Grace and Truth
Bible Ministries

The Doctrine of Love continued....Focus on Impersonal Virtue Love

We are continuing in our study of the doctrine of love. We stopped last time with the idea that only impersonal love has virtue and problem solving characteristics. It is the professional love of the Christian that results from their life in God's power system that is created when the believer is filled with the Holy Spirit and is learning, metabolizing, and applying doctrine.

We also saw that it is impossible for new believers to fulfill this mandate because they have not yet acquired the capacity from doctrine to do it. This is why it is stated as a potential with the use of the 3rd class condition of "if" in John 13:35;

This love is called impersonal because it means the subject has the ability to accept all people as they are. It is a professional love that is empowered by the filling of the Holy Spirit.

The greater the virtue of the subject, the greater the scope or range of the objects of impersonal love.

This is the same love that God uses to love the world even though it was opposed to him and his enemy. John 3:16; Rom 5:8; 1John 2:2;

Believers are commanded to have this love for all the brethren, their neighbors and everyone else.

Believers cannot have impersonal love until they first love God because personal love for God is the only personal love with virtue. This therefore becomes the believer's motivational virtue and the source of their capacity to love everyone.

There is no natural motive in our sinful nature to love everyone in fact, the smarter we are, the more selective we are and the fewer people we will personally love.

Once the believer has personal love for God they can reach spiritual self-esteem.

Without love for God, any positive attitude toward self is only self- righteous or self-confident arrogance. Until spiritual self-esteem acquires the strength of spiritual autonomy from providential preventative suffering, spiritual self-esteem remains vulnerable to arrogance.

Before the believer can reach the point of spiritual autonomy, they must metabolize the doctrine of positional sanctification, and make the application that their background, race, color of skin, I.Q., culture, or personality are not issues before God.

The application is that since Christ died for everyone and we are to grow in grace we must shed our prejudices. How others regard us is not an issue; We are to regard ourselves as a unique individual in God's plan with equal privilege and opportunity.

With this viewpoint of themselves and others, believers can advance to spiritual self-esteem.

Impersonal love is the professional love of the royal family of God. Impersonal love is a functional virtue of spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy and spiritual maturity and each category of suffering for blessing will test and strengthen impersonal love.

The test of spiritual autonomy is that we can handle being the victim of others' mental attitude sins with impersonal love.

The love that is commanded in the Bible is based entirely upon spiritual integrity, upon the royal family honor code, and upon the execution of the protocol plan of God.

This integrity is only developed through consistent perception and metabolization of Bible doctrine.

The object of impersonal love can be anyone including someone who is antagonistic, someone who is an enemy, someone that despises you, or someone who is trying to destroy you.

One of the most important yet rarely understood concepts of Christianity is that it is impossible to love everyone personally.

Impersonal love is that problem solving device of the Christian life that is defined as unconditional love toward all mankind.

Since it is impersonal, it is a category of love that emphasizes the virtue of the subject rather than attraction or rapport with an object.

Impersonal love toward all mankind is the ultimate expression of virtue. It is also the ultimate expression of humility. Without enforced and genuine humility, people are disoriented to life. Lack of humility creates many of the tragic flaws in life.

Impersonal love for all mankind is therefore the ultimate expression of virtue, humility, and objectivity, and is the basis for being receptive to Bible doctrine, that only is the means of growing in grace through post-salvation renovation of the thinking resulting in spiritual advance.

God mandates impersonal love is as a part of His plan, His will, and His purpose for believers. The Bible never commands personal love for people, it is therefore optional.

Impersonal love as a problem solving device is mandated in all dispensations under the one phrase, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself," Lev 19:18; Matt 19:19; Matt 22:39; Mark 12:31; Rom 13:9; Gal 5:14;

Impersonal love is absolutely necessary if believers are to have a life full of purpose, meaning, and definition.

In John 15:17; TLJC stated, "I command you these things, that you might love each other." Jesus said this to the disciples, after they had been together for almost three years.

In that time, they had developed personality conflicts, taken sides, and were critical of each other. This command from our Lord is brought into the Christian life.

Believers cannot have impersonal love for people until they are properly motivated, and they cannot be properly motivated until they love Jesus Christ.

People who love Jesus Christ concentrate on the teaching of the Word of God that is the mind of Christ. 1Cor 2:16;

Impersonal love is unconditional, emphasizing the virtue of the subject rather than the attractiveness or unattractiveness of the object.

Impersonal love is a problem-solving device in human relationships. Impersonal love is the basis for having the capacity for personal love for a few people.

Impersonal love emphasizes the virtue, honor, and integrity of the subject. Impersonal love is a virtue that cannot be duplicated in any category of personal love among human beings.

"Impersonal" is an adjective that means without personal reference or connection, not primarily affecting or involving the emotions of a person; a professional attitude. It can also be described as objectivity.

The concept of impersonal is very important because without impersonal love there is no capacity for good human relationships because apart from virtue and objectivity, there is no means of perpetuating human relationships.

Even though there is limited virtue in morality it will not always hold together human relationships and may even become a cause for their breakdown when there is failure because morality cannot solve the problems of human relationships only the grace orientation, impersonal love and occupation with TLJC of the spiritual life can.

 

© Copyright 2007, Michael Lemmon Bible Ministries. World Rights Reserved.  This document was created on 7/7/2010