connotes a more general soul love and a great capacity. It is mistakenly translated “friendship.” The noun a)gaph is found in two areas: the filling of the Spirit produces it — Romans 5:5; Galatians 5:22. The third floor of the ECS produces it — 1 John 2:5; Colossians 3:14. The noun filoj is the fourth floor of the ECS and it by far the highest concept in that area.

8. All believers are commanded a)gaph type love. Since a)gaph is produced by the filling of the Spirit it is only accomplished in this way — Romans 5:5 — and it produces the concept we have in 1 Corinthians 13 where the word “charity” is a)gaph love. However, filoj type love demands maturity, it demands capacity, so there is a lot of GAPing before one gets this far.

9. In mankind a)gaph is limited only to the mentality of the soul while filoj extends to every facet of the soul and to the entire life as well as having something to do with the personality of the individual. This has to be remembered because people have very erroneously taught that a)gaph is divine love and filoj is human love.

10. The erroneous conclusion that a)gaph refers only to divine love because, for example, it is found in John 3:16. With the verb a)gapaw and the noun a)gaph it all depends on who is producing the action. For example, in John 3:19 men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. So you have evil men with a)gaph and the word is used in an entirely different way.

11. God must be the subject of the verb before any verb can be divine love. God is the subject of filew in John 16:27, just as God is the subject of a)gapaw in John 3:16.

12. God is the motivating factor of category #1 love — 1 John 3:11; 4:19.