How does “Love” help us understand Agape?

In a few of my blog postings I’ve mentioned praying about Paul’s use of “agape.” During the last several years of deeply seeking God’s agape for my life, I’ve discovered that the search has opened my life to amazing changes, including deepening and expanding my perspective on the religious meaning of love.
Finally in just the last few weeks, the realization hit me that in the Greek version of the New Testament “love” is used as a metaphor. Of course, there are many metaphors used throughout the Bible to help people deal with profound wisdom. Metaphors need to be used because our minds cannot grasp such wisdom in any ‘straight forward’ approach. For example, we remember that a few metaphors used to try expressing what God means for human living are “light,” “air/wind/storm,” “water/rain,” “fire” and “smoke.” Of course, no one would confuse any of those with the Reality of God.

Unfortunately, some metaphors have actually brought about confusion. For example, many people were led into the mistake of imagining God in human form because of the use of metaphors such as “father” and “mother.” So we need to constantly keep in mind that they are merely metaphors and all such metaphors fall far short of the ineffable reality they are trying to reference.

But our minds seem to need to use metaphors to understand Biblical truths. This has become especially the case for agape. The reality that we try to express with the strange word ‘agape’ is so powerful, and yet so essential to a person’s growth in faith, that over the centuries people have used a couple of metaphors to try understanding it. The 2 main metaphors are “love” and “charity.” Unfortunately, most people have so completely confused the metaphor with the reality, that they made the mistake of thinking agape is ‘love.’

This is nowhere more confusing than in modern translations of the New Testament. That is similar to the confusion caused by taking Jesus’ use of ‘abba’ and translating it as ‘father.’ So it is absolutely critical to remember the difference between the metaphor and the reality to which the metaphor refers.

The normal English word ‘love’ is just not what is meant by God’s Agape.  But that English word can help give us some metaphorical understanding. The use of ‘love’ as a metaphor means we form an understanding by looking at that intense, intimate way of relating. And then we use that to bring a meaningful depth and concern to life.

So what “love” helps us understand is that by giving us agape, God opens the guarded heart through intense, intimate relating in such a way that the person who responds to that will experience something like acceptance, support, caring, and even affection that is more profound than is possible in any other way.

Of course, as everyone says when commenting about using ‘love’ to understand agape, it has to be “the highest form of love.”

So what do they all mean by “the highest form?” Isn’t that merely admitting that the normal meaning of love falls very far short of the job of helping understand agape? So what does help? Well, the closest anyone seems to have gotten is the unusual modern concept of “unconditional love.” (Of course, we need to remember that “unconditional love” is not a Biblical phrase.)

What in the world could possibly be meant by “unconditional love”? That must be intimacy, affection, and caring beyond any of the conditions that humans place on relationships. So it would have to mean total, complete acceptance, support, and commitment without the beloved needing to fulfill any conditions -- and that means ANY condition at all.

So that kind of love would have to be given to the beloved no matter what the beloved does or is (even if that could be given to an enemy [Mt. 5:44; Lk. 6:27, 35; Rom. 12:14-13:10]) -- in other words, giving beyond human endurance. And, as Paul explained in 1 Cor. 13:4, that would require the highest degree of patience and kindness. There would need to be a depth of willingness to forgive such that the beloved could wrong you not just seven times but seventy-seven times (Mt. 18:22) -- and yet forgiveness is still granted.

So of course, the question has to be asked of “unconditional love:” is it really humanly possible? Now, just imagine what profound degree of spiritual development would be needed in order to answer such a question. Only a profound walk with God over many years can begin to truly, deeply understand that what is not possible for a human is possible for God.

Now, what if the answer is this: “unconditional love” is only a metaphor to be used in order to begin to understand God’s agape? So… through giving agape to humans, God makes it possible for us to be able to find the profound level of intimate, intense affection such that we can give full acceptance and mutual respect to everyone around us. Only God could make that possible. And agape is how God does it.