Personal Love for God the basis for
Impersonal Love; James 1:12; 1 John 4
In James
Deuteronomy 6:5 NASB
“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your might.” The Hebrew for “might” is meod, which has to do with
exceedingly, abundantly. When it is used like this as a noun it means with all
your strength, power, vitality; in other words, you are to be consumed with
loving the Lord your God. This is the mandate for us.
Deuteronomy
11:1 NASB “You shall therefore love the LORD your God,
and always keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His
commandments.” Notice how loving
the Lord is often related to obedience to divine mandates in other areas of the
spiritual life.
Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy 13:3 NASB
“you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams;
for the LORD your God is testing you to find out if you love the
LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” So the love of the
Lord is an issue in discerning truth.
Deuteronomy 19:9 NASB
“if you carefully observe all this commandment which I command you today, to
love the LORD your God, and to walk in His ways always—then you shall
add three more cities for yourself, besides these three.”
Deuteronomy 30:6 NASB
“Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart [spiritual
rebirth] and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God
with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.”
Deuteronomy 30:16 NASB
“n that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His
commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and
multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you are
entering to possess it.”
Joshua 22:5 NASB
“Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law which Moses the
servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God
and walk in all His ways and keep His commandments and hold fast to Him and
serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
Joshua
Psalm 31:23 NASB
“O love the LORD, all you His godly ones! The LORD preserves
the faithful And fully recompenses the proud doer [the
arrogant].”
Psalm 97:10 NASB
“Hate evil, you who love the LORD, Who preserves the souls of His godly ones; He
delivers them from the hand of the wicked.”
Psalm 116:1 NASB
“I love the LORD, because He hears My voice
{and} my supplications.”
Matthew
1 Corinthians
What does it mean to love the Lord, to
have personal love for God?
1)
First of all, we
have to realize that we cannot love who we do not know. Knowledge is the
foundation to love. It is silly, and it is typical of people today to think
that they love somebody that they do not know. There is so much talk today
about love that is sentimental and superficial, and if you take that concept of
love over into the Scriptures then you are going to totally misunderstand the
character of God. To think that God is motivated by some sort of superficial,
sentimental, emotional tripe borders on heresy. The love of God and the love
that God has for us is far beyond the superficial
sentimentalism that passes for love today. The Scriptures clearly represent
that love is based on knowledge. Philippians 1:9 NASB “And this I
pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all
discernment.” So your growth in love is based on your development in EPIGNOSIS [e)pignwsij]
knowledge of Scripture and discernment, i.e. its application.
2)
You cannot love who you do not know, so you
must make the knowledge of God a high priority. That means that you realize
that your knowledge of the Word, your knowledge of doctrine, your understanding
of everything in Scripture, even things that you don’t think are immediately
applicable, must be the highest priority in your life.
3)
Personal love of
God is directly related to the obedience of divine mandates. That means that
you have to know what God expects and what those mandate sin Scripture are. 2
John 6 NASB “And this is love, that we walk according to His
commandments.” That is, that we live our spiritual life according to His
commandments. When we violate those mandates then we are under the influence of
the sin nature, we are out of fellowship and in a state of carnality ready for
divine discipline. As part of obeying His mandates we are also to hate evil,
which means to reject, shun, or avoid all sin in our lives. Hating evil doesn’t
mean that you have to somehow work up an emotion of hatred toward sin. Hating
evil is an idiom for rejecting, shunning, and avoiding sin in your life. Psalm
97:10 NASB “Hate evil, you who love the LORD…” 1 John
2:15 NASB “Do not love the world nor the things in
the world. If anyone loves the world, the love for the Father is not in
him.” When we are loving the world we are operating in
the cosmic system, and that means we are out of fellowship and in carnality,
and the love for the Father is not in us.
In impersonal love the
emphasis is on the subject, the person who is doing the loving. Therefore it
does not require personal compatibility or even personal knowledge or
acquaintance with the object. It is therefore defined as the consistent
function of individual integrity, the integrity of the one loving. Impersonal
love is only as strong as the integrity or virtue of the person doing the
loving. Personal love for God the Father is the only personal love that we can
have that is inherently virtuous because the object, God the Father, is
virtuous. We have seen that personal love for God the Father is mandated for
every believer.
1 John
Four
points of introduction:
1)
Love for God
precedes love for man. You need to learn to love God before you get concerned
about your love for other people. One of the biggest problems in Christianity
today is the emphasis on human relationships over the divine relationship.
People think that if they have a right relationship with people then somehow
Christian fellowship will help them solve their problems. So-called Christian
fellowship is poorly understood and is equated with just Christian social
interaction. For fellowship to be Christian it has to be centred around doctrinal discussion and the focus of that
interaction id the person and work of Jesus Christ. That is why in Acts chapter
two, verse forty-seven, it says that the early church devoted themselves to the
apostles teaching and fellowship—the breaking of bread and prayer. The average
person looks at that in the English and says there are four things here that
they have devoted themselves to: the apostles teaching, fellowship, breaking of
bread, and prayer. But that is incorrect. There are only two things listed
there and one of them has two things listed that explain it. The only two
things they devoted themselves to were the apostles teaching and fellowship.
But what is fellowship? Luke knew that people were going to misunderstand what
fellowship was. Fellowship is communion and prayer—God-centred. It is not
talking about human fellowship with other believers in that passage, he is
talking about fellowship with God. That is the issue; that is what they devoted
themselves to. The apostles teaching because without doctrine, without
knowledge you can’t have rapport fellowship with God. And that is exemplified
by two things: the breaking of bread which is communion, and prayer.
2)
Only Bible
doctrine can build your personal love for God, it is not based on
experience.
3)
The application
of doctrine builds your personal integrity which is the basis of all your
expression of love, your advance in the Christian way of life leading to the
adult problem-solving devices, including personal love for God.
4)
Integrity is the
basis for developing impersonal love for all mankind.
1 John 4:7 “Beloved, let us love one another…”
This is a verb in the subjunctive mood which is a subjunctive of exhortation.
Why are we to love one another? Because “love is from God.”
What kind of love is this? It can’t be a personal love because we can’t love
every believer with a personal love because we can’t know every believer and we
can only know a very few believers. We may be acquainted with many believers at
a superficial level in a local body, and we can treat them a certain way, but
that must flow from something other than our knowledge and acquaintance with
them. So this must be referring to an impersonal love.
By saying it is impersonal it
doesn’t mean that it doesn’t lack certain qualities, that it somehow negates
kindness and generosity and is just some sort of a stand-off kind of word. That
is why it is often referred to as unconditional. The reason we use the word “impersonal”
is to distinguish it from personal. Personal means that we have a personal
knowledge and a personal relationship with the object of our love. It doesn’t
mean that love is cold, that it lacks and interest or
generosity or kindness; it has all of that, but it is not based on a personal knowledge
or acquaintance with the object. So there is no condition that has to be met by
the person we are loving in order for us to be kind, generous, caring and compassionate
with them.
“…for love is from God;
and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” “Everyone who loves”
means that if you are exercising impersonal love then you are a person who
loves; “is born of God” because it is impossible for the unbeliever to have
impersonal love for all mankind, this is specifically the mark of the believer.
Jesus said in John 13:34, 35 NASB
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have
loved you, that you also love one another.
1 John 4:8 NASB
“The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” The believer
who does not practice impersonal love does not know God. It doesn’t say they
are not regenerate, it just says they don’t know God; they haven’t advanced to
this level of spiritual maturity yet. They are a spiritual infant,
they have very little doctrine resident in the soul. They are either a carnal
believer operating on the sin nature a maximum amount of time, or they are
ignorant of Bible doctrine.
1 John 4:9 NASB
“By this the love of God was manifested [revealed] in us, that God has sent His
only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” The word “manifested”
is the aorist passive indicative PHANEROO [fanerow],
meaning to reveal, to make clear, to manifest. We have the phrase HE AGAPE TOU THEOU
[h( a)gaph tou qeou], a genitival phrase, “the love of God.” What kind of
genitive is this? Is this love from the source of God, genitive of source, subjective,
or is this an objective genitive, a love toward God? It is clear from the
passage that what we are talking about is the expression of divine love for
mankind. It was revealed to us, i.e. it is coming from God, so it is love from
the source of God, it is the subjective genitive or
genitive of source. So, by this God’s impersonal love toward us was made clear,
revealed, manifested to us, “that God has sent His only begotten Son into the
world so that we might live through Him.” What does that remind us of? John
3:16. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have
eternal life.” We understand divine impersonal love by looking at the cross.
1 John
1 John
1 John 4:12 NASB
“No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and
His love is perfected [matured] in us.” Here we have the perfect passive
participle of TELEIOO [teleiow],
the word that is almost consistently translated “perfect” and never means
perfect in the sense of lacking imperfections or lacking sin, but in every case
in the New Testament it has the idea of completion, bringing something to
completion, bringing something to its intended goal or purpose which has the
idea of maturity. The only way we can learn to love God is through the written
Word of God and understanding it. “God abides in us.” This word “abide” is the
Greek word MENO [menw],
a word that is very important in Johannine theology. This
is a technical word for fellowship with God. How do we have fellowship with
God? 1 John 1:9 NASB “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and
righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” When
we commit sins then we are immediately out of fellowship and the psalmist said,
“If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.” Why? We are out
of fellowship. Personal love for God is necessary to advance to impersonal
love, and as we are growing through maximum amount of time in fellowship then
His impersonal love is matured or brought to completion in us.
1 John
1 John
1 John
1 John
Then the conclusion; he
ties it all up.
1 John
How do we implement
impersonal love for all mankind? Remember the model for us to express
impersonal love for all mankind is that we must understand divine impersonal
love for all mankind. What are the characteristics of divine impersonal love?
1) It is initiating. From eternity past God took the
initiative in grace to solve the greatest problem any human being will ever
face. God’s love takes charge of the situation to provide the solution
necessary to restore the relationship broken by Adam’s original sin.
2) It is aggressive. It asserts itself with confidence
and boldness. Because of omniscience God knows all the knowable, He knows the
entire problem and
with understanding He takes every step necessary to resolve the problem.
3) It is humble. Humility seeks not its own personal
glory, so God the Son does not seek His own personal glory but takes on the
attitude of a servant (Philippians 2:5-10) to do whatever is necessary to solve
the problem, including incarnation, sacrifice, and the undeserved imputation of
human sin to recover fallen humanity and to redeem them from the slave market
of sin.
4) It is intense. It is a strong and overwhelming desire
to achieve the goal of salvation despite all obstacles.
5) It is steadfastly loyal. God is loyal to the task and
strongly desires all men to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Therefore
He does not reject or condemn man at the moment he commits personal sin, He is
always faithful and loyal in His desire to bring all men to salvation.
6) It is consecrated. This means to be set apart to a
task. It is related to sanctification. Jesus Christ solemnly set Himself apart
to the high purpose of being the exclusive means of salvation for the church.
As such His love is loyal and set apart to every believer to bring them to
maturity after salvation.
7) It is dedicated. Jesus Christ committed Himself to the
task of service, sacrifice, salvation and sanctification.
8) It is devoted—to give one’s time, attention and self
entirely to an activity, cause or person. In this case the activity is the
incarnation and crucifixion, the cause is the salvation of the world, and the
person is every individual in the world.