Agape Love

By Doug Cook  2016

In reaction to my published article on the Spirit of Truth, most Christians who don’t have the baptism of the Holy Spirit responded by paraphrasing or attempting to interpret 1Corinthians 13:1 by stating something similar to “I would rather operate in love than speak in tongues.”  I can only imagine how many carnal preachers try to expound on this passage saying the same thing these believers were parroting.  First, these Christians missed the whole point of the article which was NOT about speaking in tongues, but about Gods’ Spirit of Truth dwelling within us so they could spiritually understand the depth of truths in the bible.  The title of the article was “The Spirit of Truth” NOT “Speaking in Tongues.”  Tongues is just an extra benefit of having Gods’ Spirit of Truth residing in us.

Secondly, they missed the point of 1Corinthians 13:1 because Paul was not saying we need to make a choice between tongues or love, but making the point we need to operate in both at the same time.  This absolutely validated the point in the Spirit of Truth article about Christians not being able to accept what the bible says about needing the Holy Spirit because they don’t have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them.

The third point is they can NOT know how to love in Gods’ kind of agape (charity) because they don’t have the Spirit of Truth to confer on them spiritual knowledge of Jesus who is the essence of true biblical love.  So those that say they would rather operate in love than speak in tongues are most likely neither operating in love nor speaking in tongues.  They can only define the words in 1Corinthians 13 by their own human intellect which lacks any spiritual discernment.  In fact, one of the phrases in this chapter defining agape is someone who “rejoiceth in the truth.” How can we love enough to rejoice in truth if we refuse to accept Gods’ Spirit of Truth to “guide you into all truth?”

If you are a believer in Christ, I have a few questions I would like to ask about proper biblical agape love.  Is it truly “unconditional” like church-as-usual Christianity says it is?  Does God “agape” love everyone like most “Christians” say He does?  Have you convinced yourself that you are operating in agape love?  Have you personally judged another believer in Christ to not be operating in agape love either in your mind or verbally to them or another person?  Do you think you have enough biblical knowledge about agape love to have the aptitude to judge anyone else to be practicing or not practicing agape love?  Have you even taken the time to do an in depth (years) study of biblical agape with the help of Gods’ Spirit of Truth dwelling in you, or did you hear a pastors description that tickled your ears, sounded good, and felt right so you adopted it as your biblical dogma?  Do you “agape” love enough to admit your pride has diminished your ability to truly understand this Love?

In my decades of searching for a true understanding of biblical agape, I have encountered as many definitions of “agape” in the church as there are denominations… Imagine that!  This renders the obvious conclusion that most “Christians” and pastors are wrong and are completely ignorant of the true nature of Gods’ agape type of love (They don’t intimately know the Lord like they think they do).  Therefore, I will attempt to compile biblical examples of agape in this thesis that most believers have never considered.  It will not be a comprehensive assessment as I doubt there is anyone who knows all of the in-depth mysteries of the Lord’s agape love, but it should dismiss many of the false beliefs about this kind of love that are so predominate in the body of Christ; meant only for those that have ears to hear truth.

Because of the confusion about “agape” love I encountered early on in my walk with the Lord, I began seeking Him for truth concerning this kid of love because I wanted to love like Jesus did whatever that entailed.  I ran across this passage in Luke 11:9-13 that said;

“And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.  If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?  Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”

This passage convinced me that when I ask God for truth about Himself, He will give it to me.  Please note that it also says our Father will give the Spirit of Truth (Holy Spirit) to them that ask, so we don’t automatically receive the Holy Spirit at salvation… We have to seek Him for it.

So I began earnestly praying the prayer for many years “Lord, teach me to love like you love.” I previously received Gods’ Spirit of Truth residing in me and had built my faith enough to know that God would change my heart to operate in His kind of Love because of my desire to sincerely understand His truth about agape.  I thought I would eventually begin having more “compassionate” feelings towards others, be more forgiving, less likely to upset anyone, be more friendly, more gentle and easy going like most believers think Gods’ love should be.  But to my amazement, I found that after years of praying to love just like Jesus, I began loving just like Jesus which is opposite of the way most sectarian Christians and pastors were trying to define His love.  I was becoming more and more what I would define as operating in straightforward honest love.  Caring enough about people to speak biblical truth without worrying about whether truth would upset them.  Having enough compassion and kindness to attempt to keep people from going to hell because of false doctrines they were following.  I became longsuffering enough to endure the continued persecution from “church members” who were more eager to keep their denominational doctrines and traditions of men than to follow Gods’ kind of love.  I discovered over these decades the church, as a whole, is completely ignorant of what true biblical agape is.

I began my quest by researching what Jesus, the essence of agape, acted like in the face of the denominational persecution of His day from the scribes, Sadducee’s and Pharisees.  What I found is passages like the ones listed below:

Matthew 23:25-33 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.  Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.  Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.  Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.  Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?  

Wow!  Sounds just like the ‘whited sepulchers” in ALL the church buildings of today, trying to look good and holy on the outside but full of extortion, excess and dead men’s bones on the inside.  I could walk into any church-as-usual gathering, from home groups to mega churches, in any part of this country and say the same thing Jesus said in this passage and it would apply to at least half the people in attendance.  I would be acting just like Jesus, yet none of the attendees would see it as me loving everyone enough to try to keep them from the “damnation of hell,” which was exactly what Jesus was trying to do.

Matthew 12:34-36 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.  A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.  But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

Jesus called the religious sects of His day a “generation of vipers.”  Did He do this out of love or was He puffed up trying to show them how much better He was?  How many “Christians” do you think fear the Lord enough to pause to consider how many of their idle words they will be held accountable for on the Day of Judgment…Especially the supercilious ones that accuse others of “not walking in love.”

Matthew 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus was speaking to a multitude here when He said if their righteousness wasn’t better than the religious acting denominational groups of His time (the scribes and the Pharisees) trying to keep man-made doctrines and traditions, they wouldn’t make it to heaven.  Again, if I was speaking to a large group of believers and said the same thing Jesus did to the pious denominational sects of our time, would there be any Christian that saw that statement as delivered out of agape love for the brethren?  I think NOT!  Yet Jesus uses this kind of speech to show us the kind of love He has for His people.

Matthew 16:6 Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

As Jesus said in biblical love so do I, take heed and beware of the leaven of the factious sectarian denominational doctrines and traditions of men “…Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.  Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.  But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” (Matthew 15:6-9)

I would venture to say that not one of you reading this article have ever realized that Jesus, speaking this way throughout these verses and many more, was operating in pure love towards the “religious” brethren.  That is because most believers don’t really know Jesus’ agape love intimately like they claim to.  The people Jesus had the most problem with were not the unsaved heathen but the “religious” people occupying the church buildings of His day.  “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”

John 2:14-16 And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:  And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.

Interesting expression of the love of Jesus!  Make yourself a whip and drive everyone out of the building that is trying to make money off the things of God.  In most church buildings today you would have to begin with the hirelings in charge.  So, if I went into the local church building that had a bookstore (an house of merchandise) and overturned all the book shelves, cash register money table and used a whip to drive everyone out of the room, wouldn’t I also be operating in the love of Jesus?  I speculate to say all the so called “Christian” pastors would have me thrown in jail and throw away the key and would never grasp the fact it was out of my love for Christ and compassion for the swindled brethren frequenting their casinos.  I attended one mega church building that publicly revealed they were making in excess of three million dollars profit (not sales) per year off their bookstore sales.  If I thought it would have stopped this greedy pastor from fleecing the multitude of Jesus’ sheep I would have considered doing just what Jesus did, but the wheels of the mammoth merchandising machine would have kept rolling.  This too will come to an end, but the Lord will be the one to judge this pastor in His own time.  Remember, Jesus is agape love and this passage showed an example of that love with a whip!

Jude 21-23 Keep yourselves in the love (charity, agape) of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.  And of some have compassion, making a difference:  And others save (sozo, salvation) with fear (phobos, exceedingly afraid, fear, terror), pulling (seizing, carry off by force) them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

Here is an example of agape coming from someone other than Jesus.  The word “and” is used joining these three scriptures together as one point.  We are commanded to keep ourselves in love (agape) having compassion for some, but also saving some by scaring the hell out of them by “force,” personally hating their garments spotted by their flesh (false doctrines).  If I saw someone ready to walk off a cliff to their death, I would have enough kindness, compassion, and brotherly love to jerk them by the arm, probably throw them to the ground and see if I could get them to wake up and face the reality of what they were about to do.  That’s called agape love according to this passage!  I would show the same charity for a brother or sister in Christ walking towards the fires of hell in bondage to false denominational doctrines of men who refused to listen when the church-as-usual “love,” “let’s not upset anybody,” “compassion” failed to get their attention!  Can you name one preacher who teaches this aggressive kind of “agape of God?”

Is Jesus’ agape love unconditional?

In the following verses the word “if” is used to denote conditions that need to be met in order for something to happen as stated.  If something is “unconditional,” the word “if” would never be used to describe the situation.  Example: IF I get my paycheck, I will buy food this week.  The word “if” implies the condition of a paycheck affecting the purchase of food.  The understood opposite of this statement is IF I don’t get a paycheck, I will NOT be able to buy food this week.  We need to use the same basic understanding of the English language when reading the word “if” in scriptures.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

The conditions set up in this verse said IF we love Jesus, we will obey His commands and God will love (agape) us.  If we don’t love Jesus, we won’t obey all of His Word’s and the Father will NOT love us!  No keeping of commandments… No love from the Father.  Very conditional agape!!!

John 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.

The “if” condition to abide in Jesus agape in this verse is again shown by believers as keeping His commandments.  If we keep His commandments it will result in abiding in His love.  If we don’t keep all of His commandments, He won’t be (agape) loving us.  Again, Jesus is stating His agape love is VERY conditional.  Even Gods’ love for Jesus was conditional based on Jesus keeping His Fathers’ commandments.

John 10:17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.

Yes, Jesus had conditions.  The Father loved Him because He was obedient and gave up His life for us.  The word “because” implied that the Fathers decision to agape love His Son was based on (because of) Jesus obedience to go to the cross.  No cross – no love from the Father.

1Corinthians 16:22 If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema (A thing devoted to God without hope of being redeemed; therefore a person or thing doomed to destruction) Maranatha (An exclamation of the approaching divine judgment).

The condition in this verse says if we don’t love Jesus (shown by disobeying His commands) we will be destroyed (Anathema Maranatha), not loved by Him.  The opposite of the condition is that if we do love Him and keep His commands, we will not be destroyed but loved by Him.

Not once anywhere in the bible can you find the statement “Gods’ love is unconditional.”  That statement was made up by men.  Yet notice in the above scriptures how many times the “if” conditional word is used in relation to the Fathers’ and Jesus’ agape love for us.  These verses obviously demonstrate that Gods’ love is NOT “unconditional” as most of Christendom believes and preaches.  In fact it is VERY conditional based on our obedience to His commands which we should cheerfully perform out of our agape for Him.  The fortunate thing about the New Covenant is that we are only held accountable to commands that are written on our hearts.  We are not accountable for the commands we are not aware of yet because “where no law is, sin is not imputed.”  As we continue our walk with Christ, we learn more about the Lord and more commands are written on our hearts so we become more responsible to keep more commands as we are being made more like Jesus every day.  We should never reach a level where we are not adding commands and learning more about Jesus continually.  If we do, we no longer love Jesus and we have begun the backsliding process which will end in our destruction (going to hell) if not repented of and turned back to Christ.  And yes, I realize that last statement may be extremely difficult for the deceived unconditional eternal security folks to accept.

1John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

This verse is plain.  If we are more concerned about worldly people and possessions rather than giving up everything, including our false doctrines, to follow God; we are not operating in agape and we don’t love the Father.

Brothers and sisters I could go on and on with numerous verses that explain the difference between Gods’ true love and the way most believers think His love is supposed to be.  99.9% of Christians don’t know the Lord well enough to truly understand the depth of His love for us, therefore disqualifying any of them to be worthy of judging anyone else of “not operating in love.”  We try to approach the understanding of love with our human feelings and intellect and we miss it every time.  I’m not trying to use this thesis for displaying my still limited knowledge of Gods’ love, but to encourage believers to get to know other facets of the Lords true agape and do an in-depth (years) study of the bible for yourselves.  If you do, you will find (like I did) how much you really don’t know God as much as you think you do.  I’ve been studying the Word for decades and the more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know. 1Corinthians 8:2 “And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.”

I was listening to a conversation the other day about a young couple that had been dating for years since they were in high school.  The young man had finally proposed to her in front of her family and after the proposal the family was trying to get a picture of them embracing each other.  The “Monster-in-law” asked the question “Don’t you all love each other?  You never see them kissing and hugging each other.”  Obviously the mother-in-law was completely clueless about what true love entailed.  These young adults had been committed to each other for years without the outwardly show of emotions, which is the true definition of the kind of love that will keep them together for years to come.  This mother-in-law was defining love as emotional feelings of hugging, kissing and groping each other which should be put in the category of lust and is the kind of “love” that causes people to get married and then get divorced later (as the monster-in-law herself experienced).  If you really “love” someone it should be defined as a commitment to them forever and has nothing to do with huggy-poo, kissy-face outward emotions.  Unfortunately the majority of believers have adopted this mother-in-laws’ concept of “love” which invariably results in temporary relationships.  It’s this same definition of “love” that they then apply to their relationships with Christ, if they have one.  They fall in “emotional” love with Jesus and then when their Christian walk encounters difficulty and persecution, there is no commitment to stay the course till the end.  The churches are full of these type “Christians” that judge the few because they don’t engage this typical poignant “love.”

And for those clueless carnal “Christians” who go around accusing others of “not operating in love,” you are puffed up in your very limited knowledge and are completely deceived.  You are the ones that are not operating in Gods’ love and I beg God to have mercy on your souls.  By judging others, you inadvertently place yourselves directly under Gods’ had of judgment.  Matthew 7:2-3 “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.  And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?”

May God open your eyes and ears to a fertile comprehension of Jesus’ (agape) love for us.

Your servant in Christ.