At the heart of Christianity is not merely a system of beliefs, a collection of moral instructions, or a discipline for becoming better behaved or ‘rapturable’ (in quotes). At its centre is love. Jesus summarised the whole weight of the Law and the Prophets in two commands: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:37, 39). He then added, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:40). Everything eventually comes back to love.

The New Testament frequently uses the Greek word agape to describe this love. The word should not be treated as though its mere appearance automatically means “divine love” in every possible context, but Scripture gives us a distinctly Christian understanding of love through the character of God and, most clearly, through the example of Jesus Christ. Agape is love that seeks the true good of another. It is not governed entirely by attraction, emotion, convenience or reciprocity. It can feel deeply, but it is ultimately known by its choices.

This is why biblical love can be commanded. We cannot always command affection, but we can be called to seek another person's good. We can choose patience over retaliation, generosity over selfishness, truth over deception, forgiveness over vengeance, and prayer over hatred. Agape is therefore not simply something we feel. It is a disposition formed within us that increasingly governs how we respond.

Love Begins in God

Christian love does not begin with us trying harder to become loving people. It begins with God Himself. John makes one of Scripture's most profound statements: “God is love” (1 John 4:8). He does not merely say that God loves, as though love were just one activity among many. Love belongs to who God is.

The clearest revelation of this love is found in Christ. John writes, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). Then he goes further: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Notice the direction of love. God moved towards us first.

Paul says the same thing differently: “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God's love was not a reward for human goodness. Christ did not wait until humanity became worthy before giving Himself. In fact, Paul says, “When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10). That makes the command to love our enemies far more than an isolated moral instruction. It is rooted in God’s disposition towards us. We were loved while we were enemies.

The Cross Defines Agape

If we want to know what Christian love looks like, we must look to the cross. Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Paul says Christ “loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). The cross tells us that agape is self-giving. Love moves outward, not inward.

It does not continually make self-preservation, self-interest or personal comfort the highest good. This does not mean Christian love despises the self or requires us to have no boundaries, needs or legitimate interests. Jesus did not teach self-hatred. But He did teach self-denial. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Self-denial means that self is no longer the supreme authority. This is why Paul could write that charity “seeketh not her own” (1 Corinthians 13:5).

Agape is selfless not because the self ceases to matter, but because the self ceases to be the centre around which everything else must revolve.

We Love Because We Were First Loved

Christian love is not produced merely by moral determination. John writes, “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Elsewhere Paul says, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5).

This is important. The Christian is not simply told, “Jesus loved like this; now imitate Him with your own strength.” Through the new birth and the indwelling Spirit, God begins to form the character of Christ within us. This is why love appears among the fruit of the Spirit: “The fruit of the Spirit is love…” (Galatians 5:22). Agape is therefore both received and practised.

God loves us. His Spirit works within us. And we learn to express that love through deliberate obedience. The fact that love is produced by the Spirit does not make us passive. Paul still tells believers to “walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us” (Ephesians 5:2). Grace gives us the capacity; obedience gives that capacity expression.

Love is Incomplete Without Truth

One of the most important things to understand about agape is that love is not the same thing as approval. We often hear love spoken of as though loving someone means agreeing with whatever they choose. Scripture presents something deeper.

Paul speaks of “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15), while 1 Corinthians 13 says love “rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). True love seeks another person's good, and sometimes another person's good requires truth.

A parent who refuses to correct destructive behaviour is not necessarily loving more. A friend who watches another person ruin themselves without ever speaking may be avoiding discomfort rather than practising love. A Christian who calls evil good simply to appear kind has separated love from truth. Jesus was full of both “grace and truth” (John 1:14).

We must always understand God's love in light of everything else Scripture reveals about Him. The God who is love is also holy, righteous, truthful and just. Biblical love is therefore not sentimental indulgence. It does not become loving by becoming indifferent or by abandoning the truth.

Agape Towards One Another

Jesus told His disciples, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you” (John 13:34). The standard is significant. Not merely, “love one another.” But, “as I have loved you.”

The Christian community is meant to become one of the places where the love of Christ takes visible form. Jesus continued, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35). This means that love must eventually move beyond theology and into ordinary relationships. It shows in how we speak when someone disappoints us, in our willingness to forgive, in serving without always being seen, and in generosity, consideration, patience, and respect. It appears when we carry another person's burden, rejoice over their progress, protect their dignity or pray for them when no one else knows.

John makes the matter uncomfortable enough to prevent us from spiritualising it: “He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1 John 4:20). Our love for God cannot remain entirely theoretical. Eventually, it must show in how we treat people.

Loving Your Enemies

Then Jesus takes love into its most difficult territory. “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). This may be one of the clearest demonstrations of what distinguishes agape from brotherly love, affection or reciprocity.

Jesus explains why: “For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?” (Matthew 5:46). Almost everyone can love someone who makes loving them easy. There is nothing particularly unearthly about returning affection for affection, kindness for kindness or loyalty for loyalty. But an enemy gives us nothing natural to work with. That is precisely where agape becomes tangible.

Jesus does not command us to feel warm affection towards someone who has deliberately harmed us. Neither does He ask us to pretend the offence never happened. He gives us practical expressions of love: bless, do good and pray. “I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). These are actions of benevolence. To love an enemy means that although I recognise what you have done, I refuse to make your destruction the desire of my heart.

Loving an enemy does not remove wisdom. Enemy-love is not naivety. Joseph told his brothers plainly, “Ye thought evil against me” (Genesis 50:20). Forgiveness did not require him to pretend their actions had been harmless. David likewise refused to kill Saul when he had the opportunity, even though Saul had repeatedly attempted to kill him. David said, “The LORD judge between me and thee, and the LORD avenge me of thee: but mine hand shall not be upon thee” (1 Samuel 24:12). Yet David did not return to Saul's palace or act as though Saul had suddenly become safe.

That distinction matters. It’s okay to love someone and still keep your distance. You can forgive someone and still require trust to be rebuilt. You can pray for someone while refusing to place yourself back into an abusive or destructive situation. You can desire someone's repentance while allowing appropriate consequences for their actions. In some situations, repentance and reconciliation are necessary. It all demands wisdom. Agape does not require suspending wisdom, but it refuses hatred.

Overcoming Evil With Good

I have often found it strange that many people struggle to believe that evil can truly be overcome with good—even among Christians I have interacted with. It’s not a positive multiplied by negative mathematical rule. Paul’s instruction is remarkably clear: “Recompense to no man evil for evil” (Romans 12:17). He then says, “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink” (Romans 12:20), before concluding with, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). That final instruction is profound—that is, evil gains ground wherever good retreats. Also, evil does not overcome us only when it succeeds in hurting us; evil also overcomes us when it succeeds in reproducing itself within us.

Why Pray for Your Enemies?

I’ve heard people preach the idea that Jesus says we should pray for our enemies but didn’t tell us what to pray for them, using that as an excuse to curse our enemies. But that would seem to defeat the very spirit of the command. Jesus places ‘pray for your enemies’ alongside ‘love them,’ ‘bless them’, and ‘do good to them.’ The purpose is not to take vengeance into the prayer closet, but to bring even those who have wronged us before God with a heart that refuses hatred.

Jesus specifically tells us to “pray for them which despitefully use you” (Matthew 5:44). Perhaps because prayer carries enemy-love beyond outward restraint into the inner life. We may avoid retaliating and still spend years wishing harm on someone. We may never speak against them publicly while continually rehearsing hatred privately. Intercession confronts that.

We can pray that God brings them to repentance, changes their heart, exposes what needs to be exposed, delivers them from evil and leads them into truth. We can still ask God for justice. Prayer does not require pretending there was no wrong. But prayer gradually moves us away from the need to personally destroy the person who wronged us.

Jesus demonstrated this on the cross: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Stephen, while being stoned, prayed, “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge” (Acts 7:60). This kind of response does not come naturally. It reveals what the life of Christ can produce in a human heart—Love.

Loving God

Agape does not only move horizontally towards people. It moves upward towards God. Jesus said the first and greatest commandment is to love God “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37).

Love for God includes affection, but it is much more than emotional devotion. Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). We love God through worship, obedience, trust, surrender and allegiance. Sometimes loving God means obeying even when we don't understand. Sometimes it means surrendering something we deeply desire.

The same selflessness in agape toward people is present in our relationship with God: His will becomes greater than our insistence on our own way. Jesus demonstrated this perfectly in Gethsemane: “Nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). That is love expressed as surrender.

The Summary of the Christian Walk

Ultimately, the Christian walk can be understood as a movement of love. Love originates in God. It is revealed perfectly in Christ. It is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. It returns to God through worship and obedience. And it flows outward to people through how we live. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another” (1 John 4:11). Christianity without love can keep its vocabulary but lose its character.

We love God because He first loved us. We love one another because His life is being formed within us. By His grace, we even learn to love those who have given us reasons not to. This is agape.