The Nature of Love

That all true Christian love is one and the same in its principle. It may be various in its forms and objects, and may be exercised either toward God or men, but it is the same principle in the heart that is the foundation of every exercise of a truly Christian love, whatever may be its object. It is not with the holy love in the heart of the Christian, as it is with the love of other men. 

Their love toward different objects, may be from different principles and motives, and with different views; but a truly Christian love is different from this. It is one as to its principle, whatever the object about which it is exercised; it is from the same spring or fountain in the heart, though it may flow out in different chan- nels and diverse directions, and therefore it is all fitly comprehended in the one name of charity, as in the text. That this Christian love is one, whatever the objects toward which it may flow forth, appears by the following things:

First, it is all from the same Spirit influencing the heart. It is from the breathing of the same Spirit that true Christian love arises, both toward God and man. The Spirit of God is a Spirit of love, and when the former enters the soul, love also enters with it. God is love, and he that has God dwelling in him by his Spirit, will have love dwelling in him also. The nature of the Holy Spirit is love; and it is by communicating himself, in his own nature, to the saints, that their hearts are filled with divine charity. Hence we find that the saints are partakers of the divine nature, and Christian love is called the “love of the Spirit” (Rom. 15:30), and “love in 
the Spirit,” (Col 1:8), and the very bowels of love and mercy seem to signify the same thing with the fellowship of the Spirit (Phil. 2:1). It is that Spirit, too, that infuses love to God (Rom. 5:5); and it is by the indwelling of that Spirit, that the soul abides in love to God and man (1 John 3:23, 24; and 4:12, 13). 

Second, Christian love, both to God and man, is wrought in the heart by the same work of the Spirit. There are not two works of the Spirit of God, one to infuse a spirit of love to God, and tile other to infuse a spirit of love to men; but in producing one, the Spirit produces the other also. In the work of conversion, the Holy Spirit renews the heart by giving it a divine temper (Eph. 4:23); and it is one and the same divine temper thus wrought in the heart, that flows out in love both to God and man.

Third, When God and man are loved with a truly Christian love, they are both loved from the same motives. When God is loved a right, he is loved for his excellency, and the beauty of his nature, especially the holiness of his nature; and it is from the same motive that the saints are 
loved—for holiness” sake. And all things that are loved with a truly holy love, are loved from the same respect to God. Love to God is the foundation of gracious love to men; and men are loved, either because they are in some respect like God, in the possession of his nature and spiritual image, or because of the relation they stand in to him as his children or creatures ­ as those who are blessed of him, or to whom his mercy is offered red, or in some other way from regard to him. Only remarking, that though Christian love be one in its principle, yet it is distinguished and variously denominated in two ways, with respect to its objects, and the kinds of its exercise; as, for example, its degrees, etc.

- Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits

What Does Agape Love Really Mean?

Maybe you’ve already heard that agape (ἀγάπη) is the standard word for love in the Greek New Testament, and maybe you’ve heard that it points to a specific kind of love: a selfless, giving, non-emotional love—as opposed to the friendship love of philia (φιλία).
 
What does agape love really mean?
 
And now to love, because John 21 provides a perfect example of what Dr. Decker is talking about. I actually remember the day as a college freshman when I was given the (supposed) secret Greek key to unlocking Jesus’ famous conversation with Peter in that passage. Jesus asks three times, “Do you love me?” Peter replies each time: “Yes, I love you.” I was told that, hidden underneath the surface of the weak, imprecise English word “love” were two different Greek words: agapao (ἀγαπάω) and phileo (φιλέω). I was further told that these two Greek words pointed to two vastly different kinds of love, the one selfless and non-emotional and the other merely emotional and friend-ish. Peter, so the interpretation goes, twice couldn’t bring himself to say he loved Jesus selflessly and unconditionally, so Jesus asked him, in effect, “Do you even love me like a friend?”
 
…The fact is that the Bible never says anywhere that real love, ideal love, is non-emotional. In Jesus’ conversation with Peter, he appears to be varying agapao and phileo for purposes of style, not meaning.
 
One of the problems with using Greek without knowing it well is that you tend to fail to apply your principles rigorously. Are all synonyms in John 21 used to point up their differences rather than their similarities?
 
As D. A. Carson points out… Jesus doesn’t just vary his words for love in his conversation with Peter, he varies his word choice for the noun “sheep”:
 
“Feed my lambs,” he says.
Then, “Shepherd my sheep.”
Then, “Feed my sheep.”
 
Is it lambs or sheep? If Jesus intends to highlight a significant difference, he does not choose to make that clear. There do not seem to be obvious differences among the three imperative verbs, either: “feed,” “shepherd,” “feed.” The verb “shepherd,” in fact, also means “feed” sometimes, especially in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament). 
 
And John 21 isn’t the only place where Jesus varies his use of agapao and phileo in the Gospel of John. In John 3:35, Jesus says, “The Father loves the son,” and in John 5:20 he says precisely the same thing—only in one verse he uses agapao and in the other phileo, with no discernible difference in meaning. Jesus isn’t invoking two radically different kinds of love in his conversation with Peter.
 
One of the most popular linguistic and exegetical fallacies in modern times is that the Greek word for love, agapao, carries in it the implication of a divine love that is unconditional and comes to us in spite of our sin.
 
That is not true. Context must decide if agapao refers to our proud, cliquish love for our cronies (as in Matthew 5:46) or if it refers to God’s merciful and sacrificial love for sinners (as in John 3:16), or if it refers to our love for leaders, not unconditionally but precisely because of their labor (1 Thessalonians 5:13)
 
To be clear, the New Testament does speak of a special kind of love, but we don’t know that by looking up Greek words in the dictionary. We know it by reading the New Testament. People who can read the Bible only in English can still know what love is.
 
Debunking beloved interpretations of Scripture is a favored pastime of young seminarians. But constructive help, not destructive criticism, is my goal here. It is my impression that the church in general—and perhaps the most studious of us in particular—put too much weight on looking up Bible words and not enough weight on reading Bible sentences in their contexts. There is nothing necessarily wrong with looking up words, and Logos can do it so incredibly well! I do it all the time—and if you’re curious as to what I think “love” really means, I actually believe the standard Greek dictionary defines it pretty well if you put senses one and two together: “to have a warm regard for and interest in another; to have high esteem for or satisfaction with something, cherish, have affection for, love, take pleasure in.”
 
But you’ll learn far more about “love” by reading the resurrection accounts in the Gospels, or by reading the story of the Good Samaritan—Scripture passages which don’t even use the word—than you will by looking up agape in a dictionary. By all means do both, but know in advance which one weighs more than the other.
 

Excerpt from: https://blog.logos.com/what-does-agape-love-mean/

Loving and Being Loved

Most of us are familiar with the three words in Greek that express three levels of love: agape (unconditional love), phileo (brotherly love, friendship), and eros (erotic love). The Hebrew language also has several different words that are rendered as “love.” There are basically four common words that are translated as various forms of love, although they also have other renderings: ’ahav (בהא), “love”; racham (םחר), “tender mercies”; dodi (ידוד), “beloved,” as in spousal love; and ra’ah (הﬠר), “brotherly love,” or “friendship.”
 
It would be wrong to try to make a parallel between the Greek words for love and the Hebrew words for love. However, this does create a real problem for translators, because love is at the very root and center of Scripture. The Septuagint* uses the word agape for the Hebrew word ’ahav (בהא). This is probably the closest word in the Hebrew to the meaning of agape, but it is far from a perfect match. I suppose we could say that ra’ah (הﬠר) is like phileo, since it is a word for friendship, and that dodi (ידוד) could, in a certain context, be like eros. Yet these definitions would not be accurate because they are too limited.

Ahav (בהא) is used in cases where agape would not fit, and ra’ah (הﬠר), although rendered as “friendship,” is also rendered as “shepherd” and “consuming passion” and was often used by David to express his love for God. Oddly, ra’ah (הﬠר) is also used for evil in the sense in which one has a consuming passion for something that is not of God (such as when people abuse drugs or alcohol). So, in many cases, it would be very inappropriate to consider ra’ah (הﬠר) as equivalent to phileo. Additionally, Solomon used the word dodi (ידוד) with his beloved to express a sexual desire, but this word does not carry the lustfulness or self-gratification of eros.
 
The fourth Hebrew word for love mentioned above is racham (םחר), which is often expressed as a romantic love or rendered as “tender mercies.” It is rarely used in the Old Testament, but it is frequently found in the Aramaic New Testament, where it has a similar spelling and sounds the same in Aramaic as it does in Hebrew.
 
Does God Have Favorites?
 
In the Greek New Testament, we find that the word used for “love” in “God so loved the world” (John 3:16) is agape. In the Peshitta—the Aramaic Bible—the word for love is chav (בח), which is similar to the Hebrew word ’ahav (הבא) and means “love.” However, in John 21:20, where we read about “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” the Greek again uses the word agape, but the Peshitta uses the Aramaic word racham (םחר), which is identical to the Hebrew racham (םחר).
 
So, again, when Jesus said, “God so loved the world” (John 3:16), He used the Aramaic word chav (בח), but when John wrote the phrase “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 21:20), he used the word racham (םחר). These are two entirely different words that both mean “love.” Initially, the most logical conclusion from all this would be that we are dealing with two levels of love, and this would suggest that God either loved the world more than He loved this disciple, or that He loved this disciple more than He loved the world. In other words, we face the old dilemma of whether there are degrees to the love of God.
 
Note that John 21:20 does not merely say “the disciple whom Jesus loved” but “the disciple whom Jesus loved following.” In Greek and Aramaic, this phrase is more properly rendered as “the disciple whom Jesus loved who followed Him.”
 
Loving and Being Loved
 
The key difference between chav (בח), as used in John 3:16 as God loving the world, and racham (םחר), as used in John 21:20 of the disciple whom Jesus loved, is that chav (בח) is a love that is not necessarily returned. Chav (בח) speaks of a love that flows from just one person and is not always completed. For love to be completed, it must be returned. Racham (םחר) is a completed love. Love can be pretty lonely and painful if it is not returned.
 
God loves the world, but the world does not love Him in return. It is when we love Him in return that His love is complete; it is when we love Him in return that He is able to rejoice over us with singing. (See Zephaniah 3:17.) Salvation is not just about getting saved and going to heaven. It is about completing the love that God has for us, bringing joy and celebration to His heart—which has been loving us for years.
 
It is not that God loves one person more than another. He loves all equally. It is just that very few people will love Him in return and complete His love, bring Him the joy of His love, awaken Him in that love, and cause Him to sing with joy in that love. In my exploration of God’s heart, I believe the most defining element I have discovered is not only a passion in God’s heart to love, chav (בח), but also a longing to be loved in return, racham (םחר). You and I—humble, little, frail human beings—have the ability to bring joy to the heart of the God of the universe simply by saying to Him, wholeheartedly, “I love you.”
 

 - Chaim Bentorah, Hebrew Word Study, Vol 1