Love

Love (prop. אִהֲבָה, ἀγάπη) is an attachment of the affections to any object, accompanied with an ardent desire to promote its happiness: 1, by abstaining from all that could prove injurious to it; 2, by doing all that call promote its welfare, comfort, or interests, whether it is indifferent to these efforts, or whether it appreciates them. This is what Kant calls practical love, in contradistinction from pathological love, which is a sort of sensual self-love, and a desire for community in compliance with our own feelings. In reality, love is something personal, emanating from a personal being and directed towards another, and thus its moral or immoral character is determined by the fact of its being called forth by the real worth of the personality towards which it is directed, or by the physical appearance of the latter, or by the advantages it may offer.

In the Christian sense, as we find it spoken of in the Word of God, love is not merely a peculiar disposition of the feelings, or a direction of the will of the creature, though this also must have its root in the creative principle, in God. God is love, the original, absolute love (1Jo 4:9). As the absolute love, he is at once subject and object, i.e., he originally loved himself, had communion with himself, imparted himself to himself, as also we see mention made of God's love before the creation of the world, the love of the Father towards the Son (Joh 17:24), Derived from this love is the love which calls into being and preserves his creatures. Creatures, that is, existences which come from God, are through him and for him; not having life by themselves, but immediately dependent upon God existing by his will, and consequently to be destroyed at his will; created in time, and consequently subject to time, developing themselves in it to the full extent of their nature according to God's thoughts, with the possibility of departing therefrom, which it were impossible to suppose of God, the eternally real and active idea of himself. In regard to the creature, the divine love is the will of God to communicate to it the fullness of his life, and even the will to impart, according to its receptive faculty, this fullness into something which is not himself, yet which, as coming from God, tends also towards God, and finds its rest in him, and its happiness in doing his will. But, as emanating from an active God this love, with all its fullness, can only be directed towards a similarly organized and consequently personal creature, conscious of its relation to God and of himself as its end, possessing in itself the fullness of created life (microcosm).

It must, then, be man towards whom this divine love is directed as the object of God's delight, created after his image. This love is manifested in the earnestness of the discipline (commands and threats, Ge 2:17) employed to strengthen this resemblance to God, to educate man as a ruler by obedience, as also by the intercourse of God with man; and, after the fall, by the hope and confidence awakening promises, as well as in the humiliating condemnation to pain, labor, and death. All these contain evidences of love, of this will of God to hold man in his communion, or to restore him to it. At the bottom of it lies an appreciation of his worth, namely, of his inalienable resemblance to God, of the imparted divine breath. This appreciation is also the foundation of compassionate love, for it is only on this ground that man is worthy of the divine affection. But it is also the ground which renders him deserving of punishment. For punishment, this destiny of evil, which is felt as a hinderance of life, is in one respect an expiation, i.e. a retrieving of God's honor, being incurred by that disregard of the value of his communion with God, and consequently of the real life, which must be considered as injurious to the life of man, and leading him to ruin; on the other hand, it is inducement to conversion, as this consequence of sin leads man to recognize the restoration of this disturbed relation to God as the one thing needful and desirable. Punishment consequently proceeds in both cases on the assumption of the worth of man in the eve of God, and is a proof of it. Hence the anger of God, as manifested by these punishments, is but another form of his love. It is a reaction of rejected love which manifests itself in imparting suffering and pain on the one who rejects it, proving thereby that its rejection is not a matter of indifference to it. This love may not be apparent at first sight, but it is clearly revealed in God's conduct towards all mankind, as well towards the heathen as towards the chosen people. God allowed the heathen to walk in their own ways (Ac 14:17); he allows them to fall into all manner of evil (Ro 1:21 sq.) in order to bring them to a sense of their misery and helplessness as well as of their guilt. But at the bottom of this anger there is still love, and this is clearly shown in the fact that he manifested himself to them in their conscience, and also took care of them (Ac 14:17; Ac 17:25 sq.). But, if this love is thus evinced towards the heathen, it is still more clearly manifested towards the chosen people, the fact of their choice being itself a manifestation of that love (De 7:6 sq.), which is further shown both in the blessings and punishments, the anger and the mercy, of which they were the objects. Holiness and mercy are the chief characteristics of the divine love as manifested towards Israel; the one raising them above their weaknesess, their evils, and their sins; the other understanding these failings, and seeking to deliver and restore them. But in both also is manifested the constancy of that love, its faithfulness; and the exactitude with which it adheres to the covenant it had itself made evinces its righteousness by saving those who fear God and obey his commandments. Both holiness and mercy are, for the moral, religious consciousness, harmonized in the expiatory sacrifice, in a figurative, typical manner in the O.T., and in a real, absolute manner in the N.T. The divine right in regard to fallen humanity is maintained, the death penalty is paid, but in such a manner that the chief of all, the divine Son of man, who is also Son of God, suffers it for all, of his own free will, and out of love to man, in accordance with the wishes of his Father. Thus the curse of sin and death is removed from humanity, and the possibility of a new existence of righteousness and felicity restored.