The love of God is talked about throughout the Bible, but it is the main focus of the gospel message that Jesus taught his disciples, and that the Apostle Paul proclaimed to the Gentiles. Jesus stated in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus later told his disciples, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). The Greek word that Jesus used to describe his love for his friends was agape (ag-ahˊ-pay). Jesus used the same word when he told the Jews, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you” (John 5:39-42). The love of God or of Christ “means the love which God or Christ exercises toward Christians. The love that is derived from God (Romans 5:5; Ephesians 2:4; 2 Thessalonians 3:5)” (G26). John stated in his first letter, “God is love” (1 John 4:16), indicating that God is the source of love. Any love that we experience in our lives comes from God.

God’s relationship with the nation of Israel was unique in that God thought of Israel as being married to him. The prophet “Hosea was called to exemplify the relationship between God and Israel through his marriage to a harlot” (Introduction to Hosea). It says in Hosea 3:1, “And the LORD said to me, ‘Go again and love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” Israel’s unrepentant idolatry resulted in God declaring “I will drive them out of my house, I will love them no more” (Hosea 9:15), but the LORD’s love for Israel kept him from permanently abandoning his chosen people. Hosea’s book ends with a promise that God will again bless his people after he has purged them of their apostasy. God said, “I will heal their apostasy, I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them: (Hosea 14:4).

Paul compared the relationship of a husband and wife to that of Christ and the church in his letter to the Ephesians. Paul wrote:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. (Ephesians 5:25-30)

In this passage, Paul used the Greek word agapao (ag-ap-ahˊ-o) which means “to love (in a social or moral sense)…as referring to superiors and including the idea of duty, respect, veneration, meaning to love and serve with fidelity (Matthew 6:24; 22:37; Mark 12:30, 33; Luke 16:13; Romans 8:28; Sept. 1 Samuel 18:16)” (G25).

Paul explained in his letter to the Romans that the love of God is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who dwells within us (John 14:17). Paul said we have obtained access into the grace of God by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and, “not only this, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope; and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5). Paul connected suffering with the love of God and made it clear that God’s love is meant to counteract the negative effects of believers living in a fallen world.

The love of God is a strong force that overcomes the unbeliever’s sinful human nature and causes him to turn to God for salvation. Paul said, “For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8). Paul experienced this personally when he was converted on the road to Damascus. Luke tells us:

But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” (Acts 9:1-6)

Paul was still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord when Jesus met him on the road to Damascus and asked him the question, “Why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4). Paul’s response indicates he didn’t recognize the voice, but Paul knew that the person speaking to him had absolute authority over his life. Rather than striking Paul dead or berating him for his bad behavior, Jesus commissioned Paul into his ministry (Acts 9:6, 20).

Jesus told his disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). Paul explained Jesus’ commandment in his letter to the Romans. Paul said:

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. (Romans 13:8-10)

Paul said that love is the fulfilling of the law in the sense that if you love someone, you will not want to harm that person. Loving people prevents you from doing something wrong to them. Jesus took this one step further when he said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Jesus realized that love doesn’t come naturally to human beings and he doesn’t expect us to give something to others that we haven’t first received from him. Jesus promised, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him for he dwells with you and will be in you…If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:16-17, 23). Paul talked about God’s everlasting love in the context of our future glory. Paul asked:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
    we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)

Paul said that believers are more than conquerors through him who loved us (Romans 8:37). The Greek word that is translated more than conquerors, hupernikao (hoop-er-nik-ahˊ-o) means “to vanquish beyond, i.e. gain a decisive victory” (G5245). Paul indicated the things that Christians are able to more than conqueror are “tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, and the sword” (Romans 8:35), therefore, it can be assumed that the love of God enables believers to overcome any and all negative circumstances in their lives.

We know that Peter’s denial of Jesus was a devastating circumstance for him because afterward “he went out and wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:75). John’s gospel describes an encounter between Jesus and Peter after Jesus’ resurrection. John said, “When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these”’ (John 21:15). The word that Jesus used for love was agapao, suggesting that Jesus wanted to know if Peter thought of himself as being faithful to the Lord even though he had recently denied three times that he knew him (Matthew 26:69-75). Peter responded to Jesus, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you” (John 21:15). Peter didn’t use the word agapao for love, but rather phileo (fil-ehˊ-o), which means “to be a friend to” (G5368). Phileo specifically refers to “a kiss” and is used in Matthew 26:48 where it says, “Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, ‘The one I will kiss is the man; seize him.” The love of God is not like an affectionate kiss that is based on sentiment or feelings that can disappear overnight, but rather “the deliberate assent of the will as a matter of principle, duty and propriety…it is an unselfish ‘love,’ ready to serve” (G5368). John tells us that Jesus asked Peter a second, and then a third time, “Do you love me?” (John 21:16-17). John said, “Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love (phileo) me?’ and said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love (phileo) you’” (John 21:17). Peter loved Jesus, but not in the same way that Jesus loved him.

Peter’s ability to love others as Jesus loved him likely increased after he was filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4). In his first letter, Peter said about Jesus Christ, “Though you have not seen him, you love (agapao) him” (1 Peter 1:8). Paul associated the love of God with spiritual strength and prayed for this in his letter to the Ephesians. Paul said, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. According to Paul, our ability to comprehend God’s love is dependent on our spiritual maturity or strength. As we grow in our knowledge of God, we will be able to grasp more and more how truly amazing the love of God is.