In general, men are driven by intellect and women by affections, and because of this men in the Bible generally represent knowledge and truth and women generally represent love and the desire for good. This generally carries over into marriage, where the man's growing knowledge and understanding and the woman's desire to be good and useful are a powerful combination. In many cases in the Bible, then, "husband" refers to things of truth and understanding, much as "man" does. Magnificent things can happen in a true marriage, though, when both partners are looking to the Lord. If a husband opens his heart to his wife, it's as though she can implant her loves inside him, transforming his intellectual urges into a love of growing wise. She in turn can grow in her love of that blooming wisdom, and use it for joy in their married life and in their caring for children and others in their life. Many couples, even in heaven, stay in that state -- called "Spiritual" -- growing deeper and deeper to eternity. There is the potential, though, for the couple to be transformed: through the nurturing love of his wife the husband can pass from a love of growing wise to an actual love of wisdom itself, and the wife can be transformed from the love of her husband's wisdom into the wisdom of that love -- the actual expression of the love of the Lord they have built together. In that state -- called "Celestial" -- the husband represents love and the desire for good, and the wife represents truth and knowledge.

To some degree, there really is no spiritual meaning to the word “love” in the Bible. Why? Because if you truly love another, that is already a spiritual state. To put it simply, the Lord is Love Itself, a perfect and infinite love that is the source of all actual life and substance in the universe. Thus everything we are and everything we experience is a product of the Lord's love; there is no way for us to have any love from ourselves that is not ultimately the Lord's love, because the Lord's love is everything. When we feel love, what we're really doing is opening ourselves to be a conduit for the Lord's love -- truly a spiritual state. This also means that the more we can align our love with the Lord's love, the stronger our experience of love will be. The Lord's love is a constant desire to be conjoined with us, to be able to love us fully while protecting our right to choose. So the more we try to love that way, the more in harmony with Him we will be and the more powerful our feelings of love will be. In a general sense, then, most uses of “love” in the Bible represent a desire for union, connection, powered, and enriched by the Lord.

In Matthew 6:24, this signifies celestial of love. (Arcana Coelestia 3875[3])

In Malachi 2:11, this signifies to conjoin oneself with falsity. (Arcana Coelestia 4434[3])