Love!

Defining Love

The Beatles sang, “All you need is love.” Properly understood, they were absolutely right! Love sums up our duty to God and to neighbor, and what greater gift could we receive than the very love of God? Love is the defining characteristic of God (“God is love,” 1 Jn 4:8), and God is the very foundation for this “love God—love others” biblical ethic. But what is love?

The English word love presents us with a problem:

“I love hot dogs and milkshakes.”

“I love baroque music.”

“John loves Mary.”

“For God so loved the world.”

Despite centuries of the widespread use of Scripture and its emphasis on God’s love, our English word love is still inadequate.

Whether among the Kpelle of Liberia or the Siriono, hidden away in the jungles of the upper Amazon, translators have wrestled with how to translate the biblical conception of love. Perhaps it is so difficult to express because it has been so little lived and thus never assigned a name. When the translator was seeking to put into the Siriono language, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 Jn 4:11), he uncovered the root of the universal human problem.

“The Siriono will never do that,” Echobe, his Christian informant, said.

“No, by yourselves you can’t. But God is the one who causes us to love each other.”

Echobe answered, “We Siriono say, ‘That’s just the way we are,’ and keep right on fussing, fighting and ignoring God’s Word. Even if God helps us, it’s not probable that we will love each other.” No wonder the word is missing in every tongue!

Yet God’s entire will for what people should be and do hangs on this command, “You shall love.” What, then, does God expect of us?

The Biblical Definition of Love

First, a little history on the word love. Ancient Greeks had four different words for love—philia, eros, storgē and agapē. During the fourth century B.C. the Greeks had come to use agapē as their standard word. One reason for this was that another word for love—philia—was in some cases taking on the additional meaning of “kiss.”

The Bible doesn’t give us a tidy or rigid distinction between philia and agapē, despite the popularization of this notion in much Christian literature: “friendship” (philia) versus “commitment” (agapē). The Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament (the Septuagint) used the verbs phileō and agapaō interchangeably to translate the verb ’āhab (“love”).1 Jacob’s lopsided love for Joseph is agapaō (Gen 37:3). Although Amnon “loved” (agapaō) Tamar, he would rape her (2 Sam 13:1), but when he raped her, he “hated her with a very great hatred” (2 Sam 13:15). Proverbs 8:17 uses both words interchangeably: “I love [agapaō] those who love [phileō] me.”

This overlap is evident in the New Testament as well. Although both John 3:35 and John 5:20 read, “The Father loves the Son,” ones uses phileō while the other uses agapaō. The Father also “loves” (phileō) Jesus’ disciples (16:27). In John, both “love” verbs are used for the disciple “whom Jesus loved.”2 And Demas abandoned Paul because he “loved” (agapaō) the world (2 Tim 4:10). So, there is overlap in these two words, and we should be careful not to press the distinction too strongly, even if agapē is used more often than philia to depict God’s love.

The philosopher Aristotle referred to three categories of “friendship” (philia). Two of these are inferior friendships. Not that they are bad or evil, but they are not ideal. They are based on an advantage persons bring to each other. It can be a friendship based on usefulness (you may find an intelligent student who can help you study for your physics exam), or it can be based on the pleasure a person brings (you may enjoy watching football games with someone who is a fan of the same team). But the ideal or good friendship is based on equally virtuous persons who engage with each other in virtuous activity; “a friend is another self,” Aristotle said.

Aristotle offers some insights that parallel what Jesus has to say about friendship in John 15:12-15. Jesus said that the greatest display of love (agapē) is laying down one’s life for his friends (philōn)—a picture of virtuous equals. Indeed, Christ called his disciples “friends” (philous) rather than “slaves” (doulous) because he told them what he learned from his Father. Yet there are differences between Jesus and his disciples. In friendship with Christ, there is not a pure reciprocity: “You are My friends if you do what I command you” (Jn 15:14). Of course, we cannot tell Jesus “and you are my friend if you do what I tell you”! In fact, on the same evening in the upper room, Jesus told the disciples he was their “teacher” and “Lord” (Jn 13:13-14). But the implication in this teaching is that we are true friends with God through Christ (cf. Jas 2:23; 4:4)—even though we fall far short of God’s virtuous perfections. And in Christ’s own ministry, he was known as a “friend of . . . sinners” (Mt 11:19). What greater friendship could there be than with the Father or Jesus Christ whom he sent into the world!

By looking at the friendship God has shown us, we come to see biblical love is a self-giving commitment or devotion—whether to God or fellow humans. Our love must be properly ordered, however. Greater love is due to God than to our fellow human beings, no matter how closely related or virtuous they are.

Love toward God will exhibit single-mindedness (“purity of heart”), obedience and worship. On the human level, love toward others means sacrificing for their well-being without the motivation of personal gain.

There are both internal and external elements in the biblical concept of love. Love is a noun that may indicate a particular kind of feeling, but it is also a verb that emphasizes how we should behave and how we should orient our mindset. The internal aspect focuses on emotion, disposition, motive. The external aspect focuses on volition, choices, actions, a way of life.

Internal aspects of love. In the Old Testament, love speaks of a spontaneous feeling that impels self-giving. This was true both for God and humans. When a human “loved” God, it meant to have pleasure in God, striving impulsively after him, seeking God for his own sake. From God’s side, the warm, strong feeling of affection that characterizes a healthy parent-child relationship is taken as a picture of how God the Father relates to Israel, his son. Love is the foundation of the covenant relationship. If the legal, covenantal aspect of the relationship is strong in the father-son analogy, the passionate loving-kindness of a good marriage is strong in the picture of God the husband and Israel the wife. The climactic revelation of this love relationship is seen in the prophet Hosea and his well-loved harlot-wife. The same analogy of father-son, bridegroom-bride continues in the New Testament, focusing on the warm affection and unfailing bonds between two who love each other deeply.

But the internal aspect of love is more than a feeling. It is a characteristic of life, a disposition. Old Testament scholars seem to have a problem in translating another Hebrew word, ḥesed. Some translations speak of loving-kindness (KJV), some of steadfast love (ASV, RSV, ESV), some of constant love (GNT). Indeed, the love of God is steadfast, unfailing, never-changing, faithful to his covenant promises. This is a committed love—not a sometime thing, tentative and sporadic, but from generation to generation, from age to age. This unending love is faithful through all kinds of circumstances, even rejection. Biblical love, then, is not a passing emotion, but a way of life, a disposition, a relationship of permanent commitment to the welfare of another.

There is yet another element in the internal aspect of biblical love: loving feelings motivate actions. In fact, it is not too much to say that love is the only motive. At the root of every choice, every action a person takes, lies love—whether for self, for others, for God, or in combination. But love—even disordered love—shapes behavior.

As we note later in the book, selfishness is not the same as self-interest. We feed ourselves because of self-interest (an appropriate expression of self-love); out of selfishness, some amass wealth, refusing to consider how they may help (an inappropriate expression of self-love). So when we speak of the “glory of God,” this is not, strictly speaking, a motive. We are designed to function properly in loving and serving God, who is worthy of our worship. But in committing ourselves to the worship-worthy triune God, we also find joy and fulfillment in this relationship as a by-product (Ps 16:11; 63:7). To obey God is for our good (Deut 10:13). Love for God is not in conflict with an appropriate sense of self-interest or self-love. We will look at this more closely below.

Our focus on the internal aspects of love is immediately shifted to the external by the term motive. Motivated to what? To act. So we now turn from love as an inner response to love as a description of how a love-­motivated person behaves.

External aspects of love. We are quite familiar with the image of “falling” in love—and, somehow, falling out of love. Love is understood as feeling. Yet the Bible emphasizes what love does more than how love feels: “God so loved the world that he gave” (Jn 3:16 niv); the Son of God “loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20 niv). Biblical love refers to a free and decisive act determined by the subject himself—not by the drawing power of the object, as with passionate eros, familial love or the warm mutuality of friendship. The primary characteristic of biblical love is commitment to act for the well-being of another.

In contemporary Western culture, “I don’t feel like doing that” often implies “I’m not obligated to do that.” By contrast, in the New Testament, as in the Old, loving is often linked with obeying—the outward response of an inward condition of love. We are commanded to love. “You shall love the LORD your God. . . . You shall love your neighbor as yourself ” (Mt 22:37-39; cf. Lev 19:18; Deut 6:5). “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (Jn 14:15 ESV). “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1 Jn 5:3 ESV; cf. 2 Jn 6). The first question Scripture asks is not, how do you feel about this person? but rather, what choices must you make concerning this person? Christ commands us to love, pray for and do good to our enemy—despite our negative feelings (Mt 5:44; Lk 6:27).

Of course, feelings are only one facet of who we are. That is why we train children to apologize when they have hurt another person—to make peace even though they don’t feel like doing so. This is part of training them in setting aside feelings to pursue reconciliation and forgiveness. A human being is a multifaceted whole who cannot be divided up into intellect, will and emotions. However, since a whole person does function both volitionally and emotionally, it is proper for us to say that the will “controlled” one action and the emotions “controlled” another. Yet one can will to act contrary to the impulse of one’s emotions. Jesus did this when his emotions cried out, “Father . . . let this cup pass from Me” (Mt 26:39). Yet he chose the Father’s will, contrary to what he wanted, or how he felt. From the Bible’s viewpoint, the choice to act lovingly, not the intensity of the feeling, is the test and ultimate proof of love. The concept of volitional love overriding affectional love is of paramount importance, for we may not be able to control our emotional response. But by the grace of God we can choose to act lovingly, no matter how we feel.

So those who claim that this emphasis on will over emotions is dishonest and not being “true” to oneself are mistaken. To assume it is deceptive if one does not act in conformity with one’s feelings is to reduce personhood to emotion. Yes, each of us is a person with feelings, but also with the capacity to choose, to honor commitments, to use one’s reason, to consider one’s primary obligations to God. To be honest to myself means I must be honest to my whole self before God—to act in conformity with his will and my commitment to him. To truly know ourselves as humans, John Calvin rightly affirmed, we must first truly know God’s character and his priorities for us. This is indeed a liberating truth—I can choose to act for the welfare of another no matter how I feel about him or about the action God desires of me.

Too many misguided parents misunderstand this point. Honesty does not demand that a son tell his father in anger, “I hate you”—or express some other unworthy feeling. Love, the virtue of self-control and wisdom will not permit it. For every disciple, loving obedience to God will have concern for relationships and for the feelings of others; the believer should look to God’s grace to deal with a hateful spirit and to choose to act in consistently loving ways. The loving act does not cancel the pain of previous hurts or the guilt of hostile feelings, but it is a start in the right direction.

To say that acting lovingly takes precedence over the emotion of love does not mean that biblical love is exhausted by acting lovingly. Without the emotion, love can be authentic, but it is not complete. If we act in love, ordinarily the affection will follow. Thus one can love in a biblical, active sense, without liking. In fact, it is required that we act lovingly no matter how we feel. The vivid Cantonese expression for this is “swallowing a dead cat”!

Love-in-action has both a negative and a positive aspect. The so-called Silver Rule speaks of refraining from harming—that is, do no harm, or “Do not do to others what you do not want others to do to you.” The great Chinese master Confucius and the great Jewish master Hillel taught this. It is true, of course—that is how love behaves. But this is only a faint shadow of the Golden Rule, that we should do to others as we would have them do to us (Mt 7:12)—a rephrasing of “love your neighbor as yourself.” Biblical love is positive and active—constantly planning and acting for the welfare of others. To refrain from killing one’s enemy is a loving thing, but to sacrifice and show kindness for an enemy is true, Godlike love (Mt 5:44-45).

In fact, the Silver Rule can easily become the very opposite of biblical love. This is highlighted in a culture where the Silver Rule has been dominant. A Japanese philosopher, Kitamori, tells us that the Silver Rule lies at the base of a strong Japanese characteristic: disentanglement. To refrain from harming another is best achieved by staying clear of him. So the Japanese characteristic is to assume incredible obligations for those to whom one is inevitably related (family, work) but to remain adamantly aloof, disentangled from all other responsibility. But love deliberately entangles itself—the very thing God has done! As N. T. Wright often says, God has stepped into our world, getting his feet dirty and hands bloody. Biblical love becomes inextricably involved—and at great cost.

An emerging definition of love, then, is an affection, or a desire for the welfare of another that moves to a commitment to act for her well-being. Ordinarily, this is the way love moves, from attitude to action. Jesus was moved with loving compassion when he saw the distressed multitudes, prompting him to call his disciples to pray for laborers to reach them (Mt 9:36-38). But when the internal aspects are missing, one can begin with loving action, the external, and leave the feeling to tag along as it will. For example, we can begin to pray for our enemies and do practical good for them (Mt 5:44; Lk 6:27). And this is not an aberration, an undesirable last resort. No, acting lovingly without the feeling of love can be of the very essence of biblical love—that which causes it to stand out in bold contrast to ordinary human love. We call it sacrificial love. Thus love may flow either direction—joyfully from affection to action or painfully across the bridge of the cross—“nevertheless,” no matter how I long for some other way, “not my will, but yours be done” (Lk 22:42 ESV).

If the internal aspects (love as affection and as motive) lead to a disposition that is characterized by a consistently loving attitude, the external aspects (love as choice and action) will lead to a loving way of life. But this way of life, by definition, cannot be expressed in isolation. Love demands a second party. We have concentrated thus far on the one loving, rather than on the one loved. How do the two relate? Ideally, of course, love is mutual. Affection is met with affection; loving acts are reciprocated.

Reciprocal Love and Nonreciprocal Love

Some disparage reciprocal love, calling it “need-love” or even “swap-love.” They say it is unworthy to expect or even to desire a return on one’s investment of love in another. But it is easy to become more “spiritual” than the Bible. C. S. Lewis speaks to this:

We must be cautious about calling Need-love “mere selfishness.” Mere is always a dangerous word. No doubt Need-love, like all our impulses, can be selfishly indulged. A tyrannous and gluttonous demand for affection can be a horrible thing. But in ordinary life no one calls a child selfish because it turns for comfort to its mother. Every Christian would agree that a man’s spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God. But man’s love for God, from the very nature of the case, must always be very largely, and most often be entirely, a Need-love. This is obvious when we implore forgiveness for our sins or support in our tribulations. . . . It would be a bold and silly creature that came before its Creator with the boast, “I’m no beggar. I love you disinterestedly.”3

Indeed, God himself expects a “return on his investment.” He longs and desires to be loved, as we see clearly in the book of Hosea (cf. also Mt 22:37; Jn 4:23; Rev 3:20). But the difference is this: He does not make a loving response the condition for giving love (Rom 5:6-8), and God’s love is characterized by “enemy love” (Mt 5:43-48). Of course, this runs against our human grain. C. S. Lewis captured this in his poem “As the Ruin Falls.” Speaking from the vantage point of human fallenness, Lewis affirms that often lofty talk of love is more like a scholar’s parrot that can “talk Greek.” Lewis confesses he’s never had a selfless thought in his life, that he is “mercenary and self-seeking through and through” and “cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin.”4 This self-centeredness is what Christ came to transform, which Lewis himself had also come to experience.

Sheer uncommitted eros to the ancient Greek, and to the modern person as well, is passionate love that desires the other purely for self. As fallen humans, our inclination is to continue to give only so long as we receive—or so long as we hope to receive. But God’s kind of love is not preoccupied with the question, what can I get? but, what can I give? It is not, how well am I loved? but rather, how well do I love?

Thus the focus of biblical love is on the quality of the subject, the loving character of the one loving—not on the quality of the object or its worthiness of love. Jesus spells this out in great detail with many examples (Lk 6:27-35). He teaches that to love those who love us is nothing great. It is when we choose deliberately to love those who do not deserve it that we have reflected divine love—a love that sends rain and sunshine on the unrighteous and evil, not just the good. This is what it means to be “merciful” (Lk 6:36) or “perfect” just as the Father is (Mt 5:48); when we love our enemies, we resemble God in his perfect love.

Yet the ideal is reciprocal love, each finding in the other abundant reason to appreciate, to feel drawn to, to be overwhelmed by the desire to give. We give because we want to, not because we have to—we delight in the loved one. Then we rejoice in receiving from the one loved. When the object is not lovable, or the emotion is not present, it is then that the character of the giving lover shines in greatest splendor. Biblical love, then, is an affectionate disposition that motivates the lover to consistently act for the welfare of another, whether or not the other deserves it or reciprocates.

We have tried to sketch out the biblical meaning of love. But the length and breadth and depth and height of it (Eph 3:18-19) stretch far beyond our reach. What shall we do? Often, to understand an abstract idea or a large concept it is necessary to define by description or demonstration. How good that God has given us both.

Love Defined by Description

The most well-known description of love was penned by Paul (1 Cor 13). Notice that he gives examples of the internal but also the external: love’s attitude and disposition, but also love’s activity. On the one hand love does not boast, is not proud or self-seeking, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth, always trusts and hopes. On the other hand, love takes action: it is patient and kind, is not rude and quick-tempered, always protects, and always perseveres.

Scripture is filled with many other descriptions of love. Love is without hypocrisy (Rom 12:9; 2 Cor 6:6; 1 Pet 1:22), works no ill for others (Rom 13:10), will lay down its life for another (Jn 15:13), takes the servant’s role (Gal 5:13), is brotherly (Rom 12:16; 1 Thess 4:9; Heb 13:1).

Though direct descriptions of love are plentiful enough to challenge for a lifetime, the indirect descriptions seem all but exhaustless. Consider the teachings on what have been called the “reciprocal verbs” of the New Testament. Not only are we told to love one another thirteen times (Jn 13:34-35; 15:12, 17; Rom 13:8; Gal 5:13; 1 Thess 3:12; 4:9; 1 Pet 1:22; 1 Jn 3:11, 23; 4:7, 11-12; 2 Jn 5), we are commanded to have the same care one for another (1 Cor 12:25), to receive one another (Rom 15:7), to be affectionate to one another (Rom 12:10), to greet one another with a holy kiss (Rom 16:16; 1 Cor 16:20; 2 Cor 13:12; 1 Pet 5:14), to wait for one another (1 Cor 11:33), to be kind one to another (Eph 4:32), to prefer one another (Rom 12:10), to forbear one another in love (Eph 4:2; Col 3:13), to forgive one another (Eph 4:32; Col 3:13). Furthermore, we are not to judge one another (Rom 14:13), speak evil of one another (Jas 4:11), lie to one another (Col 3:9), “bite” one another (Gal 5:15), provoke one another (Gal 5:26) or complain against one another (Jas 5:9).

But this is only part of it. Love requires that we submit to one another (Eph 5:21; 1 Pet 5:5); everyone is actually a member one of another (Rom 12:5; Eph 4:25); we are to live in harmony one with another (Rom 12:16; 15:5); we are to edify one another (1 Thess 5:11), exhort one another (Heb 3:13; 1 Thess 5:11), admonish one another (Rom 15:14; Col 3:16), sing to one another (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16), encourage one another (1 Thess 4:18; 5:11), confess sins to one another (Jas 5:16), serve one another (Gal 5:13; 1 Pet 4:10), wash one another’s feet (Jn 13:14), show hospitality toward one another (1 Pet 4:9), stimulate one another to love and good works (Heb 10:24), pray for one another (Jas 5:16) and bear one another’s burdens (Gal 6:2). Incredible as this list may be, it is only one of any number of teachings in Scripture that describe the attitudes and behavior of love.

Perhaps the most extensive descriptions of love are embedded within the commands of Scripture. Our next section addresses the topic of law and love, but at this point, let us agree that the commands of Scripture reveal God’s will for those to whom they are addressed and that his ultimate will is that we be like him in moral character (Gal 4:19). Since “God is love” it should come as no surprise that the entire Old Testament revelation of God’s will for humanity hangs on the law of love (Mt 22:37-40). After stating the Golden Rule, Jesus concluded, “For this is [the essence of] the Law and the Prophets” (Mt 7:12). Paul repeats the thought: “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal 5:14 ESV). Again he says that this law of love sums up the Ten Commandments (Rom 13:8-9). In short, the commands of Scripture indicate how love will behave.

Yet Scripture goes beyond description to actually exemplifying and demonstrating love—what we see in the incarnation, life and atoning death of Jesus of Nazareth.

Love Demonstrated

“God is love,” says John (1 Jn 4:8, 16). This is the basic difference between the biblical concept of love and our concept of love. The Bible defines love by the nature of God. We tend to define love by the nature of humanity.

To say that God is love does not mean that God equals love. Love does not describe God exhaustively. He has other qualities, such as wisdom and justice; but this does not mean that those characteristics in God’s nature violate love. God always acts lovingly, even in judgment.

Again, “God is love” does not mean that love equals God. Love is not an abstract entity, having existence as an object, let alone having warmth and personality. To say that love and God are equivalent would deify love and make it some absolute concept. Perhaps one might claim that God himself is subject to and judged by this standard outside himself. But just as God’s attribute as Creator only makes sense if he has created, so love cannot exist in the abstract but in relationship. Indeed, the triune God is the foundation and source of love. So it is inaccurate to say that God is “a person.” Rather, God is a personal being—three mutually loving and engaging persons in one being. Father, Son and Spirit are God-in-relation.

As a physical analogy, we can think of creatures in nature—two-headed snakes and turtles or even inseparable conjoined twins—that have more than one distinct center of awareness or consciousness within one being. Or consider the three-headed dog Cerberus of Greek mythology. We could speak of the Trinity—a spiritual or soulish being—as three personal centers of awareness and will as inseparably united, God in loving community. No wonder love comes from God (1 Jn 4:7, 19)! And since love is rooted in God himself, true human love is Godlikeness (1 Jn 4:16).

God was not obliged to love by some external “ought.” Loving is the way he is. This is one of the greatest evidences for the Trinity. God the Father loves God the Son and God the Holy Spirit from all eternity. Within the Trinity, love is other-directed. God the Son loves the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit loves the Son and the Father. Yet Christ’s “cry of dereliction” from the cross—“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46 NIV)—reveals the other-directed love of God in another direction, toward fallen human beings. Jesus, the Israelite who faithfully lived out Israel’s story, bore the curse promised to a disobedient Israel (Deut 27)—indeed for a rebellious humanity. By hanging on a tree, he bore our judgment, our exile, our alienation, our curse (Deut 21:23; Gal 3:13), while experiencing a profound sense of abandonment by the Father.

Thus, the loving nature of God is the basis for his creative and redeeming activity. He created humanity because he is love and desired a being designed on his own pattern so that he could love that creature and be freely loved in return. When humanity rejected this loving approach of God, breaking that relationship, God continued loving because God is love by nature. And so we have the story of redemption. Love became incarnate. Thus all of life finds meaning in being loved by God and loving him.

By his life, Jesus demonstrated flawlessly how Godlike love behaves, and in his death he demonstrated the ultimate proof of love. He was our model—we can now see how we are to “walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph 5:1-2 NIV). We now can see what it means to have “the same mindset as Christ,”

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

by becoming obedient to death—

even death on a cross! (Phil 2:6-8 NIV)

“By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 Jn 3:16 NKJV). Throughout the New Testament Christ’s love is given as our model: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12 ESV).

All of Christ’s life puts on display God’s loving character (cf. Jn 14:9), but the cross of Christ demonstrates the love of God more clearly than any other act of any other person in all history.

Christ himself is the perfect, living model of God’s character; but God graciously re-creates that character in other people who in turn demonstrate true love. In fact, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:35).

Here is a modern demonstration of Christ-like love:

Pastor Son was . . . a mild, little man—less than five feet tall—whose two great joys in life were his two sons, Tong-In and Tong-Sin. During the war Tong-In, like his father, had refused to worship at the Shinto shrines and had been thrown out of school by the Japanese. After the war, at twenty-four years of age, he went back to high school. . . . In October 1948, a wild Communist uprising swept through his part of South Korea and Communist youths seized the school in a reign of terror. A nineteen-year-old Communist leveled a pistol at Tong-In and ordered him to renounce his Christian faith. But Tong-In only pleaded with him to turn Christian himself and try the Christian way of love. Tong-Sin, the younger brother, rushed up to save him. “Shoot me,” he shouted, “and let my brother live.” “No,” cried Tong-In, “I am the elder. I am the one who should die. Shoot me.” The Communist shot them both. . . . Two days later the uprising was smashed and the murderer of the two boys was caught and brought to trial. Pastor Son found him with his hands tied behind his back, about to be condemned to death. He went to the military commander. “No amount of punishment will bring back my two sons,” he said, “so what is to be gained by this? Let me, instead, take the boy and make a Christian of him so that he can do the work in the world that Tong-In and Tong-Sin left undone.” Stunned at first by the proposal, the authorities reluctantly consented to release the young man into the custody of the father of the boys he had killed, and Pastor Son took him home.5

Not only does God reveal the nature of love in the pages of Scripture, but he graciously demonstrates his loving character in his eternal Son partaking in flesh and blood to identify with us and die for us. And the children of God across the ages in every land serve as a further demonstration of Christlike love—an inspiration to the rest of us to do likewise.

An Introduction to Biblical Ethics: Walking in the Way of Wisdom

Robertson McQuilkin

10 Apr 2021