(upbeat music) - Lorna, a podcast listener in Ireland, writes in with an observant question for you. Pastor John, the most popular question asked at Google is this, what is love? Why do you think so many people struggle to understand love and how would you define it? - I think if we start with the definition, it will become clearer why so many people struggle to understand what love is.

So let's admit that there are very different kinds of love. Or to put it another way, the word love can be used in many different ways. So whenever we're asking what love is, like Lorna is asking me now, in a sense I need to respond and say, according to whose definition, or according to what document, or according to what passage of scripture.

So for example, C.S. Lewis, and I would recommend this very highly, in his book, "The Four Loves," distinguishes eros, kind of romantic love where the lovers are hungry for each other, and philos, friendship love, where two people are linked arm in arm, shoulder to shoulder with a common vision and a common goal and a delight in that partnership of pulling together toward the goal.

And storge, affection that one might have for an old sweater, or slippers, an old dog that you just can't let go. And agape, divine love characterized by sacrifice and the pursuit of another person's good. So just from Lewis, you see, well, which one of those do you want me to define when you say what is love?

So that's part of the reason why people are groping is because the word love has so many different references, and it's not a bad thing that it should. Now what I have found most helpful is to divide love into two categories, and I got this first from Jonathan Edwards, but it goes way back beyond him, and he divides love into love of complacency and love of benevolence.

And complacency would be I love pizza. And in other words, I find myself pleased by the qualities I find in pizza, namely its taste. That would be love of complacency, or you might love a place or a country or lots of things. You could say you love them because they are lovely, they are pleasing to you, whereas the love of benevolence is not based on the loveliness of the object of the love, but rather your goodwill, benevolent, your goodwill toward the person or the thing that you're loving, and your aim in that kind of love is to do good, to bring about something beautiful, not respond to beauty.

So we could spend a long time discussing the nature of complacency in God and what it's like to know and enjoy and admire and be satisfied in God, and we could spend a long time talking about benevolence to people who don't have the kind of admirable traits that make us drawn to them.

So what I think would be most helpful in response to the question is to give a biblical definition of the love of benevolence because this is the kind of love which in the Bible is celebrated as the heart of God's love. So the magnitude of God's love of benevolence is measured in the Bible by four criteria that I can see.

First, the degree to which the person loved does not deserve to be loved. Second, the greatness of the price paid to love a person. Third, the greatness of the good that is done for the person when he's loved. And fourth, the level of desire that God has for the good of the one loved.

So let me just give an example of verse for each one of those. So number one, in Romans 5, six to eight, God loves the least deserving and therefore his love is greater. So for while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, but perhaps for a good person, one might even dare to die.

But God, different from all that, shows his love of his love, this is what love is, in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. So the first measure of the magnitude of God's love is we don't deserve it, and that's why it is great. Second is the price he's willing to pay.

So John 15, 13, "Greater love has no one than this, "than that he lay down his life." And so the measure there in verse 13 of John 15 is that it's measured not just by the fact that I don't deserve it, it's measured by the price he's willing to pay, namely his own son's life.

And the third measure is the good that I get through this love, and in John 3, 16, that's called eternal life for God so loved the world, loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. And then he defines eternal life in chapter 17 by saying it's to know God and to know Christ.

So the greatest possible love gives the greatest possible gift, which is God himself. And the fourth is did God do this begrudgingly, or does he do this with all his heart? And Zephaniah 3, 17, "The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness.

He will quiet you by his love. He will exult over you with loud singing." And the same thing in Luke 15 where the father sees the son coming home, and he hugs him, and he puts a ring on his hand, and robes, and shoes, and throws a party. In other words, God is totally in to saving us.

He's not doing this, nobody's twisting God's arm. So the most beautiful love in the world is this divine love that pays the highest price, the life of the son of God, for completely undeserving enemies, us, to give us the longest and greatest happiness in his presence, and he loves doing it.

And one last thing, if it sounds contradictory to say that the heart of God's love is benevolence toward unworthy people like us, and yet the ultimate goal of human life is complacency in God, which I do think it is, I don't think that's really a contradiction. And the reason it's not is because the ultimate aim of God's benevolence toward us is to give us complacency in himself.

So the love of benevolence ultimately serves in us the love of complacency in God. So God doesn't have ultimate satisfaction in us, we have ultimate satisfaction in him. God would be an idolater if his ultimate goal were complacency in us. Rather, he works to give us ultimate complacency in him.

We don't love God by helping God out of deficiency into joy, but God does love us by helping us out of deficiency into joy. But in both cases, our love for God and his for us, the ultimate aim is the same, that we find ultimate satisfaction in God, both of us, we and God finding, pursuing satisfaction in God, in the display of God, the exalting of God.

So the ultimate goal of all things, and this may be the most helpful thing for the answer of this question, the ultimate goal of all things when the world is filled with the display of the infinite value of God by treasuring him, people who treasure him, enjoying him above all things.

And in that sense, the goal of all things is love. So if you ask me, why do you think so many people struggle? With understanding love, I would say no one, apart from the Holy Spirit, will think of love like I just thought about it. We are by virtue of our innate sinfulness, self-centered, not God-centered, and so we run in a thousand directions to get away from this truth that we find our full and lasting satisfaction in God, and God is benevolent toward us precisely in order to bring us into that enjoyment.

- That is a brilliant theological perspective of love. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for the question, Lorna. And speaking of love, in the past, we have asked this question on the podcast. Do I love God, or do I just love loving God? That was episode number 345.

Also, we have an episode titled Helping Our Children Feel Loved by God. That is episode number 563 with guest Ray Ortlund. You can check out those episodes in the Ask Pastor John archive at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. Tomorrow, John Piper will explain what is wrong with prohibition-centered holiness. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you tomorrow. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)