“The love of God” is one of the most familiar phrases in the Bible. It is also ambiguous. It can mean the love God has for us, or the love we have for God. In English, as in Greek, the little word “of” does not say which.
Usually context decides, and readers never notice the question. But in a surprising number of verses it matters, and careful readers have disagreed. The best-known case is “faith of Christ” in Galatians 2:16, which has its own article: Faith in Christ, or the faithfulness of Christ? This article steps back from that one verse to the wider problem, and shows how Open Word Bible handles it elsewhere.
What a genitive is
Greek nouns change their endings to show how they relate to the rest of the sentence. One of these forms is the genitive case. Its basic job is to link one noun to another, and English most often renders it with “of” or with a possessive: “the house of the father”, “the father’s house”.
But the genitive does many jobs, and the ending looks the same for all of them. Grammars list dozens of uses. A few of them matter most for translation:
- Possession: “the house of the father” is the house the father owns.
- Subject: “the love of God” can mean God loves. Grammarians call this a subjective genitive: the noun in the genitive is the one doing the action.
- Object: “the love of God” can also mean someone loves God. This is an objective genitive: the noun in the genitive receives the action.
- Source: “the work of faith” can mean work that comes from faith.
- Description: “the body of glory” can mean a glorious body.
The subjective and objective uses are where the trouble lies. Whenever a noun names an action (love, faith, fear, hope, knowledge, testimony, endurance) and is followed by a genitive, the genitive can name either the one who acts or the one acted on. The grammar allows both. Only context can choose.
The love of God: two verses, two answers
Two verses show that the same Greek phrase can mean opposite things in different places.
In Romans 5:5, Paul writes that hope does not put us to shame, because ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ (hē agapē tou theou), “the love of God”, has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. The record decides that this is God’s love for us. Its reason is the argument around it: verse 8 speaks of God’s love for us, shown in Christ’s death, and the hope rests on that love, not on ours. So Balanced and Readable say whose love it is:
And hope does not leave us ashamed, for God has given us the Holy Spirit, and through the Spirit his love has flooded our hearts.
In John 5:42 Jesus tells his opponents, “I know you, that you do not have τὴν ἀγάπην τοῦ θεοῦ in yourselves.” The Greek is the same phrase, “the love of God”. But here the record decides the other way: it means their love for God. The context is about where their hearts are turned. They accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from God (5:44). Israel’s first command was to love the LORD with all the heart (Deuteronomy 6:5), and that love is what Jesus says is missing.
Glory from people is not something I accept. But I know you, and there is no love for God in you.
The record for John 5:42 puts the other senses in a footnote, and makes a fair point about them: they are close. Those who have God’s love in them love him in return (1 John 4:19).
Same words, opposite directions. A translation that always rendered “the love of God” the same way would mislead the reader in one of these two places.
When the context is less clear: 1 John 2:5
Sometimes the context leans one way without settling the matter. In 1 John 2:5, John writes that whoever keeps God’s word, “in that person the love of God has truly reached its goal”.
The record for this verse marks the meaning decision uncertain and adds a footnote. It sets out the evidence: the letter uses the phrase in both directions, for love toward God in 5:3 and God’s love for us in 4:9. Here the verb says the love is brought to completion, as God’s love is in 4:12. So the record prefers God’s love for us, working itself out in those who keep his word. Love for God, shown by keeping his word (5:3), remains possible, and the footnote says so. A third suggestion, the kind of love that comes from God, is listed among the alternatives too.
But whoever keeps his word, in that person the love of God has truly reached its goal.
Balanced and Readable keep the phrase “the love of God” or “God’s love” without spelling out its direction further. Where the meaning decision is uncertain, the rendering does not claim more certainty than the decision has.
The love of Christ: 2 Corinthians 5:14 and Romans 8:35
“The love of Christ” raises the same question. In 2 Corinthians 5:14 Paul explains why he and his companions do what they do: ἡ γὰρ ἀγάπη τοῦ Χριστοῦ συνέχει, “for the love of Christ grips us”.
Is that Christ’s love for Paul, or Paul’s love for Christ? The record decides for Christ’s love, and gives its reasons. The next words speak of Christ dying for all, and Paul elsewhere speaks of “the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). It adds a fair qualification: such love also calls out love in return. The other reading, our love for Christ, is in a footnote.
Here the three levels show how a meaning decision can be carried out differently in wording. Literal keeps the phrase as it stands. Balanced does too, since in this context “the love of Christ” that “drives us on” reads naturally as his love. Readable spells it out:
We do this because Christ loves us, and his love pushes us on. We are sure of this: one person died for everyone, so everyone has died.
The rendering decision for Readable says why: it makes the meaning of the decision plain, that it is Christ’s love for them.
Romans 8:35 asks, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” The record reads it as Christ’s love for us, since verse 37 speaks of “the one who loved us” and verse 39 of “the love of God”. Readable again says it outright:
Can anything take us away from the love Christ has for us?
Two genitives in one prayer: 2 Thessalonians 3:5
Some verses stack the question twice. In 2 Thessalonians 3:5 Paul prays, “May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the endurance of Christ.”
Each genitive can be read either way. The love of God can be God’s love for them or theirs for God. The endurance of Christ can be the endurance Christ himself showed, or their patient waiting for him. The record marks the decision uncertain and gives the alternative in a footnote. Its choice is that Paul most likely means they are drawn deeper into God’s love for them and share the steadfastness Christ showed in suffering.
Literal and Balanced keep “the love of God and the endurance of Christ”, which leaves both phrases as open in English as they are in Greek. Readable, which aims to say plainly what the text means, has to choose:
We pray that the Lord will help you understand more and more how much God loves you, and help you keep going with patience, as Christ did.
The rendering decision for that wording is itself marked uncertain, because it states a sense the meaning decision holds only as most likely. This is how the project keeps its levels honest. Wording can make a choice clearer, but it cannot make it surer than the meaning decision behind it.
Who gave the revelation? Revelation 1:1
The last book of the Bible opens with a genitive: Ἀποκάλυψις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, “the revelation of Jesus Christ”. Is Jesus the one who reveals, or the one revealed?
The record decides that it is first of all the revelation that comes from Jesus Christ, because the rest of the sentence says how it came: God gave it to Jesus, and Jesus made it known through his angel to John. But the record adds that Jesus is also at the center of what is revealed (1:12–18), and that the phrase may hold both.
Some grammarians have a name for that last possibility. Daniel Wallace’s Greek grammar calls it a plenary genitive: a genitive that is both subjective and objective at once, where an author means both. Most genitives are not like that, and scholars are cautious about using the idea to avoid a hard choice. But in a sentence like Revelation 1:1, where Jesus is both the one who shows and the one shown, it describes the text well.
The same verse ends with another ambiguous phrase. John bore witness “to the testimony of Jesus Christ”. That could be the testimony Jesus gave, or the testimony about Jesus that believers give. The record, marked uncertain with a footnote, prefers the testimony Jesus gave, because verse 5 calls him “the faithful witness”. It notes that the two are close, since what Jesus testified is what John testifies to, and that the phrase returns several times in the book.
Not always subject or object
The subjective and objective uses are the famous ones, but other uses also need care.
Source. In 1 Thessalonians 1:3 Paul remembers the Thessalonians’ “work of faith and labor of love and endurance of hope”. The record reads each genitive as naming the source: faith works, love toils, hope endures. Balanced renders it “the work your faith does, the labor your love takes on, and the endurance your hope ... gives you”, and Readable spells it out further, as “what your faith leads you to do, how hard you work because you love others, and how you keep going because you hope”.
Description. Sometimes a genitive works like an adjective, a pattern that often reflects Hebrew, which has few adjectives and uses “of” phrases instead. In Luke 16:8, the “manager of unrighteousness” is simply the dishonest manager, and the record calls it a Hebrew way of saying “unrighteous”. In Philippians 3:21, Christ will transform “the body of our humiliation” to be like “the body of his glory”. Balanced says “these bodies of our humble state” and “his glorious body”. A footnote on the verse explains why older wording, “our vile body”, misleads: the Greek word means lowliness, not wickedness.
About, or by? “The gospel of Jesus Christ” in Mark 1:1 could be the good news Jesus proclaimed or the good news about him. The record notes that both are true in Mark, since Jesus proclaims the good news of God (1:14), but at the head of a story about him, Jesus is most likely its subject. Balanced and Readable therefore say “about”, and the rendering decision gives the reason: “of” could mean either.
Faith, righteousness and fear
Some of the most important genitive questions in the Bible are big enough for their own articles.
The phrase “faith of Christ” in Galatians 2:16, 2:20 and 3:22, Romans 3:22 and 3:26, and Philippians 3:9 is discussed in Faith in Christ, or the faithfulness of Christ?, which explains why Open Word Bible reads “faith in” and marks each of those decisions uncertain with a footnote.
“The righteousness of God” in Romans raises a related question: is it a quality God has, a status God gives, or God’s saving action? See The righteousness of God.
“The fear of the LORD” in the Old Testament is almost always fear directed toward God, an objective genitive, but what that fear is takes some explaining. See The fear of the LORD.
Why not just keep “of”?
A reader might ask why a translation does not simply keep “of” everywhere and let the reader decide, as the Greek does.
Sometimes that is the right answer, and Literal often does it. “The love of God” is as open in English as in Greek. But English “of” is not a perfect match for the Greek genitive. In many phrases it already leans one way: “the fear of God” sounds like fear directed at God, “the faith of Abraham” like Abraham’s own faith, “the work of faith” like work done on faith. And in many places, such as “manager of unrighteousness”, keeping “of” produces English that no one would write and few would understand.
So Open Word Bible treats each ambiguous genitive as a meaning decision. The decision states the sense, gives the reasons, names the alternatives, and marks the choice uncertain when the evidence is close. Where a reader might well take it the other way, a footnote gives that reading. Then each level words the decision in its own way: Literal keeping “of” where English can bear it, Balanced choosing a natural phrase, Readable saying plainly who does what to whom.
Because the decision belongs to the meaning, it is the same in every language. A Spanish or Swahili rendering faces the same question, and answers it from the same decision, in its own words. A reader setting can never change it, since settings change wording only. The article Settings change wording, never meaning explains that rule.
Open Romans 5, John 5, 1 John 2 and 2 Corinthians 5 to see the records.