The Role-Model for Impersonal Love; Gal.
5:14; Lev. 18:19
What
are the characteristics of impersonal love? (cont.)
- Intensity. God’s love is intense. This is defined
as a zealous determination to achieve the goal of salvation despite all
obstacles. God is omnipotent and is able to accomplish whatever is
necessary to fulfil His perfect plan for the human race.
- Steadfast loyalty. God is loyal to His promises
to man and strongly desires all men to come to a
saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Though not all will be saved He has made
a perfect provision to save one and all—doctrine of unlimited atonement.
Therefore God does not reject and condemn man at the moment of sin or at
the moment of birth when he inherits Adam’s original sin and a sin nature,
but God is patient and gives man a life long enough to make a decision for
or against Him.
- Consecration. This means to be set apart. Jesus
Christ is solemnly set apart for the high purpose of being the exclusive
means of salvation for the church. As such He is loyal to God the Father,
motivated by personal love for God the Father, and therefore set apart to
bring every believer to maturity.
- Dedication. Jesus Christ is dedicated to the task
of service, sacrifice, salvation and sanctification.
Remember, man’s point of
contact with God is not the love of God; it is the justice of God. God’s
righteousness had to be satisfied before love could be a factor. Because of man’s
loss of righteousness God had to deal with man on the basis of impersonal love,
not personal love. That means the issue is who and what he is, not who and what
man is. All of these characteristics that we have seen exemplify this
impersonal love of God so that he could bring man into a relationship, solve
the sin problem, and once again have personal love for man. God’s personal love
for the believer is never based on who we are or what we do.
Remember, God established
five divine institutions. Divine institutions were principles set up by God in
the created order that apply to believer and unbeliever alike. They were given
for the preservation, protection and perpetuation of the human race. The first
is human responsibility—we are responsible for the decisions that we make. We
are held accountable for those decisions. The second is marriage, and this is
for believer and unbeliever alike. Third, is the family.
The fourth is civil government, established in the covenant with Noah at the
end of the flood. But there were not distinct nations at that time; that does
not come about until after the tower of Babel at which time God establishes the principle of
nations or national identity as opposed to internationalism.
Marriage is for believer and
unbeliever alike and there are many unbelievers who can have happy and
successful marriages. But in the New Testament marriages is taken to a higher
level for the believer and we have some new principles given in Ephesians 5.
God establishes Christian marriage which has a unique role to play as a witness
in the angelic conflict because it was through marriage, the marriage of Adam
and the woman in the garden of Eden, that caused the
fall of the human race into sin. Marriage failed in the garden and it is
through Christian marriage on the basis of principles outlined in God’s Word
through the spiritual life of the church age that a Christian husband and a
Christian wife can have aspecific witness together in the angelic conflict that
goes beyond the individual witness of either one. So it is a whole new dynamic
and a new level of mandate. There is a recognition
that there is an authority or leadership structure within the marriage. In
human responsibility the authority is volition, in the family it is the
parents, in civil government the authority is the executive or legislative
branch. There is always an authority structure. The same thing is true in marriage.
Ephesians 5:22 NASB “Wives, {be subject} to your own
husbands, as to the Lord.” The model is not whether the man is a
winner or a loser, not whether he is worthy or not; it is his office. One of
the hardest things to learn in life is respect for the office when the person
in the office is not worthy of respect. The issue is obedience to the Lord, not
obedience necessarily to the husband. [23]
“For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the
church, He Himself {being} the Savior of the body.”
The husband is directly under Christ as his authority and Christ is the one to
whom he is accountable. [24] “But as the church is subject to Christ, so also
the wives {ought to be} to their husbands in everything. [25] Husbands,
love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for
her.” The kind of love that is mandated of husbands is exemplified in the
characteristics of divine impersonal love (listed above). It is first and
foremost impersonal love because if personal love is not built on impersonal
love then sooner or later personal love will crumble in the adversities of
life. “…and gave Himself up for her” emphasises the element of sacrifice,
sacrificing your agenda and what you want for what is best for her. [28] “So
husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves
his own wife loves himself; [29] for no one ever hated his own
flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also {does} the church,
[30] because we are members of His body.” For the men, this is their pattern;
an example of how they are to love their wives.
Summation: Ephesians 5:33 NASB “Nevertheless, each individual among
you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must {see to it}
that she respects her husband.” We have two categories here. Man is the
initiator; the wife is the responder. What happens when he initiates in a wrong
way the wife has to watch out that she doesn’t become a reactor to his wrong
behaviour on the basis of the sin nature. That is going to destroy her
spiritual life. When he is operating wrongly the wife’s response needs to be
focused on God and the Lord Jesus Christ. That is why she is to be subject to
her husband as to the Lord. What characterises the initiator is that he is
aggressive in his love, he is loyal, he is dedicated, and he is a servant. The
responder has respect, honour, consideration and deference. But remember,
whether you are initiating as the husband or responding as the wife this has to
be built on an understanding of grace and grace orientation. Part of grace
orientation is humility. Humility involves teachability, learning, listening, talking to one another. As humility is developed you begin
to develop a relaxed mental attitude. This means that whatever happens when there
are slights and offences, real or perceived rejection and you don’t react to
that, you can maintain a relaxed focus. Ultimately the focus for both the
husband and the wife is on God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Galatians 5:14 NASB “For the whole Law is fulfilled in
one word, in the {statement,} ‘YOU SHALL
LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF’.” Then
Paul gives a contrast. [15] “But if you bite and devour one another, take care
that you are not consumed by one another.” Biting and devouring one another is
mental attitude sins given over to sins of the tongue. When we give ourselves
over to mental attitude sins it destroys your spiritual life and will destroy
those around you.