We often hear that God's perfect love is best expressed in the Greek word agape while earthly love is best summed up with the word phileo. Is this true, or just an idea made prominent in sermons, articles, and books? To search out an answer, I went to the Bible, where I first assembled two piles of data: One containing biblical material which employed the word agape, and the other, texts of Scripture using the word, phileo.
This article deals with some of what I discovered.
How agape is used in the New Testament
"God is [agape]" (1 John 4:8). "For God so loved [a form of the word agape is used] the world that He gave . . ." John 3:16, NKJV). "The [agape] of Christ, which passeth knowledge .. ."(Eph. 3:19)."Greater [agape] hath no man than this..." (John 15:13). "If you [agapao] Me, keep My commandments" (John 14:15). "He that loves [agapao] another hath fulfilled the law" (Rom. 13:8). The crown of life is promised to "them that [agapao] him" (James 1:12). And Christ warns those who "have left [their] first [agape]" (Rev. 2:4).
Clearly the ability to exercise is not only an attribute of God; it is also a vital ingredient in the Christian's experience. But can I have agape love? Evidently. And, can I have agape love without God's help? Absolutely. In Christ's own words, we read of the unconverted sinner (just below John 3:16), "men loved [agapao] darkness rather than light" Gohn 3:19). Further, Jesus talks of people who "[agapao] the praise of men more than God" (12:43), and Peter says they "[agapao] the wages of unrighteousness" (2 Peter 2:15). If agape love is the benchmark of God's love and the converted Christian, why does Jesus say "sinners also [agapao] those that [agapao] them" (Luke 6:32)?
How phileo is used
Meanwhile, what about the other love, phileo!
"The Father himself loves [phileo] you because ye have loved [phileo] me and have believed" (John 16:27). While Jesus loved (agape) His disciple John, Jesus also loved (phileo) him (20:2). Further, the "Father [phileo] the Son, and showeth him all things" (5:20). And one who "[phileo] father or mother ... son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me," says Jesus (Matt. 10:37).
Like agape love, phileo love can be earthly, even "earthy." The Pharisees "[phileo] to pray standing" (Matt. 6:5) and "[phileo] the upper most rooms at feasts" (23:6). "He that [phileo] his life shall lose it" (John 12:25). Those standing outside heaven's gates are those who phileo and make lies (Rev. 22:15).
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance identifies agape as primarily a function of the head, the mind, the intellect, while phileo is more a matter of the heart, the emotions. But, lest there be any doubt as to God's approval of phileo love, as well as His insistence on practicing it, Paul, the great champion of agape, includes this admonition in his benediction to the church at Corinth: "If any man [phileo] not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha" (1 Cor. 16:22); that is, excommunicated or cursed until the divine judgment!
It is no wonder then that, when Jesus asked Peter the first two times, "Simon, do you [agapao] thou me?" Peter replied, "Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I [phileo] Thee" (John 21:15,16). In answering this way, Peter knew, or at least felt himself to be, on safe ground, even though Jesus was challenging his level of devotion.
One God, two loves
Agape is occasionally translated "charity"in the King James Version, and phileo is sometimes rendered "kiss." Again both words are set in a framework of approval and censure. First Corinthians 13, the "love" chapter, edifies charity, while in His letter to the church at Thyatira, Christ rebukes their brand of agape when it does not condemn fornication (Rev. 2:19). Likewise, when translated "kiss," Jesus chides Simon the Pharisee for giving Him no philema, while Mary had not ceased to (earnestly) "kiss" (phileo) His feet (Luke 7:45).
In fact, the disciples were all admonished to "salute one another with an holy kiss [a word derived from phileo]" (Rom. 16:16, KJV, emphasis added) as a token of their affection for one another. Then as an act of supreme rejection and deception, Jesus asks, "Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss [from phileo]" (Luke 22:48, emphasis added).
In a revealing blend of these two words, Peter places them both in one verse, showing us their simultaneous place in the conversion experience. "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned [phileo] of the brethren, see that ye [agape] one another with a pure heart fervently: Being bom again" (1 Peter 1:22, 23). Then in his benediction, Peter does a similar thing when he calls the growing church, in a time of great trial and betrayal, to "greet ye one another with a kiss [philema] of charity [agape]" (5:14, emphasis added).
Making sense of apparent contradictions
What sense then are we to make of all this, the admonitions and apparent contradictions? As our Creator, Christ fashioned humanity in His image, imbued with all the functions of God's heart and mind, emotionally and intellectually, though in a finite form. But God's creation went amiss and all that God had pronounced "very good" came under the law of sin, and the seed of death planted itself in the human soul.
What had been pure and noble and abounding, now, under the power of sin, became perverted and self-seeking. Nevertheless, the good seed, embedded in the soul by grace, remained ready to break out to produce its own fruit when the human being responded to the goodness of God, repented, and was born anew by the Holy Spirit.
So today, we see the love functions of mind, heart, and body devoted to the flesh or, when revitalized by the gift of God through faith in Jesus Christ, aligned with the mind and heart of God. Yet both seeds strive for space in every soul.
Both God's Spirit and Satan's are at work in us. Paul laments for all of us, "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7:24). Who can save me from this internal civil war? "I thank God [He can] through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin" (verse 25).
In God's original plan we can see that both agape love, that seated in the intellect, and phileo love, that issuing from the heart, were originally on an equal footing in the human soul. Neither one predominated. But when Satan beguiled humanity, largely through exploiting our emotional, or phileo, side, it was phileo love the emotional side of the human being that became especially vulnerable.
Both kinds of love are constantly operative and both are an authentic way of expressing love; both being a part of God's creation. Both kinds of love are potentially operative in human-to-human, God-to-human, and human-to-God relationships. All things considered, however, it is nevertheless true that agape love is that which is primary, which is the ultimate in our relationships to one another and to God.
Thus, while Christ challenges us to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind" (Matt. 22:37), phileo love is subject to agape love, even while we are to love God completely, that is, in every way. While we go from faith to faith, maturing in our experience, we are to add to brotherly kindness, charity (2 Peter 1:7); that is, we are to add to our Philadelphia., agape (2 Peter 1:7).
As Christ laments, "thou hast left thy first [agape]" (Rev. 2:4); nevertheless, "as many as I [phileo] I rebuke and chasten" (3:19).
