The Acts of the Apostles makes clear, the early Christians knew that their duty of obedience did not extend to commands that conflicted with their duties to God. (iv) Although the above passage focuses on the exercise of authority, the call to love his wife as Christ loved the Church applies not only to the husband's exercise of authority but more generally to all his behaviour towards his wife. (v) Although it is not the point in Ephesians 5, the wife too is called to love her spouse as Jesus loves the Church. This passage applies to the spousal relationship a more general lesson; all relations to others are to imitate the love of Jesus for the Church, a love that is called agape. II. AGAPE Agape119 is a Greek term used in the New Testament to indicate the kind of love to which Christians are called. This love imitates God's love, especially as it is revealed in Jesus who by his life, death and resurrection manifests the Father's love for all people Agape is gratuitous, not merited. God created us out of love before we could merit it; Jesus Christ, sent by the Father, died for those who were still sinners. In the same way, the follower of Christ should love even those who have not earned love. Agape is self-sacrificing, in imitation of Jesus who emptied himself by becoming flesh and emptied himself further by his lowly manner and state in life, and especially by his acceptance of suffering and death for the salvation of others. The oldest books of the Hebrew Scriptures don't speak of God loving Israel. Possibly the human authors thought that the notion of love implied need, and the Almighty does not need anything outside of Himself. The prophet Hosea opens up Hebrew thought on this point. 119
Some notion of the abundance of material on this topic up to 1958 can be gained from the footnotes in Spicq, Ceslaus, Agape in the New Testament, Volumes I-III, St. Louis, Herder, c1963.
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