We have seen that the basis for virtue love is God's love. This makes our love a response to his love. This is called reciprocal love.
Reciprocal love expresses the mutual love relationship between God and the Church Age believer the ministry of God the Holy Spirit whereby the believer responds to the perfect love of God.
Last time we concluded with 1John 5:2-3; where we saw that reciprocity is the aggressive function of the soul in vigorous pursuit of cognition, metabolization, and application of Bible doctrine. This prioritization of Bible doctrine is enduring devotion.
Enduring devotion is intense love for and profound dedication to consecration and occupation with God; hence, dedication to God based on the metabolized Bible doctrine that is circulating in the stream of consciousness.
Consecration is the dedication to the harmonious rapport with God as a mature believer, resulting in the advance to fullness of blessing from God through reciprocity.
Respect for God is the response to the grace of God as the ultimate expression of God's love from divine integrity.
Respect demands the fulfillment of Prov 3:34; NET note 109 that is quoted in James 4:6; and 1 Pet 5:5; "...but He gives grace to the humble believer."
The policy of the integrity of God is grace. As we have seen, the integrity of God is the stabilizer of the love of God.
Respect for God includes admiration, deference, esteem, consideration, and partiality. Respect is the believer's response to the love of God that is expressed in the grace of God as the ultimate expression of God's love from divine integrity.
The only true worship of God is under the principle of respect and honor.
We must never think of love as separate from integrity.
We learn to love the Lord through metabolized Bible doctrine. We learn to respect the Lord through the discipline of his grace. There is no love for God unless we have virtue and integrity in our stream of consciousness.
For God to promote us in the spiritual life we must be compatible with the integrity of God. This compatibility only comes from metabolized Bible doctrine. Heb 10:38;
It is important to understand the phrase "he agape tou theou" that is translated "love for God" that we saw in 2Thes 3:5; Net note 5
"he agape" is the definite article, the Greek noun of action, "tou theou" translated "love." is the genitive from the definite article and noun "Theos", is translated, "God."
As we have seen in the Net note, the genitive can be a subjective or objective genitive.
The subjective genitive is translated "the love of God."
The objective genitive is translated "the love for God."
If God is producing the action, then we have a subjective genitive. If God is receiving the action of being loved, the have an objective genitive.
When the word in the genitive receives the action of the noun of action, then the genitive is an objective genitive and should be translated "the love for God." When the word in the genitive produces the action of the noun of action, then the genitive is a subjective genitive and translated "the love of God
The "love of God" is God's love toward us, which is God's integrity. The "love for God" is our love toward God in reciprocation.
The major passage of Scripture related to this doctrine is 1John 4:12-19; that concludes by saying, "we love because He first loved us"
Other Related Passages include 1John 2:5; "but whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love for God has been completed." In this verse, "Theos", translated "God" is in the genitive and receives the action of the noun of action "love." Therefore, the correct translation is "the love for God."
This "Love for God" is the reciprocal love that believers direct toward Jesus Christ, and is dogmatically declared by the objective genitive with the noun of action. The definite article is a monadic definite article, that means that this love is unique.
It is unique because this love for God is only completed through the execution of the spiritual life through the power of the Holy Spirit and with momentum from the application of metabolized Bible doctrine.
In Rom 5:5; "and hope (Christ in you the absolute confidence of glory ) does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the personal agency of the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us for our benefit."
"Absolute confidence (or hope) does not disappoint us" means that we have taken in enough doctrine so that we understand that God knew all about us in eternity past and loved us so much that Jesus Christ was judged for every one of us.
This hope does not disappoint us because it is responsive to the love of God from eternity past. We are never disappointed by God; Col 1:27; "to whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is, Christ indwelling you, the confidence of glory."
In this case (Rom 5:5:) the love of God is the subjective genitive and produces the action implied by the noun of action ("love") .The subjective genitive noun of action indicates that God loved all mankind in eternity past with emphasis on the believer.
The objective genitive noun of action is not stated in this verse, but is stated in terms of reciprocity through the personal agency of the Holy Spirit. The love that comes from God that produces our love for God has been poured out in our hearts.
God's love for us in eternity past is the source of our reciprocated love for Him in time.
This reciprocation can only come through the ministry of God the Holy Spirit as our mentor and teacher. The enabling power of the Holy Spirit and Bible doctrine is the basis for reciprocal love.
We have the opportunity for reciprocation in love for God as no one else in history except for TLJC because we have the same spiritual life that he used.
The Greek phrase "he agape tou theou" in Rom 5:5; Net note 5 is also a plenary genitive, combining both the subjective and objective genitive in one sentence.
Because the genitive with the noun of action has the exact same words for two difference phrases, both categories (subjective and objective) cannot occur in the same Greek sentence.
This means that when the plenary genitive occurs, the phrase "he agape tou theou" can only occur once, whether it is subjective or objective. The one not explicitly used must be implied by the construction of the sentence. In this case, the subjective genitive is stated because it was the love of God that was poured out in our hearts first.
The Spirit as the agency of this love is found in Gal 5:22; "The fruit or profit of the Spirit is virtue-love." The word translated fruit is the Greek word "karpos that means "gain, profit, advantage or production" as well as "fruit."
The profit, gain, advantage or production of the filling of the Spirit is virtue-love.
Other passages regarding this include:
1Pet 1:8; "And though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And though you are not seeing Him now but believing (faith-perception), you greatly rejoiced with inexpressible happiness, thinking your way to glory."
The perfect passive participle of the Greek verb "doxzazo" that is translated "full of glory" is an idiom, that means that by loving God now in time we glorify God in the eternal state.
Eph 3:17; "so that Christ may be at home in your hearts through doctrine, when you have been rooted and established in virtue-love."
2Cor 5:14, "The love for Christ sustains us."
Eph 3:19-21; "and to get to know the love for Christ which surpasses knowledge, in order that you may be filled resulting in all the fullness of blessing from the source of God. Now to Him (God the Father) who is able to do infinitely more than all we could ask or think on the basis of the power that keeps working in us, to Him the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus with reference to all generations of this unique dispensation of the ages."
1Cor 2:9; "But just as it stands written, 'Things which the eye has not seen and the ear has not heard nor has it entered into the heart of mankind all that God has prepared for those who love Him.'"
1Thes 5:8; "But since we are of the day (we can see what's going on), let us attain spiritual self-esteem, after we have put on the breastplate of faith (the four stages of the faith-rest drill) and virtue-love."