AGAPE LOVE - The highest form of love - Agape love extends beyond emotions. It is much more than a feeling or sentiment. Agape love is active. It demonstrates love through actions. This well-known Bible verse is the perfect example of agape love expressed through actions. The all-encompassing love of God for the entire human race caused him to send His Son, Jesus Christ, to die and, thus, save every person who would believe in Him.

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Agape Love

What Is Agape Love in the Bible?

Discover why agape is the highest form of love

By Jack Zavada 

It is the highest of the four types of love in the Bible.

This Greek word, agápē, and variations of it are frequently found throughout the New Testament.

Agape perfectly describes the kind of love Jesus Christ has for His Father and for His followers.

Agape is the term that defines God's immeasurable, incomparable love for humankind.

It is His ongoing, outgoing, self-sacrificing concern for lost and fallen people.

God gives this love without condition, unreservedly to those who are undeserving and inferior to Himself. 

"Agape love," says Anders Nygren, "Is unmotivated in the sense that it is not contingent on any value or worth in the object of love. It is spontaneous and heedless, for it does not determine beforehand whether love will be effective or appropriate in any particular case."

A simple way to summarize agape is God's divine love.

Agape Love in the Bible

One important aspect of agape love is that it extends beyond emotions. It's much more than a feeling or sentiment.

Agape love is active. It demonstrates love through actions.

This well-known Bible verse is the perfect example of agape love expressed through actions.

The all-encompassing love of God for the entire human race caused him to send His Son, Jesus Christ, to die and, thus, save every person who would believe in him:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, ESV)

Another meaning of agape in the Bible was "love feast," a common meal in the early church expressing Christian brotherhood and fellowship:

“These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted;” (Jude 12, ESV)

Jesus told his followers to love one another in the same way sacrificial way he loved them.

This command was “new” because it demanded a new kind of love, a love like his own: agape love.

What would be the outcome of this kind of love?

People would be able to recognize them as Jesus’ disciples because of their mutual love:

“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 that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35, ESV)

“By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” (1 John 3:16, ESV)

Jesus and the Father are so "at one" that according to Jesus, whoever who loves Him will be loved by the Father and by Jesus, too.

The idea is that any believer who initiates this relationship of love by showing obedience, Jesus and the Father simply respond.

The oneness between Jesus and His followers is a mirror of the oneness between Jesus and His heavenly Father:

“Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” (John 14:21, NIV)

“I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:23, ESV)

The Apostle Paul exhorted the Corinthians to remember the importance of love. He wanted them to show love in everything they did.

Paul exalted love as the highest standard in this letter to the church in Corinth. Love for God and other people was to motivate everything they did:

“Let all that you do be done in love.” (1 Corinthians 16:14, ESV)

Love is not merely an attribure of God, love is His essence.

God is fundamentally love. He alone loves in the completeness and perfection of love:

“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8, ESV)

Pronunciation

uh-GAH-pay

Example

Jesus lived out agape love by sacrificing Himself for the sins of the world.

Other Types of Love in the Bible

·       Eros is the word for sensual or romantic love.

·       Philia means brotherly love or friendship.

·       Storge describes the love between family members.

 

Jack Zavada

·   Freelance writer focusing on the Bible, theology, and religious topics

·   Has published nearly a dozen books, mostly on Christian lifestyle topics

·   Is a former newspaper reporter, technical editor, and public relations director

Experience

Jack Zavada began his 45-year career as a newspaper reporter and Associated Press wire editor and later served as a technical editor at the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL). Zavada is also a former writer for ThoughtCo covering the Bible, theology, and other Christian topics. Zavada has published nearly a dozen books, many of which focus on Christian lifestyle topics. 

Education

Jack Zavada earned his master's degree in English composition and Bachelor of Science degree in English literature, both at Illinois State University.

Awards and Publications

Jack Zavada published his first short story, "Wheeler's Winchester," in Western Fiction Magazine in 1972 and has been writing professionally ever since. In addition, Zavada has published nearly a dozen books on Christian lifestyle and other topics, including:

·   "Hope for Hurting Singles"

·   "Outsmarting Loneliness"

·   "Mr. Lincoln for the Defense"

ThoughtCo and Dotdash

ThoughtCo is a premier reference site focusing on expert-created education content. We are one of the top-10 information sites in the world as rated by comScore, a leading Internet measurement company. Every month, more than 13 million readers seek answers to their questions on ThoughtCo.

For more than 20 years, Dotdash brands have been helping people find answers, solve problems, and get inspired. We are one of the top-20 largest content publishers on the Internet according to comScore, and reach more than 30% of the U.S. population monthly. Our brands collectively have won more than 20 industry awards in the last year alone, and recently Dotdash was named Publisher of the Year by Digiday, a leading industry publication.

https://www.thoughtco.com/agape-love-in-the-bible-700675