love
THE PROBLEM OF LOVE
by Ray Shelton
What is love? Anders Nygren in his classic work, Agape and Eros, has given a thorough historical analysis of the two “fundamental motifs” or themes that have dominated the understanding of love in Western philosophy and theology. (We have summarized his historical analysis below.) His analysis raises the problem of “Agape and Eros”, and he finds its solution in the Reformation. The problem of “Agape and Eros” is: What is the true Christian idea of love? Is it Eros or Agape, or a synthesis of these?
There are three words in the Greek language that are translated into the English language as “love”;
they are eros, philos, and agape. The Greek word eros does not occur in the Greek New Testament.
The Greek noun philos occurs 29 times in Greek New Testament and is always translated in the King James Version as “friend” (Matt. 11:19; Luke 7:6, 34; 11:5, 6, 8; 12:4; 14:10, 12; 15:6, 9, 29; 16:9; 21:16; 23:12; John 3:29; 11:11; 15:13, 14, 15; 19:12; Acts 10:24; 19:31; 27:3; James 2:23; 4:4; 3 John 14).
The related verb phileo occurs 25 times in the Greek New Testament and is tranlated in KJV as “love” 22 times
(Matt. 6:5; 10:37 [twice]; 23:6; Luke 20:46; John 5:20; 11:3, 36; 12:25; 15:19; 16:27; 20:2; 21:15, 17; I Cor. 16:22; Titus 3:15; Rev. 3:19; 22:15) and as “kiss” 3 times (Matt. 26:48; Mark 14:44; Luke 22:47).
The Greek noun agape occurs 115 times in the Greek New Testament and is translated in KJV as “love” 86 times
(Matt. 24:12; Luke 11:42; John 5:42; 13:35; 15:9, 10, 10, 13; 17:26; Rom. 5:5, 8; 8:35, 39; 12:9; 13:10, 10; 15:30; I Cor. 4:21; 16:24; II Cor. 2:4, 8; 5:14; 6:6; 8:7, 8, 24; 13:11, 14; Gal. 5:6, 13, 22; Eph. 1:4, 15; 2:4; 3:17, 19; 4:2, 15, 16; 5:2; 6:23; Phil. 1:9, 17; 2:1, 2; Col. 1:4, 8; 2:2; I Thess. 1:3; 3:12; 5:8, 13; II Thess. 2:10; 3:5; I Tim. 1:14; 6:11; II Tim. 1:7, 13; Philemon 3, 5, 9; Heb. 6:10; 10:24; I John 2:5, 15; 3:1, 16, 17; 4:7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 16, 16, 16, 17, 18, 18, 18; 5:3; II John 3, 6; Jude 2, 21; Rev. 2:4),
“charity” 26 times (I Cor. 8:1; 13:1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 8, 13, 13, 14:1; 16:14; Col. 3:14; I Thess. 3:6; II Thess. 1:3; I Tim. 1:5; 2:15; 4:12; II Tim. 2:22; 3:10; Titus 2:2; I Pet. 4:8, 8; 5:14; II Pet. 1:7; III John 6; Rev. 2:19),
“charitably” [kata agapen] once (Rom. 14:15),
“feast of charity” once (Jude 12), and as “dear” once (Col. 1:13).
The related verb agapao occurs 142 times in the Greek New Testament and is translated as “love” 135 times and as “beloved” 7 times.
The following is the history of the proposed solutions:
Nygren answers that the true Christian idea of love is Agape, which is theocentric in contrast to Eros which is egocentric. This may be seen clearly when the two fundamental questions is asked of Christainity: the religious question, “What is God?” and the ethical question, “What is the Good, the Good-in-itself?” To the religious question Christainity replies with the Johannine statement: “God is agape” (I John 4:8, 16); and to the ethical question the answer is similar: “The Good is agape“, and this ethical answer is summarized in the Commandment of Love, the commandments to love God and to love one’s own neighbor (Matt. 22:36-40; Mark 12:28-34). According to Nygren, Christian Agape has no relation to Hellenistic Eros, even when Agape is compared to the “heavenly Eros” and not with the Vulgar Eros. The heavenly character of Agape is clear; there is no need to spiritualize or sublimate it to recognize its heavenly character. With Eros it is otherwise; but the highest form of Eros, Eros in the most spiritual form, the “heavenly Eros”, cannot begin to compete with Agape. The mistake, Nygren says, that is commonly made is to represent
“Agape as a higher and more spiritualised form of Eros, and supposing that the sublimation of Eros is the way to reach Agape… The heavenly Eros is the highest possible thing of its kind; it has been spiritualised to an extent beyond which it is impossible to go. Agape stands alongside, not above, the heavenly Eros; the difference between them is not of degree but of kind. There is no way, not even that of sublimation, which leads from Eros to Agape.” [52] [1]
Nygren attempts to describe the content of the Christian idea of love, Agape. The following is his summary of its main features.
1. Agape is “spontaneous” and “unmotivated”. By “spontaneous” Nygren means that there is no necessity in Agape, no extrinsic ground for it. “The only ground for it is to be found in God Himself. God’s love is altogether spontaneous.” [75] And it is “unmotivated” in that there is nothing in man that can motivate it; it has no motive outside itself, in the personal worth of man. Human love is motivated; God’s love is spontaneous and “unmotivated”.
2. Agape is “indifferent to value”. By this Nygren means that Agape does not consider the value of its object. When Jesus says that God loves the sinner, it does not mean that the sinner is “better” than the righteous. That God, the Holy One, loves the sinner, cannot be because of his sin, but in spite of his sin. Neither does God love the righteous because they are “better”. Nygren says, “It is only when all thought of worthiness of the object is abandoned that we can understand what Agape is.” [77] There is no limit on God’s love; the distinction between the worthy and unworthy, the righteous and sinner, set no bounds on God’s love. “He makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Matt. 5:45).
3. Agape is creative. “Agape does not recognize value, but creates it. Agape loves, and imparts value by loving.” [78] Nygren considers this to be deepest and ultimately decisive feature of the Christian idea of love. This is the feature that is very much obscured in modern theology. Since Ritschl’s time it has been common for theologians to speak of “the infinite value of the human soul” as one of central ideas of Christianity, and to connect it to the “Fatherhood of God”. Nygren says that this is by no means a central idea of Christianity. Only a false exegesis has made it possible to find support for it in the Scriptures. This has a destructive influence on the understanding the nature of God’s love. The suggestion that man by nature possesses such an unalienable value easy gives rise to the thought that it is this infinite worth on which God sets his love. Even though this Divine spark may seem to have been quenched in a man sunk in sin, it is none the less present, awaiting it being awakened and actualizing. Viewed in this light, God’s forgiveness of sins means merely that He disregards the manifold faults and failings and looks at the imperishable value which not even sin can destroy. This interpretation of Divine forgiveness misunderstands forgiveness and love. When Jesus says, “Thy sins are forgiven thee”, he is not recognizing an already existing value which justifies overlooking of faults, but is the bestowal of a gift. Something new is added, something really new is taking place. The forgiveness of sin is a creative work of Divine power which changes the individual.
4. Agape is the initiator of fellowship with God. This is the new thing that has taken place in Divine forgiveness; a new relationship to God has been created. Fellowship with God is not ebstablished from man’s side by any meritorious conduct, or even by repentance and admendment. There is no way at all from man’s side that leads to God. God Himself in His love has provided the way to Himself and that way is through His Son whom God in His love sent. There is no way for man to come to God, but only the way for God to come to man; the way that God’s love provides.
Nygren summarises and concludes his account of these two fundamental motifs and their contrary tendencies in the following table. [210]
| Eros is acquisitive and longing. | Agape is sacrifical giving. |
| Eros is an upward movement. | Agape comes down. |
| Eros is man’s way to God. | Agape is God’s way to man. |
| Eros is man’s effort: it assumes that man’s salvation is his work. | Agape is God’s grace; salvation is the work of Divine love. |
| Eros is egocentric love, a form of self-assertion of the highest, noblest, sublimest kind. | Agape is unselfish love, it “seeketh not its own”, it gives itself away. |
| Eros seeks to gain its life, a life divine, immortalised. | Agape lives the life of God, therefore dares to “lose it.” |
| Eros is the will to get and possess which depends on want and need. | Agape is freedom in giving, which depends on wealth and plenty. |
| Eros is primarily man’s love; God is the object of Eros. Even when it is attributed to God, Eros is patterned on human love. | Agape is primarily God’s love; “God is Agape”. Even when it is attributed to man, Agape is patterned on Divine love. |
| Eros is determined by the quality, the beauty and worth, of its object; it is not spontaneous, but “evoked”, “motivated”. | Agape is sovereign in relation to its object, and is directed to both “the evil and the good”; it is spontaneous, “overflowing”, “unmotivated”. |
| Eros recognises value in its object – and loves it. | Agape loves – and creates value in its object. |
Love expresses a relationship between a subject who loves and an object that is loved. If the study of this relation focuses on the personal objects of this love, there are four different forms of love. There is (1) God’s love for man, (2) man’s love for God, (3) man’s love for his fellow-men, and (4) man’s love for himself. In this last form the subject and the object of the relation coincide; this does not mean that this form of love is not a relation, for there are other relations that have this characteristic: the equality relation in mathematics has this characteristic, called the reflextive property: A = A. When Nygren interprets these four forms in terms of Eros and Agape, he makes the following comparison between them. [211-217]
1. When considering God’s love for man in terms of Eros, it is impossible to speak of God’s love for man, and God’s love as Eros has no meaning. Eros is yearning desire; but God has no want or need, and therefore no desire nor striving. Eros is the way upward; but there is no way upward for God; God cannot ascend higher. And since Eros seeks the highest good, it is impossible for God to love man, because that would imply God loving something less than His own Divine perfection, which is the highest good. But when considering God’s love for man in terms of Agape, this is the supreme act of God’s love. Since Agape is the way down and every way is down from God, God’s Agape can descend to man. And since Agape flows out of plenty and wealth, God can freely out of the riches of His Agape give to man what he needs. God’s love as Agape is expressed in His love for man.
2. When considering man’s love for God in terms of Eros, Nygren has no difficulty in finding a place for man’s love toward God. As Eros man’s love reaches up toward God and seeks participation in the riches and blessedness of God. Here the upward striving of Eros comes into its own; human want and need seeks for satisfaction in the Divine fulness. Since Eros is acqisitive desire, striving to obtain advantages, and since God is the highest good, it is natural that man is attracted to God Himself with all desire and love. But since it is possible for man to love other things than the Divine, because of his distant from the Divine, Eros may be misdirected. But this does detract from Eros, but shows that man’s love may be detracted from the higher to the lower, cheating man himself of the highest satisfaction. But when considering man’s love toward God in terms of Agape, Nygren encounters a problem [213]. Agape is spontaneous and unmotivated love. But in his relation to God man’s love can never be spontaneous and unmotivated. Man’s love for God is awaken by God’s love for him and is a response to His love. Thus man’s love for God is caused by God’s love and is motivated by God’s love. Hence man’s love for God may be spoken of in terms of Agape only in metaphorical sense. Furthermore, man loves God, not because on comparing Him with other things he finds Him more satisfying than anything else, but because God’s unmotivated love has overwhelmed and taken control of him, so the he cannot do other than love God. Herein lies the profound meaning of the idea of predestination: “man has not selected God, but God has elected man.” [214]
3. When considering man’s love for his heighbor in terms of Eros, love does not seek the neighbor for himself, but seeks him only in so far as it can utilize him as a means for its own ascent to the highest good. It is not man as such, but “God in man”, that is loved. It is only with difficulty that a place can be found in Eros-love for man’s love for his neighbor. But when speaking of man’s love for his neighbor, love bears the stamp of Agape. Man’s love for one’s neighbor is similar to God’s love for man. But when it is ask what is the grounds for such love, and a reason for that love is looked for, then the love for one’s neighbor is transformed into Eros-love. Unless man’s love for his neighbor is directed to the neighbor alone, apart from any ulterior motive, unless it is concerned exclusively with him and no other end in view, this love of neighbor is not Agape. When it said that Christian neighborly love is “for God’s sake”, it is not speaking of God as the end, but of God as the cause of that love. God is not the ultimate end, the ultimate object of the love, but He is the starting-point and the energizer of that love. Thus the phrase “for God’s sake” does not have a teleological but only a causal meaning. Everyone who has been gripped and mastered by God’s love cannot but pass on this love to his neighbor.
4. Finnally when considering man’s love for himself in terms of Eros, this self-love is what Eros is essentially is. But Agape recognises no kind of self-love, and excludes self-love entirely from consideration. In this form Agape is the direct opposite of self-love.
When Nygren [219] arranges these various forms of love in the order of their importance for Agape and to Eros respectively, giving a rating of 3 to the form which in each case it dominates the conception of love as a whole, and a rating of zero to any form in which is completely absent from it, he gets the the following table.
| Agape | Eros | |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | God’s love | 0 |
| 2 | Neighborly love | 1 |
| 1 | Love for God | 2 |
| 0 | Self-love | 3 |
As commendable as this work of Nygren is, there are some difficulities with his understanding of Agape. His historical treatment and analysis of Eros is thorough and accurate. But his analysis of Agape is greatly influence by this treatement of Eros. He tends to define Agape purely as the negation of Eros. This may be seen in his definition of Agape as spontaneous and “unmotivated”. By spontaneous he means uncaused and by unmotivated he means not motivated by anything of value in its object. His second characteristic confirm this negative definition of Agape: Agape is “indifferent to value”. As Nygren says,
“This does not add anything new to what has already been said; but in order to prevent a possible misunderstanding, it is necessary to give special emphasis to one aspect of the point we have just made. … It is only when all thought of the worthiness of the object is abandoned that we can understand what Agape is.” [77]
This negative treatment is partly counteracted by his discussion of the other two characteristics of Agape: “Agape is creative” and “Agape is the initiator of fellowship with God”. But these play little part in his treatment of the history of Agape and they do not define Nygren’s concept of Agape. The nearest that Nygren comes to a positive definition of Agape is his contrast between Eros and Agape: Eros is egocentric love and Agape is theocentric love. [209]
But not only does Nygren not positively define Agape, but his treatment of it as unselfish love, as the negation of Eros, makes it difficult for him to interpret certain passages of Scripture, especially the commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Matt. 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34). Nygren rejects the interpretation of this command that there is commandment of self-love in this commandment to love one’s neighbor. He also rejects the interpretation that love of self is being approved of. Nygren says,
“Self-love is man’s natural condition, and also the reason for the perversity of his will. Everyone knows how by nature he loves himself. So, says the commandment of love, thou shalt love thy neighbour. When love receives this new direction, when it is turned away from one’s self and directed to one’s neighbour, then the natural perversion of the will is overcome. So far is neighbourly love from including self-love that it actually excludes and overcomes it.” [101]
Nygren here misunderstands the command to love one’s neighbor as one’s self. This is not what the commandment says; it does not reject, exclude and overcome self-love. It does not oppose love of neighbor to love of self. This interpretation is the reading of Nygren’s own theology into this commandment; according to his theology the essence of sin is self-love and thus it must be rejected, excluded and overcome. This commandment of neighborly love neither approves or disapproves of self-love, but only refers to self-love as a fact of human existence that can provide a criterion by which the love of neighbor may be measured; as you love yourself, love your neighbor. As one in love of self would not kill one’s self, then do not kill your neighbor, etc.
Nygren’s Agape motif is a distortion of the Biblical Agape. By defining Agape as “spontaneous and unmotivated” in contrast to Eros which is caused and motivated by it object, Nygren has misunderstood Biblical Agape. Biblical Agape is not a thing but a personal relationship between persons, between a subject (the person who loves, the lover) and an object (the person loved). Neither is Agape a desire like Eros, but a relation that is established by the decision of the person loving. Thus Agape is not caused by a desire for the object loved. But Agape is not “uncaused”, “spontaneous”, but there is a reason for the decision, for the choice to love. Agape is not uncaused, but is “caused”, but not by its object. Why love? Nygren says that there is no motivation for Agape. But Nygren is wrong. Agape is not unmotivated; it is motivated but it is not motivated by its object; Agape is motivated by someone other than its object; by being loved the one loving is motivated to love. Nygren’s analysis of Agape as spontaneous and unmotivated, depersonalized it and reducess it to a thing. Agape is
(1) a personal relationship, a relation between persons;
(2) Agape is a choice of the person loving; and
(3) the object of Agape is not a thing, an “it”, but a person, a “thou”, “you”.
The following table summarizes the above comparison of Nygren’s and the Biblical view of Agape.
| Nygren’s view of Agape | Biblical view of Agape | |
|---|---|---|
| a desire for the object | Nature of love | a relationship between persons |
| spontaneous – uncaused | Cause of love | choice of the person loving |
| unmotivated | Motivation of love | the good of person loved |
| a thing | Object of love | a person |
Nygren’s distortion of the Biblical Agape is seen most clearly in his treatment of Agape in the writings of the Apostle John [146-159]. He considers the Johannine treatment of Agape as weakening the idea of Agape in the writings of Paul. According to Nygren, John weakens the idea of Agape by his “Agape-metaphysic,” his “particularism”, and his uncertain position between unmotivated and motivated love, the modification of love in the direction of acquisitive love. [151] All these contributed, according to Nygren, in their various ways to this weakening of the Agape motif. According to Nygren, “the Johannine conception of love represents in a measure the transition to a stage when the Christian idea of love is no longer determined soley by the Agape motif, but by ‘Eros and Agape’.” [158]
Nygren finds in the writings of John a “duality” in the Johannine idea of Agape [151]; Nygren finds this duality in three areas:
1. in the area of Johannine “metaphysics of Agape” and its relation to spontaneous, unmotivated love;
2. in the area of Johannine particularism of Christian love for “the brethern” and the universalism of the commands to “love your neighbor” and “to love your enemies”;
3. in the area of the problem of love for God and love of the world.
1. Nygren claims that John goes beyond Paul in the tendency to trace love back to God’s love by claiming that God is love. Nygren interpretes John’s statement that “God is love” (I John 4:8, 16) to mean that “love is one with the substance of God” [151]; that “God is in His very ‘essence’ Agape” [153]; and that “love, Agape, is God” [147]. This “identity of God and Agape” is called by Nygren the “metaphysic of Agape“, and Nygren claims that it threatens the spontaneous and unmotivated nature of Agape that he thinks he had found in Paul’s writings. But Nygren has misunderstood Agape in Paul’s writings. In fact he ignores the Paul’s definition of Agape in Rom. 13:10: “Love works no evil to its neighbor”, that is, love does good to its neighbor. Nygren quotes this passage but only to assert Paul’s statement in last part of the verse: “Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” [127] Nygren by defining Agape as spontaneous and unmotivated he has not only misunderstood Agape in Paul’s writings but he has also misinterpreted John’s statement that “God is love”. John’s statement is not asserting that God is identical to Agape, that God and Agape are identical. The “is” here in this verse does not assert an identity between God and Agape, but a characteristic of God. It is describing what God is in Himself, in that the three persons of the Trinity love each other; the Father loves the Son, etc. (John 3:35; 5:20; 15:9-10; 17:23-24, 26). And it is also describing what God is in His relation to us, His creation, the world. “God so love the world that gave His only Son…” (John 3:16). John is making explicit what is implicit in Paul’s statements about God’s love:
“But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8) “In this the love of God was made manifest among us,that God sent his only Son into the world,so that we might live through him.” (I John 4:9)
John does not “take us a stage further by his identification of God and Agape” [149], but is expressing those aspects of God’s love that Paul did not have occasion to express. In fact, Paul stresses those aspects of God’s love that are related to his personal experience of conversion from a pharisee and persecutor of the church. There is no developement in idea of Agape from Paul’s theology to John’s theology. Neither Paul nor John understands Agape as spontaneous and unmotivated and the Johannine idea of Agape does not occupy “a somewhat uncertain position between unmotivated and motivated love”. [152]
2. There is no duality in the Johannine idea of man’s love. And John does not restrict love for neighbor to love for brethern. Love of the brethern does not mean love for one’s neighbor is excluded and the universal, unlimited love of one’s enemy is now limited and particularised to love of brethern. Nygren claims,
“That which from one point of view represents an enhancement of the idea of Agape appears from another point of view to constitute a danger to it. Just because love in John is limited to narrower circle of ‘the brethern’, it is able to develop a far greater warmth and intimacy than it otherwise could; but this limitation involves for Christian love the risk of losing its original unmotivated character, and of being restricted to the brethren to the exclusion of outsiders and enemies.” [154]
When Jesus commanded: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48), as the context makes clear (Matt. 5:43-47), Jesus was talking about love.
“5:43 You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 5:44 But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, 5:45 in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun rise on the even and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 5:46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same? 5:47 And if you greet your brethern only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tentiles do the same? 5:48 Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:43-48, NAS)
This statement of Jesus raises the problem of love. Is the love that Jesus is talking about human love (eros), or is it the divine love (agape) that loves the sinner? What is the nature of this love?
The love that Jesus is talking about is not human love, but is the divine love that loves the sinner. This is perfect love, and Jesus commands us to love with this perfect love. And this love fulfills the law. As the Apostle Paul says,
“13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 13:9 The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet’, and any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’. 13:10 Love does no evil to one’s neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Rom. 13:8-10 ERS).
Paul’s summary statement that “love does no evil to one’s neighbor” may be stated positively, “love does good to one’s neighbor”. Love is a relationship between persons, the person that loves and the person that is loved, and in this relationship the person who loves does good to the person loved. This love is not a feeling but a choice, the choice to do good to the person loved. The commandment to love is addressed to the will and one must choose to obey the commandment. It may be accompanied by feelings of compassion and caring, but Agape-love is the choice of the will to do good to the person that may be unloveable and evil. Thus God loves the sinner, not because the sinner is inherently loveable, but God chooses to do good to him and save him. Because love is a choice, it can be commanded and it can be obeyed. There are other kinds of love, but the kind of love that God commands is Agape-love. This love is not acquisitive love, that wants to acquire its object; neither is it caused by its object because of the value or the goodness of its object. Agape-love creates value where there is no value; it does good to the person loved. Agape-love gives what the person loved needs, what is good for him or her. This love is perfect love.
“4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 4:8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 4:9 In this the love of God was manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins. 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 4:12 No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.” (I John 4:7-12 ERS).
“4:16 And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 4:17 By this, love is perfected in us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 4:19 We love, because He first loved us. 4:20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar, for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 4:21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.” (I John 4:16-21 NAS).
Thus Agape-love must be defined as the choice of a person to do for another person that which is good for him, This definition of love raises the problem of the good: “What is the good?” The Biblical solution to this problem was given in Jesus’ answer when He was asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark. 10:17). He answered, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God.” (Mark. 10:18). That is, God is The Good, the Absolute Good, and all others are relative good; that is, they possess their good in relation to the Absolute Good, God Himself. When God created the earth and its inhabitants, He saw that they are good. “And God saw that it was good.” (Gen. 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25). “And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” (Gen. 1:31). All that God has created is good, not evil, but it is relative good, not absolute good. And God has specified man’s relationship to the Absolute Good in His commandment,
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” (Deut. 6:5 NAS)
This excludes the sin of idolatry, which is the absolutizing of the relative. The relative good must not be made the absolute good, as god. The true God said,
“You shall have no other gods besides Me.” (Exodus 20:3 NAS margin)
Because this command prohibits the basic sin of idolatry, it is the first and great commandment of the law. Jesus answered when he was asked,
“22:36 ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’ 22:37 And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 22:39 This is the great and first commandment. 22:40 And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these commands depend all the law and the prophets.'”
(Matt. 22:36-40; cf. Mark 12:30-33).
The second commandment specifies the relative good; man shall do good to his neighbor, even as he does good to himself. The Apostle Paul also made this clear in his comments on love in Rom. 13:8-10. Love does no evil to one’s neighbor when it does good to him or her.
“God is love” (I John 4:8, 16). This love is not just an attribute of God; it is what God is in Himself. Before God ever created anything outside of Himself and thus created beings for Him to love outside of Himself, love existed in God. Since love is the choice of a person to do for another person that which is good for him, a person cannot love without another person to love. Love involves a relationship to another person. And since God has made Himself known as three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, there are other persons in God for them to love. These three persons of the Godhead love each other (John 3:35; 5:20; 15:9-10; 17:23-26; 14:31). And God is love in Himself because these three persons love each other. God created beings outside of Himself not because He needed objects for His love (these already existed within Himself) but because of the abundance of His love that existed within Himself. Love is creative and this is true in the supreme sense of God Himself. Creation and salvation are the overflow of the love of this triune personal God of love. When the first man, Adam, sinned and fell from the image of God, God provided a way to take away man’s sin and to restore him to the image of God. This involved God sending His Son to become man to die for him. But God raised His Son from the dead. And in this resurrected God-man, Jesus Christ, the Son of man, who is the image of God, man is being and shall be restored to the image of God. God provided this salvation because He is love. This “so great salvation” (Heb. 2:3) is the outflow of His superabundant love.
“4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (I John 4:9-10 ERS)
The love of God is the source of our salvation from death, from sin and from God’s wrath. God’s attitude toward sin is expressed in the Scriptures by the concept of the wrath of God. In both the Old and New Testaments, God’s opposition to sin is expressed in terms also used in the description of human emotions of anger, indignation, and wrath. But the wrath of God should not be thought of as an unstable, capricious emotion. It is true that men’s anger is so often such an impulsive passion, usually involving a large element of fickleness together with a lack of self-control. But the wrath of God is not to be so conceived. Neither is it to be thought of as like the anger of the heathen anthropomorphic deities. The writers of the Bible have nothing to do with the pagan concepts of a “capricious and vindictive deity, inflicting arbitrary punishments on offending worshippers, who must then bribe him back to a good mood by the appropriate offerings.” [2]
The Biblical concept of the wrath of God should be thought of as the stern and settled personal reaction of God’s love against sin in man. God’s wrath must be understood in terms of God’s love. Love is that decision of a person loving to act for the good of the person loved. It is not just an emotion, an easygoing, good-natured sentimentalism or good feeling of attraction or fondness for someone. But rather it is a decision of the will. But since the will involves the emotions as well as the intellect, that is, the total person, love is a strong and intensive concern for the well being of the person loved. And it is because of this concern that love may be pictured as a purifying fire, blazing out in fiery wrath against everything evil that hinders the loved one from being the best (Psa. 119:74; Prov. 3:11-12; Heb. 12:5-10; Rev. 3:19). Because of this intense love which is jealous for the good of the loved one, God hates everything that is evil in man (Psa. 5:5; 11:5; Prov. 6:16-19; Jer. 44:4; Heb. 1:13; Zech. 8:16-17). Hence the wrath of God is not opposed to His love. But rather it is the reverse side of His love. God’s wrath is the direct personal opposition of His love to the sin that would destroy man whom He loves. The wrath of God is directed against sin in any form (Jer. 21:12; Ezek. 8:17-18; 22:29, 31; Rom. 1:18). But it is particularly directed against the sin of idolatry.
“6:14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of peoples who are round about you; 6:15 for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you off the face of the earth.” (Deut. 6:14-15. See also Deut. 4:25-26; 29:25-28; Joshua 23:15-16; Isa. 66:15-17; Jer. 11:11-13; 19:3-4; 44:2-6; Ex. 32:10, 35;
Num. 25:3; Lam. 3:42-43; Judges 2:11-15; II Kings 17:9-12; 15-18.)
The wrath of God is directed particularly against the sin of idolatry because it is the basic sin. But more fundamentally it is directed against this sin because of the effect that a false god has upon the one who chooses it as his god. A false god puts its worshippers into bondage by reducing and ultimately destroying their freedom of choice. It reduces his freedom of choice by limiting his options as well as his reasons for his choice. Some false gods totally eliminate some areas of life from its followers consideration. Thus a false god circumscribes and restricts the freedom of choice of the person who chooses it as his god; it acts as a frustrating limitation, a ball and chain upon the exercise of the freedom of its worshipper. But a false god also destroys the freedom of its worshipper by denying his freedom. Since a false god has limited or no freedom (no power of choice or self-determination), such a god implicitly and/or explicitly denies the reality of its follower’s freedom of choice. Thus having used his freedom to give this god his ultimate allegiance, the worshipper finds his freedom denied to the point of extinction and himself bound in a miserable slavery. As long as the false god remains his ultimate criterion of decision, he will not have the grounds for rejecting that god, since that god has not allowed him to have freedom of choice to do so. His power of choice having been effectively taken away from him; he is unable to reject the false god and free himself from its bondage. This is the bondage of sin (John 8:34; Prov. 5:22). Man becomes a slave of sin when he gives his ultimate allegiance and devotion to a false god. In fact, the false god is sin personified as a slavemaster (Rom. 6:16).
The true God, on the other hand, preserves and fulfills the freedom of the one who chooses and worships Him. Since the true God is a living God (Jer. 10:5-15; I Thess. 1:9), that is, a being that has the power of self-determination, with unlimited freedom, He can preserve His worshipper’s freedom. When this Being who has such freedom is made the ultimate criterion of one’s decisions, one’s freedom of choice may be exercised without restriction or frustrating limitation. His freedom is not denied or taken away from him. But more importantly, the true God not only preserves the freedom of the one who chooses and worships Him but also fulfills the freedom of the one who commits and devotes himself to Him. This He does by loving him; that is, by acting toward him for his highest good. Now man’s highest good is the true God; He alone can preserve the freedom of the one who chooses Him. For when a man chooses the true God as his God, he has found his highest good and obtained true happiness (Prov. 16:20; Psa. 40:4; 84:12; 144:15; Jer. 17:7, etc.). Because the true God is love (I John 4:8, 16), He acts toward man in such a way as to bring man to the choice of man’s highest good, that is, the true God, and hence the fulfillment of his freedom. One way He does this is by directly opposing (i.e., the wrath of God) man’s choice of a false god (the sin of idolatry). Since idolatry not only destroys man’s freedom but is an obstacle to God’s love which would fulfill man’s freedom, the wrath of God is directed against this particular sin. But wrath is not the only way that God in His love deals with man’s sin. The wrath of God is not the only nor the last word about what God has said or done concerning man’s sin. God’s wrath is His strange work.
“The Lord will rise up as on Mount Perazim, he will be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon; to do his deed – strange is his deed!
and to work his work – alien is his work!” (Isa. 28:21)
Wrath is that act of His love that is alien to the way God wishes to act. He desires to act toward man in mercy and grace (Psa. 103:9-12; Micah 7:18-19). In mercy, He desires to turn away His wrath and forgive man’s sin (Psa. 85:2-3). And in grace, He desires to remove the sin which causes His wrath. Grace is the other way that God in His love deals with man’s sin. Thus, God deals with man’s sin in two ways: in His wrath He opposes the sin, and in His grace He removes it. The grace of God is the love of God in action to bring man salvation (Titus 2:11; Eph. 2:4-9). In this second way, God fulfills man’s freedom; He removes the idolatry which would destroy man’s freedom. And this He does by removing the cause of sin – death – through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thus God sets man free from the bondage of sin, the slavery to a false god, and brings him into the freedom of righteousness, the righteousness of faith. Faith in the true God is righteousness because it relates us rightly to Him (Rom. 4:3-5). In this right relationship to the true God, man’s freedom is fulfilled and man is truly free. “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)
As we have seen, the wrath of God is not opposed to His love. But rather it is one of the two ways in which God in His love deals with man’s sin. God’s wrath as well as His grace is an expression of His love. There is no eternal principle of divine retribution (justice) in God which causes His wrath. Since God is love, the wrath of God must be understood in terms of His love as the direct personal opposition of His love to sin that would destroy the one whom He loves. Wrath is the reaction of His love to sin. The cause of God’s wrath is not in God; it is external to God and in the sin of man. And as long as man remains in sin, so long does the wrath of God remain upon him (John 3:36).
Man is under the wrath of God because of his sin of idolatry; that is, the wrath of God is caused by sin (Rom. 1:18-25); it is a direct consequence of each man’s own sin. But since man is a sinner as a consequence of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:19a), then the wrath of God is also a result of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:18a; note that condemnation is the same as wrath). But it is only indirectly, not directly, a result of Adam’s sin. For all men are sinners only indirectly as a consequence of Adam’s sin. They are sinners directly because of the spiritual death ( Rom. 5:12d ERS; Gal.4:8), which they have received from Adam (Rom. 5:12c; I Cor. 15:22). Man’s sin is the direct consequence of spiritual death and hence only an indirect consequence of Adam’s sin (only the spiritual and physical death came directly from Adam).
“Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, because of which all sinned:–” (Rom. 5:12 ERS)
And since man is a sinner as an indirect consequence of Adam’s sin, then the wrath of God (condemnation) is also an indirect consequence of Adam’s sin. Condemnation is not the direct result of Adam’s sin; that is, man is not condemned because of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:14) but because of his own personal sin, his own personal choice of a false god. The cause of the wrath of God is the sin of each individual man (Ezek. 18:1-4, 14-20).
While God in His love could have mercy on man and turn away His wrath from man (Psa. 78:38; Exodus 34:6; Numbers 14:19-20), He has appointed means whereby His wrath will be turned away. In the Old Testament, God’s appointed means for turning away His wrath were the sacrifices and offerings. When these sacrifices were offered in true repentance and faith, they were an atonement or propitiation. But these sacrifices could never take away sin (Heb. 10:4, 11); that is, they could not bring about repentance and faith because they could not make alive (Gal. 3:21). On the contrary, there is in those sacrifices a continual remembrance of sin year by year (Heb. 10:3). That is, the worshippers, not having been cleansed of their sins, still have a consciousness of sin (Heb. 10:2). Therefore, those that draw near could never be made perfect by those sacrifices (Heb. 10:1). But Christ has put away sin once for all by the sacrifice of Himself (Heb. 9:26; 10:12), and has made perfect them that are being sanctified or set apart to God (Heb. 10:14). Now there is no more remembrance of sins (Heb. 10:17) since those drawing near having been cleansed from their sins have no more consciousness of sins (Heb. 10:22). It was to accomplish our cleansing from sin that Christ “gave Himself for our sins” (Gal. 1:4) and “died for our sins” (I Cor. 15:3). God has acted in Jesus Christ to redeem us from sin. Now that God has redeemed us from sin, we are also delivered from the wrath of God. Salvation is not only deliverance from sin but also deliverance from the wrath of God (Rom. 5:9). God in His love put forth Jesus Christ as a propitiation through faith in His blood (Rom. 3:25). The death of Jesus Christ is a propitiation because it is the means that God has appointed for turning away His wrath from man.
Now these Old Testament sacrifices could never take away sin (Heb. 10:4, 11); that is, they could not bring about repentance and faith, because they could not make alive (Gal. 3:21). They could not take away death, the cause of sin; they could not give life, the cause of righteousness of faith; they could not reconcile man to God.
But now through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, man can be made alive and reconciled to God and his sins taken away. And since then there are no sins to cause wrath, the wrath of God is turned away. No sin, no wrath. Thus Christ’s death is the perfect sacrifice for turning away God’s wrath, a propitiation, because by it man is redeemed from sin. Christ’s death is a propitiation because it is a redemption; it is both a propitiation and a redemption. Propitiation is the sacrificial aspects of Christ’s work of salvation and redemption is the liberation aspect of His work of salvation.
Now salvation is a propitiation and a redemption because it is a reconciliation to God. Reconciliation is representative aspect of Christ’s work of salvation from death to life. Reconciliation to God is being made alive to God, and being made alive, the cause of sin and wrath has been removed. Salvation must be from death to life in order to be from sin to righteousness, and from sin to righteousness in order to be from wrath to peace with God. Man needs to be saved from death to life in order to be saved from sin and from sin in order to be saved from wrath of God. Thus salvation is primarily from death to life, then secondarily from sin to righteousness, and then thirdly from wrath to peace.
Because God loves us, He has acted in the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ for the salvation of man from death, sin and wrath. Since wrath is caused by sin (Rom. 1:18) and sin by death ( Rom. 5:12d ERS), salvation is basically from death to life and then from sin to righteousness and then from wrath to peace with God. Thus there are three aspects of salvation:
(1) Reconciliation is salvation from death to life;
(2) redemption is salvation from sin to righteousness; and
(3) propitiation is salvation from wrath to peace with God.
These three aspects of salvation are accomplished in and through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ’s death is a propitiation because it is a redemption; and it is a propitiation and a redemption because it is a reconciliation to God.
“3:24 Being set right by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 3:25 whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood …. (Rom. 3:24-25; ERS);
“For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (Rom. 5:10 (NAS);
“5:18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,
5:19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. 5:20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on the behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (II Cor. 5:18-20 NAS); see also I Cor. 1:9; I John 1:2-3).
This salvation is by the grace of God, which is God’s love in action in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
“2:4 But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, 2:5 even when we were dead in offenses, made us alive together with Christ, (by grace you have been saved)” (Eph. 2:4-5 ERS).
According to these verses, the grace of God is God’s love in action. And God’s grace is more than just His favor; it is His love acting to do something good for us. The parallelism between the phrase in the second part of verse 5, “(by grace you have been saved)”, and the phrase in verse 4 and in the first part of verse 5, “God…out of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our offenses, made us alive together with Christ”, shows that the grace of God by which we are saved is God’s love acting to make us alive together with Christ. That is, this salvation by the grace of God is salvation from death to life. And since this salvation from death to life is by the love of God, then the grace of God that saves us is God’s love in action to save us. That is, the grace of God is the love of God acting to do something good for us, to save us. Now since God’s love in action to save us is more than His favor, then the grace of God is more than just His favor. That is, the grace of God is God’s love in action, not just His favor. And because He loves us, He has acted to save us from death to life.
By His grace, God has made us spiritually alive from the dead together with Christ in His resurrection from the dead, thus saving us from sin to righteousness and from wrath to peace with God by His grace. Reconciliation is the representative aspect of His act of salvation from death to life, redemption is the liberation aspect of His act of salvation from sin to righteousness, and propitiation is the sacrificial aspect of His act of salvation from wrath to peach with God. The Gospel tells us about this act of God for our salvation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (I Cor. 15:3-4). And in the preaching of the Gospel, God exerts His power for the salvation of men by bringing them to faith in Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:16-17). By faith the hearers of the Gospel receive the gift of God’s grace. Thus this Gospel is the Gospel of the grace of God, God’s love in action to save us.
ENDNOTES
[1] All page references to Nygren’s book Agape and Eros is shown within a pair of brackets [] in this document.
Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros,
Part I: A Study of the Christian Idea of Love,
Part II: The History of the Christian Ideas of Love.
Translated by Philip S. Watson.
(New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1969)
This book was first published in England by the S.P.C.K. House:
Part I in 1932; part II, Vol. I in 1938;
Part II, Vol. II in 1939;
revised, in part retranslated, and published in one volume in 1953.
The first paperback edition was published in 1969 by arrangement with the Westminster Press, publishers of the United States edition.
[2] Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1956), p. 129.