Introduction and Review of Literature

Love is one of those words that anyone can claim to know what it means until the moment they need to operationalize its definition. Love is an ambiguous, misleading word¹ that carries out many meanings and nuances, and even more so, when contemporary literature² is considered. This term has been used to defend theological perspectives of inclusion,³ universalism,⁴ open theism⁵ and ecumenism.⁶ Even though Christian theologians, philosophers, and psychologists consider the definition of love central to their understanding of God and the created world, love is rarely defined,⁷ even when considering its significant role in the major religions of the world.⁸ There is little attention in defining what love is, even among those who write about it.⁹ Among theologians, when they write about love, they do so by assuming that there is an obvious meaning¹⁰ to it.

These days, love has been loaded with a misplaced emphasis¹¹ and it is very distant from the conceptual perspective of the days of Christ. There is a temporal, cultural and linguistic distance that needs to be overcome. Love has increasingly and indisputably acquired the status of God's fundamental attribute,¹² or the central theme of the Christian religion.¹³ Although it serves to provide an image of God that nourishes the spirit of this time, other attributes like justice or eternity cannot be disregarded. As a socially learned and shared construct in a community of speakers, the understanding of love varies according to the culture in which it is embedded.¹⁴ Similarly, if there are differences in conceptualization, practice is not unaffected by its influences either. A sensitive point in the debate, over the understanding of the meaning of love, is that modern notions of love do not help one to understand it in the biblical context. When the notion of love is socially and culturally constructed, so its content is subject to change.¹⁵

Currently, there is a tendency to privatize the emotions, distancing them from the actions correlated to them, as well as the very fragility of the affective ties, the insecurity of the relationships and the virtuality that characterizes the love in these days.¹⁶ Agape is qualified by the concerns of modern ethics.¹⁷ This is the attempt to define the concept of agape with approaches drawn from the social sciences,¹⁸ valuing sometimes emotional and psychological aspects,¹⁹ and other times social,²⁰ altruistic,²¹ ethical,²² or even political aspects.²³ Those who understand love in this trend, mainly or exclusively identify it as pure feeling or emotion.²⁴

The idea that love is primarily a human emotional experience has precedents in church history, especially in the thinking of Aquinas, John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards,²⁵ as well as in Luther and Calvin, following Augustine's view of love drawn from his ideas of original sin,²⁶ grace, and sovereignty of God. Augustine's view of love has had greater influence on Christian history than any other non-canonical writer. The meaning of agape as Christian love—the Law of Christ, as opposed to the Mosaic law—has been understood in the same categories he created, including the emotional element with which he qualified it.²⁷ Augustine talks about a love inherent to the human race that found its satisfaction only in God,²⁸ in Him Who is love. And on the loving nature of God, he builds one of his arguments in favor of the Trinity. For him, if God is love, this requires the presence of the lover, the beloved and the love itself. That is, God should coexist in the form of the trinity, since love cannot exist without the figure of the beloved.²⁹

Jeanrond suggests that love always includes emotion, but it is more than emotion. It has the potential to affect all human relationships.³⁰ This concept of love involves an alterity. Love wants to relate to the other, to know the other, to admire the other, to experience the other's life, to spend time with the other. Love requires a concrete agent, a love affair.³¹ Even today, the necessary alterity in love is not denied; however, relationships have become increasingly unstable and recognized by their fragility in a world of confused values under constant changes by people who are unable to establish lasting bonds.

Furthermore, in order to overcome individualism, love has also been understood as the principle of a social consciousness in a theology of strong moral foundations, an act of the person as a whole.³² Love is also known as the model of freedom, for Christian love is not natural to the human being, who needs God to free him/her from his/her appetites and propensities. So, the love of Christ liberates man from his natural selfishness and from his own passions, to exercise a truly unselfish love.

Among all these trends, approaches, and mixture of flavors and colors, one of the most common ideas for the interpretation of love is to affirm that Jesus is talking about something that represents a break with Judaism, and that this defines the core of the Christian message³³—the Christian agape.

Christian Agape

Since the nineteenth century there is an ongoing ethical agapism,³⁴ which attempts to value a pretense unicity or Christian³⁵ ethical superiority based on the qualification of ἀγάπη as something proper to Christianity.

Christian love is usually defined as "consideration and a strong, non-sexual feeling for a person and his or her well-being, according to the moral character of God; especially characterized by a voluntary loss of rights or privileges on behalf of another person."³⁶

According to Barrosse,³⁷ agape in the NT involves the love of God for humankind, from humankind for God and from the Christian for his neighbor, and constitutes the nucleus of Christianity, manifested in a benevolent, effective and disinterested way.

Fletcher³⁸ defines agape as the one and only regulating principle of the Christian faith. For him, agape is the main emphasis of the teachings of Jesus in the NT. Jesus customarily taught his disciples, Jews and Gentiles using agape, which involves loving and forgiving one's neighbor, whether Jewish, Christian, Greek or Roman.³⁹

Furthermore, Nørager⁴⁰ proposes a theology of love, where eros and agape are recognized as different aspects within a continuum of what love is, in which human and divine love are perceived as mirroring one another.⁴¹ For Gibson Winter in his work on love and human rights, this opening between divine and human love brings awareness of one’s guilt. Seeing the need of others awakens its own lack of concern.⁴² So love is seen in the concern for others.⁴³

By this way, two qualities about love (agape) could be mentioned. The first is its universality. Christian love excludes no one, reaching even the impious and the persecutors (Mt 5,44; Lk 6,27). There is no reason to limit it to those who can offer something in return or to personal affinity. Second, on the other hand, love is, in itself, reciprocal and mutual⁴⁴ (Barrosse 1958, p.138). The Christian community must be recognized by the presence of this attribute in its environment. Agape should regulate the life of Christians living in community. "To love is to act intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote general well-being",⁴⁵ says Oord. This definition points out to a tension between the importance of relationships and the self, which emphasize the value of the individual and the community. Love always requires some kind of relationship.⁴⁶

Against this background of social sciences and Christian theology, the Gospel of Matthew may shed some light on the debate of agape in Christian thought. This would be so due to its Jewish flavor, besides being a gospel itself. In the book of Matthew, even though agape appears many times in its verbal and adjectival forms, there is only one occurrence of agape in its substantivated form (Mt 24:12). This term occurs within the context of Christ’s eschatological discourse⁴⁷ of Matthew 24–25. So, the purpose of this paper is to see how the evangelist understands agape in the eschatological context of Matthew 24:12-14.

In addressing the eschatological use of agape in Matthew 24:12-14, we will follow three steps: (1) the understanding of the term love in the Torah and Intertestamentary Period; (2) the usage of the verbal and adjectival forms of agape in the Gospel of Matthew; and (3) the eschatological use of agape in Mt 24:12-14.

Love in the Torah and Intertestamentary Period

In general, the Torah embraces a polarity between love and law, as in a nuptial⁴⁸ contract, which establishes the relationship and its norms. For the Israelite, the Torah is the law of His love. Accordingly, the observance of the law of God is the main way in which the Isrelite manifests his love for God.⁴⁹

Deuteronomy is the book of the Pentateuch with the greatest number of occurrences of the verb “to love” (אהב).⁵⁰ It is highly significant that in Deuteronomy the verb "to love", referring to God's love for his people or their need to love Him as well as to others,⁵¹ occurs more often than in almost any other book in the Hebrew Bible (except for Psalms and Hosea). This may sound strange to many, accustomed to seeing Deuteronomy just like a legal book.⁵² This verb and its derivatives appear 22 times in Deuteronomy in 19 verses,⁵³ plus one in Dt 7:8 if a substantived form could be considered. In four of these occurrences, God is the subject of love (4:37; 7:13; 10:18; 23:6). Three others mention the love of the forefathers of the Israelite nation (6:5, 10:19, 11:1). In three, the people of Israel are the subject (6:5; 10:19; 11:1). There is still a reference to a servant's love for his wife (15:16), two to strangers (10:18; 10:19) and two to the beloved wife as opposed to the unloved wife (21:15,16).⁵⁴

Although Deuteronomy functions as a civil and religious code for Israel, it differs from current codes that provide for the maintenance of social order. God's love for Israel and Israel's imperative to love God are essential to the understanding of its content. Love in Deuteronomy consists essentially of a cultic allegiance to Yaweh, which excludes the practice of worshiping any other deity.⁵⁵ Israel's love implies a relationship with Yahweh in terms of obedience to the law.⁵⁶ Love is expressed in actions. This is true in relation to God, to the stranger (Deuteronomy 10:18-19) and even to the unloved wife (Deut 21:15,16). Also, good living coexistence guides the relationship between the Israelite and his neighbor (Lev 19:18).

As a contract, the Torah is a legal document that specifies the mutual acceptance of the duties and responsibilities of the two parties that come to an agreement.⁵⁷ This alliance regulates the relationship and affects both parties. The covenant is not an ephemeral commitment; on the contrary, it rests on God's faithful character. And to provide more trust to the covenant (Deuteronomy 28: 15-19), it adds blessings and curses⁵⁸ that are connected to the nation's disposition toward God. God does not change, people do. The love of God, and compliance with His rules should make Israel a better nation than its neighbors. The true Israelite is the one who loves God and his fellows of pilgrimage.⁵⁹

Observing the commandments is religion in action.⁶⁰ Israel's love for the Lord is demonstrated by acts of love expressed in obedience to the law of Yahweh in simple daily-life chores (Deut 6:7-9). The law is Israel's way to imitate Yaweh's love as experienced when Israel was redeemed from Egypt (Deut 24:17-18).

Love for God involves loving the neighbor (Lev 19:18), and the need to avoid any act that could be detrimental to the well-being of a neighbor or community. The Israelite must, therefore, accommodate himself to the constitution under which he lives. He should happily observe the various civil ordinances which, in Israel, as in any other well-ordered community, are necessary for protection against bad practices and for regulating relations between members of the same society.⁶¹

In Deuteronomy, love and obedience are interchangeable.⁶² This is not legalism, but a response to God, who first loved (Deuteronomy 4:37; 7: 8; cf., Hs 11:1) and performed great and powerful acts of deliverance for them. The commandment to love God involves all dimensions of human existence, defined in the expression "with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength" (Dt 6:5).

To love is to enter into an exclusive covenant, and this is strengthened in the blessings resulting from the relationship with God (30:16). The first occurrence of אהב in Deuteronomy is the love of God (4:37) and the last is an invitation to Israel to love Him (Deut. 30:20). For Israel, loving is not an option among many, it is a matter of life and death. Loving God is opposed not only to not loving Him, but also trying to love Him along with other gods (Hs 4). It is not just about telling a story, but about Israel's own existence as God's chosen nation (Hs 2:16).

In summary, man's relationship with God is regulated by the command to love Him (Deut. 6:5), which also reaches the neighbor (Lev 19:18), including the stranger (Deut. 10: 18,19), the slave (Deuteronomy 15:16) or the children of the unloved woman (Deut 21: 15,16). Every human being is invited to love according to the model of God (4:37; 5:10; 6: 5; 10:18).

Love in the Intertestamentary Period

The Book of Jubilees,⁶³ a pseudepigraph of the second century BC, refers to "each one love his neighbor" (7:20b), and God, "love the God of heaven, and be joined to all of his commands" (20:7). It also echoes Dt 7:9 when it states that God "will show mercy to hundreds and thousands, to all who love him" (23: 31b).

Combining the commandments of loving God (Deut. 6:5) and neighbor (Lv 19:18) is not something exclusive of the NT.⁶⁴ In the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs⁶⁵ (a pseudo-epigraph also dated from the second century BC, considered apocalyptic literature, consisting of a collection of testamentary letters attributed to the twelve sons of Jacob) it is already possible to identify a partial parallel with this textual construction:⁶⁶

• "Love the Lord and your neighbor" (Tes Iss 5:2a);

• "The Lord I loved with all my strength; likewise, I loved every human being as I love my children. You do these as well, my children…” (Tes Iss 7:6b-7a);

• "Throughout all your life love the Lord, and one another with a true heart". (Test Dan 5:3);

• "Now, my children, love the Lord God of heaven and earth; keep his commandments... Fear the Lord and love your neighbor" (Tes Ben 3:1-3).

Hillel's teaching on loving people is his expression of the commandment to love one's neighbor as oneself, based on Leviticus 19:18, which was not restricted to the Jews but to all human beings. He identifies God's love with human love and believes that the most basic manifestation of expressing love for God is to love people. Hillel taught that it is the duty of every Jew to love all people and bring them closer to the Torah. It was love with a message and with a mission.⁶⁷ Thus, love is the fulfillment of the law. The commandments of loving God (Deut 6: 5) and loving neighbor (Lev 19:18) are combined and become a summary of the whole law. There is no distinction between love of God and neighbor, and both reflect the love of God.

According to rabbinic Judaism⁶⁸ the maximal ethics of the commandment to love⁶⁹ can be based on three arguments. The first of these is equality between human beings, created in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27). The second refers to the importance of doing good and being merciful (Hos 6:6); and thirdly, the challenge to imitate God in His holiness (Lev 17:26, Sanh 9:11; Sifra, Qed 4:12; Gen. R. 24:7).⁷⁰ In short, obedience to God’s commandments was understood as a natural consequence and expression of unconditional love for Him (Deut. 6:5).⁷¹

Love In Matthew

Love in its substantive form (ἀγάπη) appears in a single passage in the book of Matthew.⁷² However its adjectival and verbal forms are more present and point to the OT. Matthew 3:17; 12:18; 17:5 (“beloved,” agapetos) are passages with Messianic characteristics,⁷³ therefore not decontextualized from the OT. In fact, Matthew 3:17 and 17:5 allude to Gen 22:2; Ps 2:7; and Isa 42:1; while Matthew 12:18-21 is a direct quotation of Isaiah 42:1-4.⁷⁴ The verb “to love” (agapao) appears in 5:43–44, 46; 6:24; 19:19; 22:37, 39. Matthew 5:43–44, 46, 6:24 present Jesus’ interpretation of the Torah (e.g., Lev 19:18, Dt 6:5). While Matthew 19:19; 22:37, 39 are direct quotations from the Torah (Lev 19:18; Deut 6:5; Lev 19:18, respectively).

Faced with a question from a Pharisee about the greatest commandment (Mt 22:36), Jesus refers to the OT to answer it. As said above, combining the commandments to love God (Mat 22:37, cf. Dt 6:5) and one’s neighbor (Mat 22:39, cf. Lv 19:18) was not new to his audience, nor to summarize the whole law in the form of these two commandments.⁷⁵ However for Jesus, these commandments are not only a summary of the whole law, as Hillel would agree,⁷⁶ but Jesus adds that on these two commandments "hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Mt 22:40).⁷⁷ According to Hagner, “love” for Matthew, is the summary of the law (cf. 22:36-40).⁷⁸ Actually, it seems that in Matthew there is a consistent demonstration of the unity between the thought of Jesus and the Mosaic Torah.⁷⁹ So, it appears that to grasp the meaning of the term “love” in Matthew means to understand it in its OT context. In other words, Matthew’s understanding of agape is anchored in his comprehension of the OT covenant.⁸⁰

The Escatological Use of Love in Matthew 24:12

For Stanley Porter, to delimitate a unit of a biblical text is not always a simple task. Elements such as cultural distance, literary genre, the way the text has been used throughout history and its interpretation,⁸¹ present difficulties when defining the beginning and end of a pericope.

For may commentators, v. 12 should be linked more closely to vv. 10–11, and not to the following verses (vv. 13–14).⁸² This way, agape would contrast with the persecuting hatred of the previous verses. It is true that the “and” (καὶ) in the v. 12 functions as a logical conective conjunction,⁸³ but only to make v. 12 part of the list of the so called “signs”. There isn’t subordination or causal relation with the previous verses. On other the other hand, term “but” (δέ) in v. 13 functions as a logical constrative conjunction,⁸⁴ making a contrast with the previous verse (v. 12)— such as in Mt 22:14, connecting it to vv. 12 and 13. This way, the one who endures or perseveres (v. 13) contrasts with the love of many growing cold (v. 12). Accordingly, the conjunction δὲ⁸⁵ also allows one to understand that the Christian community is invited to persevere (ὑπομείνας) in love.

Furthermore, the word “lawlessness” (ἀνομίαν) used in 24:12 points to something that is inversely proportional to the “love” of v. 12. The greater the lawlessness the smaller the love. Since ἀνομία means to live outside the law or without law, it is possible to afirm that its counterpoint is that to love is to live in God's law, which is corroborated by the link of agape in Matthew with its OT background.

In addition, the demonstrative pronoum “this” (τοῦτο) in v. 14 reinforces the conection with vv. 12 and 13. “This gospel of the kingdom”⁸⁶ is to be preached by those who persevere (v. 13) in love (v. 12). According to Hagner, the expression “‘this gospel of the kingdom’ (Mt 24:14) is a deliberate paralleling of Jesus’ teaching, as recorded in his [Matthew’s] Gospel to Deuteronomy’s reference to the book of the law”.⁸⁷ In this case, while vv. 10–11 deal with persecution, 12–14 refer to the lifestyle and message of the perseverant people, connected to the gospel. Thus, the core of the gospel of the kingdom (24:14) is love (24:12; cf., 22:36-40)—obedience to God’s law, and this is the message to be preached to the whole world. Although Jesus' words had a partial fulfillment in the days leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem,⁸⁸ there is yet a future fulfillment (Matt. 24:21) in the midst of unparalleled tribulation⁸⁹ yet to come.

Parallels Between Matthew 24:12-14 and Revelation 12-14

There is an eschatological element of Matthew 24 that goes beyond the destruction of the temple and persecution promoted by the Roman emperors against Christians, pointing to the consummation of the promise of God’s kingdom establishment.⁹⁰ This can be seen in the relationship of Matthew 24 and Revelation 12-14⁹¹ as the table below shows:

Table 1. Relationship between Matthew 24 and Revelation 12-14

In this point, it is noteworthy that Ellen White uses Mt 24:12 in at least four ways: reinforcing (1) the eschatological context of Matthew 24,⁹² (2) the relationship between love and the fulfillment⁹³ of the law, (3) the risk of contamination of believers with the world's licentiousness,⁹⁴ and (4) the identification of the remnant and their lifestyle based on God’s law.⁹⁵ Also, she does not connect v. 12 to vv. 10-11, or even to previous verses, but only to vv. 13⁹⁶ and 14⁹⁷ in reference to the destruction of Jerusalem and as a type of the end of the ages⁹⁸—an eschatological use.⁹⁹

Conclusion

In the eschatological context of Matthew 24, what is the meaning of love? Would ἀγάπη, be an exclusive concept of Christianity,¹⁰⁰ a love of divine origin, which would be withdrawn from human beings because of their great iniquity? Or would it be a feeling that is in opposition to the persecuting hatred (Mt 24:10-11) against those who follow Jesus?¹⁰¹ Matthew’s view of ἀγάπη is in continuity with the understanding of the OT. Loving and keeping the commandments are part of Matthew’s message (Dt 7:9; Mt 22:36-40).¹⁰² The remnant that awaits for the return of Christ is the one who perseveres in love and keeping the commandments. The discourse of Jesus in Matthew is related to the role of the remnant in the time of the end, the proclamation of the everlasting gospel of the kingdom in loving and keeping the commandments, a close connection between belief and daily life.¹⁰³ This way, the one who endures and perseveres in love, that is the remnant, is invited to taste the everlasting gospel, in a new relationship with God, neighbor and creation.¹⁰⁴

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