Aristotle said 'The Deity exists not to love, but to be loved'.

Whereas the New Testament which reveals the Mediation of Jesus Christ

reverses this, and says 'We love Him, because He first loved us' (1 John

4:19), and we are directed to this sacrificial element in the love of God in

both 1 John 3:16 and in John 3:16.  The love of God must never be confused

with His providence.  God sends His rain and His sunshine on the wicked and

on the just, but it is certain from the teaching of Scripture that none will

ever know the love of God, who have no place for His Son.  (See article So,

John 3:16, p. 298).  If we read solidly through the New Testament beginning

at Matthew 1, we shall not read that 'God loved' anyone, until we arrive at

John 3:16.  Again if we read right through Romans 1 to 4, with all its

marvellous opening up of the Gospel of grace, we do not meet the love of God

until justification is an accepted fact (Rom. 5:5).  The love of God is

continually associated with 'giving'.  'God so loved the world that He gave

His only begotten Son'; 'Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself';

'The Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself' for me.

Agape 'love' marks:

the relationship of the Father and the Son (John 15:10; 17:26),

the redeeming love of God (1 John 4:9,16),

the distinctive peculiarity of Christian love in relation to

others (Eph. 1:15) and

to denote the believer's relation to God and to Christ (2 Thess.

3:5; 1 John 2:5).

Owing to the somewhat unsavoury associations attaching to the Latin

words amor and amare, the Vulgate uses instead caritas and dilectio.  As a

consequence the word 'charity' is found as the translation of agape some 28

times.  In the course of time charity has ceased to express the full meaning

of love, and there is even a current saying, 'as cold as charity'.  That most

perfect Psalm of Christian love, 1 Corinthians 13, is so well known as to be

thereby little known.  Perhaps the reading of that chapter in a new version

may help the reader.  We therefore give Moffatt's* translation of this

wonderful chapter:

*

While we do not necessarily subscribe to the doctrinal views of

Moffatt, we readily recognize his grasp of the language he translates.

I may speak with the tongues of men and of angels,

but if I have no love,

I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal;

I may prophesy, fathom all mysteries and secret lore,

I may have such absolute faith that I can move hills

from their place,

but if I have no love,

I count for nothing;

I may distribute all I possess in charity,

I may give up my body to be burnt,

but if I have no love,