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John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
John 21:20: “Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?”
We are all familiar with the three words in Greek expressing three levels of love, Agape (unconditional love), Phileo (brotherly love, friendship) and Eros (erotic love). Hebrew actually has four words for love, but they are not always translated as love. You have Ahav (love), Racham (tender mercies) Dodi (beloved as spousal love), and Ra’ah (brotherly love, or friendship). It would be wrong to try and make a parallel between the Greek words for love and the Hebrew words which creates a real problem in translation as love is at the very root and center of Scripture. I suppose we could say the closest to Ahav is Agape, Ra’ah is like Phileo and Dodi is like Eros. Yet this would not be accurate as Ahav is used in cases where Agape would not fit, Ra’ah, although rendered as friendship, is also rendered as Shepherd and consuming passion and is often used by David to express his love for God, so it would be very inappropriate to consider Ra’ah equivalent to Phileo in many cases. Dodi is used by Solomon toward his beloved to express a sexual desire, but it does not carry the lustful, self-gratification of Eros.
There is a fourth word in Hebrew for love and that is racham which is often expressed as a romantic love or rendered as tender mercies. It is rarely used in the Old Testament but is frequently found in the Aramaic New Testament where it is spelled the same and sounds the same in Aramaic as it does in Hebrew.
In the Greek New Testament, we find that the word used for love in John 3:16 is Agape. In the Peshitta or the Aramaic Bible, it is the word Chav which is similar to the Hebrew word Ahav and means love. However, in John 21:20 where we read about the disciple that Jesus loved the Greek uses the word Agape, but the Peshitta uses the Aramaic word Racham which is identical to the Hebrew word Racham.
We know that Jesus and His disciples did not speak in Greek, but spoke in a Northern Old Galilean dialect of Aramaic. Aramaic is very difficult to translate into another language. I believe the original manuscripts of the Gospels were written in Aramaic and translated into Greek about twenty years later, but even if I am wrong and they were originally written in Greek, the writer would still have had to translate his words and those of Jesus directly from the Aramaic. We have Aramaic manuscripts that date earlier than our earliest Greek manuscripts which were lost around 300 AD (oddly about the same time as Constantine). Still, even if Jesus and His disciples used two different Aramaic words for love, the writer and/or translator putting his words into Greek would have been stuck with only one possible word that would fit and that would be Agape.
So when Jesus said that “God so loved the word” He used the Aramaic word Chav but when speaking of the disciple that He loved we have the word Racham. These are two entirely different words, both meaning love. The most logical conclusion is that we are dealing with two levels of love and thus this would suggest that he either loved the world more than His disciple or he loved this disciple more than the world. In other words, we face the old dilemma of Tommy Smothers of the Smothers brothers: “Mother always loved you best.”
Is it true that God loves everyone, but does He have his favorites? Did He love Joseph more than me which is why he got to be a prime minister and I am just a bus driver for the disabled? Did God love Moses more than Miriam and Aaron which is why He spoke face to face with Moses but not with his brother or sister?
Note John 21:20 does not say the disciple whom Jesus loved, but the disciple whom Jesus loved following. In the Greek and Aramaic it is more properly rendered as the disciple whom Jesus loved who followed Him. The world does not follow God, but this disciple did follow Jesus.
The key difference between the words Chav which is used in John 3:16 as God loving the world and Racham as used in John 21:20 of the disciple that Jesus loved is that Chav is a love that is not necessarily returned. Chav is speaking of a love that flows from just one person and is not completed. For love to be completed, it must be returned. Racham is a completed love. Love can be pretty lonely and painful if it is not returned. A young teenage girl can moon over some handsome dude who doesn’t even know she is alive and feel depressed, sad and broken-hearted, she can Chav. But if that skinny little teenage guy looks into her eyes and says: “I love you.” She is immediately transported to cloud nine where birds sing and flowers look beautiful again. Love can exist if it is not returned, but it cannot sing until it is shared.
As a pastor, I performed many weddings. I have always been delighted to watch Chav turn into Racham as I spoke those words: “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” At that moment the reality sets in on this couple, that they have now declared to the world that they love each other and are committing their lives to each other. In that declaration, they know that they are truly loved – Racham.
You see, God loves the word but the world does not love Him in return. It is when we love Him in return that His love is complete, it is when we love Him in return that he is able to rejoice over us with singing (Zephaniah 3:17). Salvation is not just about getting saved and going to heaven, it is about completing the love that God has for us, bringing that joy and celebration to the heart of God that has been mooning over us for years, like that teenage girl and then to suddenly look into His eyes and say: “I love you.” Why do the angels rejoice over one sinner that repents? The same reason you cry at a wedding, you are rejoicing over seeing the joy of two people (not just one) who have found each other in love and share that love and return that love to each other. The angels rejoice for the same reason you read Jane Austen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, or Grace Livingstone Hill, they love a good romance where two people love each other.
It is not that God loves one person more than the other, He loves all equally, it is just that very few will love Him in return and complete His love, bring Him the joy of His love, awaken Him in that love, and cause Him to sing with joy in that love.
You and I, simple little frail human beings, have the ability to bring joy to the God of the Universe by simply saying: “I love you.” Have you told Him today that you love Him? Is God’s love for you just Chav (one-sided)? Or is it Racham (completed, shared)? Do you want to give the all mighty, all-powerful God a thrill and make His day? Tell Him you love Him.
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