In the Bible, writes biblical scholar John Stott, “agape love means self-sacrifice in the service of others.”8 1 John 3:16–18 says, “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” When John says that “this is how we know what love is,” he is arguing that, on this side of the cross, love is ever after defined as self-giving. “Just as the essence of hate is murder . . . so the essence of love is self-sacrifice. . . . Murder is taking another person’s life; self-sacrifice is laying down one’s own.”9
