i, Love oF Gop.—(A) The OT Doctrine.—Love, generally, is that principle which leads one moral being to desire and delight in another, and reaches its highest form in that personal fellowship in which each lives in the life of the other, and finds his joy in imparting himself to the other, and in re- ceiving back the outflow of that other’s affection into himself. The quality and degree of love vary with the relation in which the pon loving and loved stand to each other, the highest examples of human love—those, therefore, which
* Trench accordingly remarks that ayer, ‘is a word born
within the bosom of revealed religion. It occursin the LXX, but there is no example of its use in any heathen writer | whatever; the utmost they attained to here was φιλανδρωτια and φιλαδελφία, and the last, indeed, never in any sense but as the love between brethren in blood’ (Trench, Synon κ᾿, p. 49). It has, indeed, been argued by Deissmann it his rrounds are very weak) that ayer, was a word in use in the Egyptian vernacular, from which it was adopted both by Jews and Christians. See Expos. Timea, ix. (1895) pp. 972, 601, 567
ee
154 LOVE
LOVE
are peculiarly taken as the images of the divine in its tenderest relations (Is 545, Ezk 23, Hos 11’) —being the love of husband to wife, and of parent
to child. Love, therefore, in God, is in general that principle which leads Him to desire and seek the good of all His moral creatures ; to impart benefits to them in every scale and degree of blessing ; to establish relations of fellowship with them, that He may bless them more fully ; torecover and restore them when they have turned aside from their true end, and lost themselves through sin (Hos 13°); highest of all, to admit them to participation in His own holy, blessed life (1 Jn 15), in which He and they become one, as the Father and Son are one (Jn 173). As the central prin- ciple of the divine character—for ‘God is love’ (1 Jn 48)—every other attribute stands in relation and subordination to this, though they are not on this account (as by Ritschl and others) to be immediately identified with it. ‘All the divine attributes are combined in love, as in their centre and vital principle. Wisdom is its intelligence ; might its productivity ; the entire natural creation and the entire revelation of righteousness in history are means by which it attains its teleological aims’ (Martensen). (For an exhaustive examination of the idea of the divine love in its theological and ethical relations, see Dorner’s System of Christian Ethics, pp. 58-96, 374-382).
When, with this general conception of love as an attribute of God, we turn to the OT, we are apt to feel disappointment. Holiness is in the foreground ; love seems in the background. The term ‘love’ (vb, 278, noun 732x), used of God’s love to His people, is not found, if Dt be late, till the time of the prophets. Hosea is the first who develops the ites (under the images of marriage and sonship, Hos 31 11! 143). In Dt, Is, Jer, etc., it occurs repeatedly (Dt 451 718 1015 ete., Is 481) 63°, Jer 315, Zeph 3"). Moreover, the love thus spoken of is a love only to the covenant people. ‘The particular word love,’ says Schultz, ‘is hardly ever applied to God; and where it does occur in a late writer (Mal 1°), it denotes God’s special covenant love for Israel; and the reverse side of this is, of course, hatred of the hostile peoples’ (Alttest Theol. p. 547). This first impression, however, regarding the OT religion, gives way to a different one on narrower inspection. As respects the mere word, we shall find that a quite analogous phenomenon meets us in the NT. Singular as it may appear, it is the case that the terms ἀγάπη and ἀγαπᾷν are never once applied to God in the Synoptic Gospels. The nearest approach is ἀγαπητός as a designation of the well-beloved Son (Mt 37 12" ete.). The Synoptics are full of a Father who loves, yet the word is never once used. In the Acts the words ἀγάπη and ἀγαπᾷν never once occur as applied either to God orman. In the Gospel of St. John, apart from the (evangelist’s) statement, ‘God so loved the world’ (Jn 315), it is, as in the Synoptics, the Son who is primarily the object of the Father’s love (Jn 3” 1755) ; and this love of the Father is extended to the disciples in union with Him (Jn 1451 1733... But after the earthly manifestation of Christ had been summed up in His death and resurrection, and reflection had begun on the completed revelation, there was no dithculty in speaking of the love of God (Ro 5° ὃ 8%- 8, 2 Co 134, 1 Jn 31 48:13 ete.). In a similar way God’s acts of love in OT precede the use of the term. As Dillmann remarks of the term ‘righteousness’ (p73), which likewise is not found in the Mosaic books, ‘ The ethical norm, the will of God, must first be revealed according to its content, before there could be mention of an agree- ment of the acts of God with this norm’ (A/¢test. Theol. p. 271; see his whole excellent treatment of the love of God, pp. 258-283).