Paul understood love as the aim and end of the whole saving work of Jesus Christ. Our love is not the solution to the problem of sin, but it is the product of God's solution to the problem of sin. And we remember that on the night of his arrest, Jesus said,
Richard D. PhillipsI have a new commandment to give you.What is that new commandment? That you love one another.1
9 yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus