3:17; 4:2,15,16 and 5:2.  The first occurrence deals with pure doctrine,

speaking of the choice of the Father before the foundation of the world; the

second occurrence reveals this love to be the root and the ground from which all

Christian graces spring; the remaining occurrences have to do with Christian

walk and practice, `forbearing in love', `speaking the truth in love', `edifying

in love' and `walking in love'.

Those who have had the responsibility of translating the Scriptures into

the tongue of a people who have hitherto entertained very depraved conceptions

of God, or of moral virtue, will appreciate the problem that was before the

writers of the New Testament when the time came for the Gospel of God's love to

be written.  Paul was about to declare of that trinity `faith, hope and love',

that the greatest of these is `love'.  John was to write that golden verse `John

3:16', and in his epistle was to reveal that `God is Love'.  While the Greek

language contained three words all translatable by the one word `love', two of

them, by reason of human frailty could not justly bear the new burden imposed by

the true conception of the love of God manifested in the gift of His Only

Begotten Son.

The three Greek words which are translated by the word `love' are agapao,

phileo, and erao.  Of these, erao, and its derivatives eros and erastes were

rendered impossible by reason of the sensual associations which clung to the

word.  A statue to Eros the god of love may be a thing of beauty as viewed from

the standpoint of art, but when translated into terms of the moral and

spiritual, anything tainted by eroticism must for ever be forbidden.

Phileo, and its derivatives, while free from the corrupting taint that

spoiled the first word, was unsuitable owing to its confessed limitations.

Phileo is used of affection generally, and when joined with the words to

stomati, meant `to kiss', even as philema means `a kiss'.  So in the New

Testament philanthropia, which is once translated as `love of God towards man'

(Titus 3:4), is rather benevolence, and `philanthropy' has become a fully

accepted English word.  Philos occurs twenty-nine times and each occurrence is

translated `friend'.  There remained therefore agapao and its derivatives.

Agape, which is the word selected by the inspired writers, is unknown in classic

Greek literature.  The conception of love that the highest human culture had

reached before Christ was exhausted in the terms erao and phileo.  It must

surely be an evidence of Divine Inspiration, that without the possibility of

consultation and collaboration, every writer in the New Testament was

constrained (1) to avoid altogether the word erao; (2) to use phileo in its

broad human sense of benevolence and friendship, and (3) to seize upon the

obscure and practically unknown agape, to bear the new image and superscription

of the God of love.

The following is the way in which the occurrences of the phrase `in love'

group themselves in Ephesians:

`in love'  in Ephesians

A 1:4.

The Father's motive.

B 3:17.

Rooted and grounded

(figures of growth and building).

C 4:2.

Forbearing one another in love.

C 4:15.

Being true in love.

B 4:16.

Increase and edification