⁷Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

While the apostle Paul wrote the eloquent sonnet on love (1 Cor. 13), John wrote with simple prose, from the intimacy of his personal experience of Christ. Neither gives an explicit dictionary-style definition of this essential characteristic of the Christian faith; they only describe it. Christians like to define love as sacrificial actions done without expecting anything in return—not brotherly love nor erotic or romantic love, but “agape” love. We have all heard of the comparison of “Love if . . .” and “Love because . . .” with the agape distinction: “Love, period!”

Some theologians argue that such distinctions cannot hold up to the analysis of the Greek words involved, and that the differences are much more nuanced. Be that as it may, this discussion does not take away from the self-serving human propensity to sacrifice for others with the goal of earning favor with God (“Look, God, how much I love others . . .”). Rather than defining agape love, John describes it in very simple terms. Whatever else can be said of this love, it is sourced in God Himself. And God’s agape love infuses believers, those who have gone through spiritual rebirth to become new creations in Christ (see 2 Cor. 5:17). This kind of love, whatever it is, is fully and vitally connected with God.

While elsewhere, we are told to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44), here we are instructed to love our fellow believers. John does not mean a theological, esoteric, emotionless, robotic sacrifice for others. No, he writes of the same kind of love as Paul extolls in 1 Corinthians 13. And it is a love that only Christians know and understand and practice. It is a defining characteristic of genuine Christian faith and life. It is the dividing line that makes believers different from nonbelievers. So closely integrated is agape love to the Christian life, experience, and testimony, that the lack of it provides sufficient evidence that a person has no clue about what God is really like, for he or she has not experienced the agape love God offers to all people. That person has not been reborn, has not received God’s sacrificial love as demonstrated on the cross of Jesus (Rom. 5:8), and therefore “does not know God.” For to know God is to know love. The answer to the question, “What is the definition of love?” can be stated simply: “God.”

Lord, thank You for loving me so completely by giving Your life on the cross. Because of this, I know what love is, for I saw it there, and I received it.