In our continuing study of the doctrine of love, we are discussing God's love as a model for the believer's virtue love.
We saw that Our Lord had perfect spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy and spiritual maturity from metabolized doctrine. He never lost His poise or His sense of destiny during the First Advent. He was motivated by perfect personal love for God the Father and for His plan.
His motivational virtue is expressed in Matt 26:39; Mark 14:36; and Luke 22:42 when He said, "Father, if it be Thy will, let this cup pass from Me. Nevertheless, not My will, but Thy will be done" it was a direct application of the problem solving device of faith rest.
With the problem device of impersonal love, the humanity of Christ had perfect impersonal love for all those who maltreated and maligned Him during the seven trials and the resultant crucifixion.
His functional virtue of impersonal love was expressed in his picking up His cross. We are likewise commanded to pick up our cross and carry it which means we are to function with impersonal love just has he did .
There is no virtue in personal love among human beings, because all human beings are imperfect. The only virtue that can exist in human relationships is provided by impersonal love.
Human personal love is weak and vulnerable to destruction through arrogance in either the subject or in the object. The arrogance complex of sins is the greatest deterrent to human love. Consequently, human personal love has no built-in virtue and must depend on virtue from a source outside the person. This is where spiritual self-esteem comes in.
The spiritual self-esteem that comes from personal love for God is our motivational virtue. Because of this virtue, spiritual self-esteem is the beginning of impersonal love.
When combined with providential preventative suffering to advance to spiritual autonomy, you have the strength to love everyone impersonally. Spiritual autonomy has tremendous virtue, so that it can love with impersonal love.
The pattern therefore becomes obvious. Just as God has impersonal love for all mankind, the adult believer has acquired impersonal love for all mankind not only from metabolized doctrine, but through the momentum of the application of Bible Doctrine from providential preventative suffering, momentum testing, and evidence testing in the advance to spiritual maturity.
God as the subject of love is perfect virtue. God's love therefore becomes the pattern for the virtue of impersonal love. Love is no stronger than the subject. Because God is perfect, He has perfect impersonal love toward all mankind.
When God is the subject and the believer is the object, God has perfect personal love because the believer possesses God's perfect righteousness by imputation.
This means we now have a stronger position with God than has ever existed before because it is based on his virtue not ours.
The imputation of divine righteousness provides instant justification along with all of the other assets that provide equal privilege and equal opportunity for the fulfillment and execution of the PPOG in time.
At salvation God's love changes from impersonal to personal and God's justice begins to impute our logistical support to the divine righteousness he has imputed to us on a daily basis.
Every day we need support to stay alive in the devil's world. It makes no difference what the historical circumstances, you cannot suffer adversity or be removed from this earth unless the sovereignty of God permits it.
Even when you sin, God still loves you personally because you still have the divine righteousness of God that was imputed at salvation.
The impersonal love is manufactured inside God's system becomes the basis for equal opportunity under the plan of God. God has provided a way for believers as human subjects to function under impersonal love and to advance in and execute His plan. We are sustained and kept alive for the purpose of fulfilling the PPOG.
Human interaction demands problem solving devices because the instability of personal love is the source of many problems. Many of these problems including the problems of conflict and antagonisms, or arrogance and jealousy, of guilt, of self-pity and hypersensitivity, of disorientation, marital problems, interaction problems, problems with people, and problems with yourself are self-induced.
More people are motivated and manipulated by guilt than almost anything else.
Personal love therefore often complicates life by combining the problems of two people and intensifies their stress in life.
Lack of reciprocation in personal love intensifies frustration, causes disillusion, and results in reaction with the arrogance and emotional complexes of sins.
The pressures of human antagonism, hostility, and animosity demand a problem solving device. The problems of personal love, romance, and friendship demand a problem solving device. In both cases, the function of impersonal love is the problem solving device.
The believer with no problem solving devices often becomes a casualty in life becomes divorced from reality, and all too often becomes psychotic or neurotic.
The "insults and persecutions" of providential preventative suffering that Paul describes in 2Cor 12:10; demand impersonal love. The momentum tests of people, system, and thought testing require impersonal love for the test to be passed.
In his evidence testing, Job who was in spiritual maturity was being entered as evidence for the prosecution in the angelic conflict, and only succumbed and failed when he listened to his three friends who gave him wrong doctrinal application. This means that even in the evidence testing of spiritual maturity, impersonal love is the appropriate problem solving device.