Eph 724 1/17/88

DOCTRINE OF VIRTUE-LOVE

A. God’s Love as the Source, Pattern, and Basis of Human Love.

1. God is eternal, infinite, and perfect. Therefore His love is eternal, infinite, and perfect.

2. Since God is love, always has been love, and always will be love, God does not fall in love, nor can God’s love be compromised or corrupted in any way.

3. This incorruptibility of God’s love is the basis for the stability factor in human love. It cannot be corrupted if it is true love. It won’t necessarily be eternal, but it can be if the relationship is based on the mental attitude, virtue, and concepts in this doctrine.

4. Because God is immutable, His love does not increase and His love does not diminish. Therefore, God’s love cannot be changed by any form of human failure or vacillation.

a. None of us are perfect. Most of us fall in love based on compatibility, but in the back of our mind we are assigning perfection to someone we love, and when that perfection inevitably sours, we’re at a loss.

b. How can we love this person who is so imperfect? Of course, that’s our arrogance, because who are we? We are imperfect also.

c. So love becomes the basis for a tremendous number of problems in life. Actually, these problems should not be assigned to the word “love” for the simple reason that it isn’t love; it’s arrogance or lust or lasciviousness or a defense mechanism, getting even with someone who is turning you down.

d. Love is the general cover for all these things, but none of these are really love. Love becomes a cover for all kinds of failures, flaws, and weaknesses.

e. The transitive verb “love” is one of the most abused words in our language. We don’t really have any synonyms for it, no indications of degree, so “love” just covers everything.

5. Love can never be directed toward people and be successful apart from truth. Truth is in establishment, the Gospel, and Bible doctrine. The type of love we are to have as believers in Jesus Christ is not based on any human standards. You cannot be in a state of ignorance of Bible doctrine and love God the Father or the Lord Jesus Christ. Very few believers have fellowship with God the Father or the Lord Jesus Christ because they do not love God.

6. God has infinite energy and power with which to love. God’s love exists eternally, unsustained by Himself or by any other source. Even human love takes tremendous energy.

a. People do not realize that mentality and energy are major factors in love. A lot of people really aren’t capable of love because they’re always worn out.

b. They do not have the energy to think, and to think “love” takes even more energy, because you have to understand what you’re thinking.

7. God is sovereign, which means that all His decisions to love are just as perfect as He is. We have been given our own free will as a part of the function of human history, and therefore we have volition and we have to make decisions with regard to love. All our decisions with regard to love merely reflect our flaws and failures or our success and spiritual greatness. Therefore, love becomes a manifestation of what we really are as believers living in this world.

8. Divine love is self-motivated and totally compatible with God’s perfect essence. Therefore, human love must be self-motivated and must be compatible with what we are. The tragedy is that we are so many different things that it becomes difficult to define love.

9. God’s infinite and eternal love does not conform to human standards because it is so far beyond it. God’s love exists with or without an object. So it should be with us. Before we start looking for friendship and romance, we ought to cinch up our spiritual lives so that virtue exists. Then when we find someone with whom we’re compatible, it can become a lifetime friendship, a great romance, and a permanent, wonderful marriage.

10. It often appears that God changes, but it’s only man who changes. A true human lover doesn’t change in his love. He may change in his attitudes toward the person he loves, but his love doesn’t change. People can’t understand that. That’s why a husband may speak harshly to his wife on one occasion and sweetly on another. That doesn’t reflect his love but merely reflects the change in the responder, the woman; and visa versa is true.

11. So God doesn’t change toward man. In reality, God remains consistent with His own integrity. If there is to be true love in your life and if you’re ever to be a real lover, you have to have integrity. The quickest way to get integrity is through Bible doctrine.

12. While human love cannot exist without truth and doctrine, God is truth and the source of doctrine, which is the mind of Christ. Therefore, divine love has a perfect, unchanging capacity at all times. Capacity is one of the secrets to human love. People want to be loved and fall in love without any capacity at all.

13. Divine knowledge and omniscience knows our sins and failures. This doesn’t cancel God’s love for us. But as soon as we’re disillusioned in any way by someone we love, then we want to cancel our love for them.

14. God’s love is not sustained by attraction, rapport, human works, or any category of human merit or worthiness. We learn this in the problem solving device of grace orientation. That means that neither human good, morality, nor self-righteousness are the basis for God’s love for us. Yet a lot of believers think God loves them because they’re better than others. In reality, they are arrogant. God still loves them in their arrogance, but He cannot ignore their arrogance and so sends divine discipline.

15. Because God is holy, His love is devoid of any form of unfairness.

a. Unfairness is what hurts human love. If you love someone, it is inevitable that you will be unfair toward them. Count on it! Human love is characterized by being unfair.

b. If you are hurt, arrogant, hypersensitive, it is inevitable that you will be unfair. Having an old sin nature means being unfair.

c. So if it is true love among human beings, it is inevitable that there will be unfairness.

16. God’s motives are compatible with His perfection. Therefore, God’s love is free from hypocrisy, flattery, and patronizing. Yet love and hypocrisy are synonyms in our day simply because of our failure to understand love and to relate it to our old sin nature instead of to the fantastic body of doctrine which is available to us from the Word of God.

17. So understanding what God is becomes very important for us to understand what love is in the human race.

18. 1 Jn 4:10, “By this, love exists, not because we have loved God, but because He loved us [impersonal love for all mankind], and He sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins.”

B. Personal Love as a Virtue.

1. You must understand that love for God is not only a problem solving device, but it is a basis for recognizing the better things in your life because of doctrine.

2. For example, personal love is only a virtue when it is directed toward God. Personal love for God is the motivational virtue for the protocol plan of God.

a. You wouldn’t consistently attend Bible class unless you had learned enough doctrine to have some appreciation for who and what God is.

b. Because you have that appreciation, you are motivated to assemble with other believers to learn the mystery doctrine of the Church Age. Personal love as a virtue always emphasizes the object, which is God.

3. Personal love in the human race has no virtue. The only virtue among humans is what comes from the laws of divine establishment, or the virtue which is developed from the protocol plan of God and the doctrine related to it. Yet we take such great stock in people saying, “I love you!”

4. Virtue in personal love must exist in the object. God the Father as the author of the protocol plan becomes the object of our love, and God the Son as our Lord and Savior is also the object of our love, which we call “occupation with Christ;” these are problem solving devices. 5. Personal love for God the Father and occupation with Jesus Christ is confined to perception and metabolization of doctrine, and thereafter thinking doctrine; not emotion, human affection, or visual attraction, but a combination of perception of doctrine and spiritual growth. This is what is important in loving God. Some of you truly love God because you have enough doctrine in your soul to love Him.

6. It is impossible to love someone who is invisible apart from knowing Him. In order to love God you have to be able to capture His thinking. When you do, then you love God more than life itself. His thinking is Bible doctrine.

7. But people are visible. It’s difficult with people to capture their thinking, for when they say “I love you” it may be wrapped up in hypocrisy and false motivation and wrong capacity. Therefore, you are easily deceived by the visible. But once you learn Bible doctrine, you cannot be deceived by God’s plan, purpose, and policy for your life!

8. Learn doctrine before you get married or establish permanent relationship, for you who still have a chance! Because without doctrine, the flaws take over and destroy friendship, romance, and marriage. With doctrine, you have problem solving devices that lead to great capacity for love, life, and happiness.

C. Personal Love for God and Occupation with Christ.

1. Occupation with Christ is found in 2 Cor 5:14, “For the love for Christ motivates us.”

2. Personal love for God, 1 Cor 2:9, “Just as it stands written, `Things which the eye has not seen, and it has not entered into the right lobe of mankind all that God has prepared for those who love Him.’” Life can become the most fantastic thing! God has prepared for you things that are exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think. But doctrine must come first and have priority over everything else in your life. If anything else comes first, you will never make it in love.

3. Rom 5:5, “Hope [confidence] does not disappoint us, because the love for God has been poured out in our right lobes by means of the Holy Spirit.” This is personal love for God the Father

. 4. Eph 6:24 teaches occupation with Christ. “Grace to all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an incorruptible love.” Think of it: you can have an incorruptible love for Jesus Christ, and that overflows into an incorruptible love for people!

5. 1 Pet 1:8 speaks of love for God the Father. “Though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and even though you do not see Him now but believe, you rejoice with an inexpressible and glorious happiness.” So your love for God is related to your happiness. Love and happiness are designed to go together. Failure to have love for Jesus Christ means you will be unhappy as a Christian as long as you live!

6. 1 Cor 16:22, “If anyone does not love the Lord [Jesus Christ], let him be anathema maranatha [cursed until the rapture].” You’re under a curse as a believer until love and happiness are related. Love for God must come first. With that love and happiness, you will have a fantastic life in relationship to people and values and principles.

7. In other words, personal love as a virtue is always directed toward God: God the Father and God the Son.

8. Personal love as a virtue is a problem solving device for those who attain spiritual adulthood.

9. Personal love as a virtue in the protocol plan provides the only true and genuine motivation for believers in the Church Age.

10. Personal love for God insulates the believer against arrogance and all its mental attitude sins.

11. There are only two sources for personal love which has virtue.

a. Limited virtue comes from adherence to the laws of divine establishment which provide enforced and genuine humility and subsequent capacity for love.

b. Spiritual virtue is cognitive self-confidence, the believer learning enough doctrine to reach spiritual adulthood, and the application of that doctrine beginning at spiritual self-esteem.

12. Since personal love emphasizes the object, and since the object of that personal love is God, and since God is perfect virtue, this becomes the major problem solving device in your life once you reach spiritual adulthood.

13. 1 Cor 13:13, “And now abides faith, hope and love; these three, but the greatest of these is love.” That’s virtue-love.

D. The Difference Between Personal Love and Impersonal Love.

1. Personal love is only a virtue when directed toward God the Father and toward God the Son.

2. The only love directed toward man that has virtue is impersonal love, because it’s directed toward all mankind. It is the only time when a human being in interaction with other human beings is totally fair.

3. Personal love is conditional; impersonal love is unconditional. Our personal love for God is conditioned upon perception of doctrine, post- salvation epistemological rehabilitation. Impersonal love is dependent upon your virtue. It is unconditional. You give every member of the human race exactly the same equal and fair treatment.

4. Personal love is directed toward a few in the human race and has no virtue. Impersonal love is directed toward all mankind in your periphery as a virtue, and this gives great capacity for personal love.

5. Personal love toward human beings has no built-in virtue and no virtue guarantees. Impersonal love contains built-in virtue. You can tell if someone has virtue in their soul by observing their attitude toward everyone. If it’s fair toward everyone, then their personal love is meaningful.

6. Personal love is based on attractiveness and rapport with an object. Impersonal love is based upon virtue in the subject.

7. Impersonal love is commanded in every Bible mandate to “love the brethren” and “love thy neighbor as thyself.” (Most people will treat themselves very well in every situation. If there’s any conflict, you are always right. This is our self-righteous survival kit when there’s any squabble: “I’m right.” This is arrogance and it absolutely destroys love.)

8. Personal love is possessive. It has a subjective attitude toward a few. Impersonal love is objective and has a relaxed mental attitude toward the entire human race.

9. Personal love is the expression of man’s ego. Impersonal love is the expression of man’s virtue.

10. Personal love is vulnerable to arrogance. People who fall in love immediately become hypersensitive. Hypersensitivity is a part of personal love. Impersonal love is free from arrogance, jealousy, hatred, bitterness, vindictiveness, guilt, self-pity, implacability, revenge motivation and from the get-even syndrome.

E. Personal Love for God and Occupation with Christ.

1. Personal love for God and occupation with the person of Jesus Christ are two separate and distinct problem solving devices.

2. Love for God the Father produces one thing; love for God the Son produces something else in the Christian life. They are both problem solving devices.

3. Love for God the Son emphasizes priority. Love for God the Father emphasizes motivation. Motivation is very important in life! Your motivation must come from God, not from yourself and not from other people.

F. Impersonal Love for all Mankind.

1. Inevitably, the believer without problem solving devices of the protocol plan of God becomes a casualty using sublimation to avoid reality, and too often becomes divorced from reality to the point of psychosis.

2. Impersonal love is that problem solving device of Christianity which is defined as unconditional love toward all mankind.

3. Being impersonal, this category of love emphasizes the virtue of the subject rather than attraction to or rapport with the object of love.

4. Impersonal love for all mankind is the ultimate expression of virtue, humility, objectivity, and spiritual advance of the subject

5. Personal love is optional toward people. Impersonal love is mandated by God as a part of the protocol plan.

6. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” has come down to us from Israel. It is mentioned in Lev 19:18; Mt 19:19, 22:39; Mk 12:31; Rom 13:9; Gal 5:14. So that mandate applies to the dispensation of Israel, the dispensation of the Hypostatic Union, and to the dispensation of the Church.

7. Furthermore, in Jn 15:17, Jesus said, “I command you these things that you might love each other.”

8. 1 Jn 3:23, “This is the mandate that we believe in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, and that we love each other as He has commanded us.”

9. Impersonal love for all is the only way you will give the rest of the human race a fair shake.

G. Virtue-Love.

1. 1 Jn 4:9-12, “By this, the virtue-love of God was manifested in our case, because God has sent His unique Son into the world [great power experiment of the Hypostatic Union] in order that through Him we might live. By this, virtue-love exists, not because we have loved God, but because He loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God loved us [and He does], we also have been mandated to keep loving each other [impersonal love]. No one has seen God at any time; if we love each other [maybe we will, maybe we won’t], God resides in us and His virtue-love has been fulfilled by us.”

a. The virtue-love of God has three categories.

(1) Each person of the Godhead loves His own perfect righteousness, meaning God has eternal spiritual self-esteem.

(2) Each person of the Godhead has personal love for the other two persons, because they all have equivalent integrity.

(3) God has impersonal love toward unworthy objects (like humanity with relative righteousness) in which the integrity of the subject (God) is the only issue, Jn 3:16. Because God has spiritual self-esteem, it’s no problem for Him to love all the world with its sinners on the basis of impersonal love.

b. God solved man’s problem of salvation by using impersonal love as a problem solving device. So this is God’s problem solving device, which He has passed on to us.

c. God couldn’t have mandated us to love each other unless He had found a way to share with us His virtue-love.

d. It’s impossible to love someone you don’t know, except by impersonal love. But it is possible for believers to love God whom they cannot see when they advance to spiritual self-esteem.

2. 1 Jn 4:16-19, “Furthermore, we have come to know [epistemological rehabilitation] and we have believed [metabolization of Bible doctrine] the virtue-love which God keeps having for us. God is love; in fact, he who continues in virtue-love continues in the plan of God, and God [Holy Spirit] continues in him. By this [omnipotence of God the Holy Spirit in divine dynasphere], virtue-love has been obtained by us that we may have confidence in the day of evaluation; because just as He is [humanity of Jesus Christ in great power experiment of the hypostatic union], so also we are in this world. Fear does not exist in virtue-love; but virtue-love expels this fear, for fear causes punishment [self-induced misery]; in fact, the person who is afraid has not been matured in virtue-love. We love [virtue-love], because He first loved us.”

3. There are two parts to virtue-love as a problem solving device for the believer: personal love for God as motivational virtue in gate #5 of the divine dynasphere, and impersonal love for all mankind as functional virtue in gate #6 of the divine dynasphere.

4. Personal love for God as problem solving device emphasizes personal love as a virtue. Personal love always emphasizes the object. Impersonal love for all mankind as a problem solving device emphasizes impersonal love as a virtue. Impersonal love emphasizes the subject. 5. Personal love for God and occupation with the person of Jesus Christ is motivational virtue in life. The virtue is found in the object of the personal love: God the Father as the author of the protocol plan of God, and God the Son as the winner of the strategic victory of the great power experiment of the hypostatic union.

6. In effect, virtue-love is thinking in terms of metabolized doctrine, not emotion, not affection; but love which comes from a maximum amount of metabolized doctrine in the soul. Personal love as a virtue is thinking; it is rational, not irrational.

7. Therefore, there is a difference between personal love and impersonal love.

a. Personal love always emphasizes the object of love; impersonal love always emphasizes the subject.

b. Personal love is conditional; impersonal love is unconditional.

c. Personal love is directed toward a few; impersonal love is directed toward the entire human race.

d. Personal love toward the human race is non-virtuous; impersonal love toward the human race is totally virtuous.

8. Personal Love.

a. Personal love is only a virtue when it’s directed toward God. But in human relationships, personal love has no built-in virtue; therefore it is virtue-dependent. The effectiveness of personal love is directly related to the amount of virtue one has accumulated.

b. There are two sources for adding virtue and capacity for love to personal love in human relationships.

(1) The laws of divine establishment are for believers and unbelievers alike.

(2) Metabolized Bible doctrine provides virtue and capacity for love in the believer. The capacity for love includes occupation with Jesus Christ and inserts virtue into personal love. Virtue from the attainment of spiritual adulthood is the major source of virtue in life, open to all believers. The laws of divine establishment can do wonders in relationships, but inevitably the greatest function of love in life is when a believer attains spiritual adulthood.

c. Virtue begins at spiritual self-esteem. You no longer feel threatened by people who are better than you in some area. Spiritual self- esteem eliminates jealousy, inordinate ambition and competition.

d. Being attracted to someone else, or being motivated by libido does not have any virtue. Libido has no conscience, no virtue, no stability, no rationale.

e. For this reason, personal love in instable, and it creates tremendous problems. Personal love usually peaks out during the honeymoon.

(1) People who have fallen in love have become hypersensitive with regard to the object of their love.

(2) When the man falls in love, he wants to dominate. But the female doesn’t want to be feminine and she also wants to dominate. She must become arrogant to do this. The woman is born with subjective arrogance. The stronger the surface love, the stronger the antagonism as each tries to gain the authority in the relationship.

(3) The problem of possessiveness and jealousy.

(4) The problems of self-pity.

(5) There are problems of reaction to the object of your love. Women get bored easily, especially when the man is around all the time. Reaction problems result in implacability. And implacability results in revenge motivation.

(6) The problem of divorcement from reality. When the woman sees the flaws in her “perfect man,” severe mental problems often result, such as psychosis, neurosis, or even suicide.

(7) The problem of environment. Too many people fall in love out of boredom with their environment. People panic and think they must get married before life passes them by.

f. Personal love emphasizes the object of love. Since God is perfect, eternal, and infinite, when He becomes the object at the point of spiritual self-esteem, such personal love can only have virtue, becoming a problem solving device instead of a problem manufacturing device.

g. Personal love for God adds virtue to motivation, never feels threatened, and makes spiritual self-esteem possible by the elimination of human subjectivity and arrogance.

(1) This is why 1 Cor 5:14 says: “For the love for Christ motivates us.”

(2) 1 Cor 2:9, “But just as it stands written, “Things which the eye has not seen, and it has not entered into the right lobe of mankind all that God has prepared for those who love Him.""This indicates that personal love for God is when we begin to realize some of the invisible blessings and also the visible blessings that come to us in that state of spiritual self-esteem.

(3) Rom 5:5, “And hope [confidence] does not disappoint us, because the love for God has been poured out in our right lobes by means of the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

(a) This hope refers to our hope ² and hope ³, the confidence that comes from metabolized doctrine.

(b) Usually disappointment is an inherent accompaniment with love. But here is a love that is not disappointing.

(4) Eph 6:24, “Grace to all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in virtue.” This is the undying love that comes at spiritual self- esteem.

(5) Rom 8:28, “We know, in fact, that to those who love God, He works all things together for good to those who are elected according to a predetermined plan.” Note that it’s not until you reach spiritual self- esteem and have personal love for God that all things work together for good.

(6) 1 Pet 1:8, “Though you have not seen Him you love Him, and even though you do not see Him now but believe [positive faith- perception], you rejoice [+H] with an inexpressible and glorious happiness.” This is the happiness that comes from having personal love for God above personal love for people. For you must have capacity before personal love for people even works.

(7) 1 Cor 16:22, “If anyone [believer] does not love the Lord, let him be cursed until the Lord comes [ANATHEMA MARANATHA].” In the approximate 2000 years of the Church Age to date, millions of believers have lived under this Aramaic idiom, “cursed until the Lord comes.” They’re in a state of cursing brought on by their own volition, living by their impulses, ending in bitterness, unhappiness, and misery.

(a) Wrong priorities and wrong emphasis in life results in the believer becoming a loser. A loser manufactures his own problems and has no problem solving devices with which to cope. This means that losers are in a state of agitation most of the time. They have only pseudo tranquility.

(b) In spiritual adulthood, the believer suffers for blessing. He possesses problem solving devices which equate living with dying, prosperity with adversity, so that he can handle anything in life.

(d) The temporary gifts of the first century emphasized the spectacular because they were designed to evangelize and to establish the authority of doctrinal teachers who were communicating the mystery doctrine of the Church Age before the Canon of Scripture was completed. Once the Canon was completed, these were all removed, for they were (and are) very misleading. This is because people assume Christianity is a series of spectacular, emotional activities. They are impressed with miracles instead of the daily teaching of the Word of God. Being impressed with what is spectacular, believers become emotional, irrational, and inevitably losers.

(e) The availability of the power of God in three categories today is designed not to emphasize the spectacular, but the routine functions of the protocol plan of God on a day-by-day basis.

(f) Post-salvation epistemological rehabilitation demands daily perception of Bible doctrine, daily plodding in the momentum of metabolized doctrine to have that invisible impact for which God supports and sustains us in this life.

(g) The strategic victory of our Lord Jesus Christ in the great power experiment of the hypostatic union has completely changed the course of history and given us something never possessed before. So that the ordinary believer can have an extraordinary life! 2. Impersonal Love.

a. Impersonal love is unconditional love directed toward mankind as the object. It is the ultimate combination of virtue, objectivity, and humility. Being impersonal, it emphasizes the virtue of the subject rather than any rapport with the object.

b. Impersonality is the quality of not involving one’s personal feelings or emotions toward the object; therefore, not reacting in any kind of personality conflict.

c. Impersonal love is the sum total of the Church Age believer’s honor, integrity, and objectivity which begins at spiritual self-esteem and maximizes at spiritual autonomy.

d. Impersonal love for all mankind is mandated by the Word of God. Phrases in the Old Testament mandate it, such as Lev 19:18. “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Neighbor refers to anyone you come into contact on any day. This mandate is quoted in the New Testament. It was almost impossible to execute in the Old Testament because it demands so much use of the power of God. But brought into the New Testament, it can and should be fulfilled. It is quoted in Mt 19:19, 22:39; Mk 12:31, indicating the fulfillment of the great power experiment of the hypostatic union. It is also quoted in Rom 13:9 and Gal 5:14, directed toward us in the great power experiment of the Church Age.

e. In Jn 15:17, our Lord said, “I command you these things, that you might love each other.” That is a command to love without discrimination.

(1) That mandate is amplified in 1 Jn 3:23: “Furthermore, this is His mandate, that we believe on the person of His Son, and that we love each other as He gave us mandate.”

(2) 1 Jn 4:7, “Beloved, let us love one another because virtue-love is from God.

(3) 1 Jn 4:11, “Beloved, if God loves us [and He does], we also have become obligated to keep loving each other.”

(4) All these passages emphasize loving all believers!

f. 1 Jn 4:20-21, “If someone alleges “I love God” and yet he hates his fellow believer, he is a liar. For if he does not love his fellow believer whom he has seen, then he is not able to be loving God whom he has not seen. Furthermore, we have this mandate from Him: that he who loves God should also love his fellow believers.”

(1) Every time you judge, malign, run down, or criticize some fellow believer, you are in effect a liar. In your arrogance, anyone that makes you feel inferior you must attack verbally. This is the grossest area of sins, and leads to moral degeneracy.

(2) Love is a mental attitude. This impersonal love for all mankind is the functional virtue which maximizes at spiritual autonomy.

g. We are commanded to love God personally, which is impossible apart from metabolized doctrine in the soul. We are commanded to love all believers without discrimination; this is impossible without metabolized doctrine in the soul, therefore it is impossible apart from the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit.

h. Impersonal love is unconditional. It emphasizes the virtue of the subject rather than the attractiveness of the object. To fulfill impersonal love, you must have maximum virtue from Bible doctrine.

i. Therefore, impersonal love is a problem solving device in human relationships.

j. Impersonal love is the monopoly of the Church Age believer and cannot be duplicated by an unbeliever or loser-believer, who is ignorant of Bible doctrine.

k. Impersonal love depends upon personal love for God as its motivation. You can never sort out your relationships with people until you sort out your relationship with God as a believer in Jesus Christ. There is no substitutional motivation for personal love for God.

l. Therefore, impersonal love becomes stabilized in spiritual autonomy, and has maximum function in spiritual maturity.

m. God’s impersonal love for all mankind motivated the great power experiment of the hypostatic union. God’s impersonal love reached its peak when the omnipotence of God the Father called for the printout of all personal sins and imputed them to Jesus Christ on the cross, and the justice of the Father judged them all. This provided salvation for all.

(1) Jn 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His uniquely-born Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

(2) Rom 5:8, “God demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

3. Personal love and Impersonal Love.

a. True love is one of the most powerful factors in life, both personal love and impersonal love. Personal love emphasizes the attractiveness of the object; impersonal love emphasizes the virtue of the subject. Personal love is conditional; impersonal love is unconditional.

b. Personal love has no built-in virtue. Impersonal love is the functional virtue of human interaction and relationship.

c. Personal love is based on the attractiveness or rapport with the object. Impersonal love is based on the virtue of the subject, at which point you can begin to understand the demands of these Scriptural mandates to love.

d. Personal love is an intense and possessive attitude toward a few. Impersonal love is an objective and relaxed mental attitude toward all mankind.

e. Personal love is the expression of man’s ego. Impersonal love is the expression of man’s virtue.

f. Personal love without virtue is all too often arrogant, often very subtle because it’s subjective. Impersonal love is virtuous and is free from arrogance, the greatest sin, and all its accompanying mental attitude sins.

g. Personal love in romance, marriage, friendship only has virtue when the individual involved has impersonal love for all mankind from either establishment virtue (unbeliever) or functional virtue of gate #6 of the divine dynasphere (believer).

h. So there’s a difference between mandated love and optional love. Mandated love is commanded by God. Optional love is a matter of the function of our own volition.

i. While personal love is optional toward people (never commanded by God), impersonal love is mandated for all people as a part of the protocol plan of God. Therefore, it is something we can do under the mechanics of the protocol plan of God, the filling of the Holy Spirit, the perception, metabolization, and application of doctrine.

j. Personal love is the option in life in romance, marriage, friendship; while impersonal love is the imperative of life. So you don’t really have to get married or have a friend, but you really have to have impersonal love for all mankind.

k. Personal love emphasizes the attractiveness and rapport with the object. Impersonal love emphasizes the virtue of the subject.

l. Impersonal love is motivated by personal love for God, and is therefore non-discriminating. Personal love is motivated by attractiveness and rapport with the object and therefore is totally discriminating based upon your own standards.

m. Any idiot can fall in love or make a friend. But impersonal love requires the attainment of spiritual adulthood inside the divine dynasphere.

n. Therefore, personal love manufactures problems. Impersonal love solves problems; e.g., loneliness.

o. The object of impersonal love can be a friend or an enemy, virtuous or evil, worthy or unworthy, ugly or beautiful, attractive or obnoxious; it makes no difference once you get the hang of impersonal love through perception of doctrine.

p. Impersonal love is stable and consistent whether confronted with friendliness or antagonism, animation or animosity, love or hatred.

q. Impersonal love is not influenced by the antagonisms or prejudices of life.

r. The function of personal love toward mankind falls into two categories: romance/marriage between man and woman, and friendship.

s. Personal love for mankind has no inherent or built-in virtue. Therefore personal love can be successful if virtue-dependent. Being virtue dependent means that capacity for personal love is totally dependent on impersonal love from either establishment virtue or from spiritual virtue. Establishment virtue can be attained by the unbeliever or believer, whereas spiritual virtue demands that the believer attain spiritual adulthood.

t. Since love for mankind has no inherent or built-in virtue, it becomes vulnerable to the tragic flaws of life, including arrogant subjectivity and hypersensitivity.

u. Personal love minus virtue causes jealousy, bitterness, hatred, self-pity, implacability, guilt reaction, revenge motivation.

v. Personal love complicates life by combining the problems of two people, a fusion which intensifies stress in life. When two people marry who each have a lot of problems, the stress becomes unsolvable apart from regeneration and advance to spiritual maturity. If a person cannot cope with his own problems, he cannot take on the problems of someone else he alleges to love without creating unbearable stress in his life.

w. The weakness of personal love without virtue is the existence of too many factors which hinder its perpetuation. This is why familiarity breeds contempt, as does superficiality. Loss of beauty or attractiveness has an effect on a personal relationship apart from impersonal love. The moral degeneracy of legalism has an effect, as does self-righteousness. Amazingly enough, no matter how self-righteous we are, we can’t stand self-righteousness in anyone else! For some reason we see theirs and not our own.

Ÿ Personal love minus virtue demands reciprocation. Therefore, lack of attention often causes frustration, disillusion, reaction, and the feet of clay syndrome.

y. The peak of personal love in marriage all too often occurs at the altar or in the honeymoon. Thereafter, it’s a downhill struggle all the way, simply because we’re all too aware of the fallacies and failures of the other, not of our own. This guarantees tremendous friction.

z. Personal love in friendship, romance, or marriage cannot be sustained apart from impersonal love as a problem solving device.

aa. Personal love in the human race is virtue dependent for its success. This virtue is not inherent, but has to be acquired, either through the laws of divine establishment, or the spiritual momentum that carries us to spiritual maturity.

bb. Impersonal love functions with virtue toward all mankind because of the honor and integrity of the subject, rather than the beauty and attractiveness of the object.

cc. On the other hands, human personal love is weak and vulnerable to destruction through arrogance, subjectivity, hypersensitivity, and the various categories of cosmic involvement. Therefore, human personal love must depend on the virtue of impersonal love for its success, perpetuation, and for general human interaction.

dd. No believer can execute the mandate for impersonal love apart from the attainment of spiritual self-esteem. Anytime you are on an unconditional relationship with someone, you are in a state of humility! The minute you become arrogant, you attach strings and demand things for the love to be perpetuated. Unconditional love is the only answer to about 75% of the problems you will have in life.

ee. As Richard Lovelace said in leaving his lady for war, “I could not love thee, Dear, so much, loved I not honor more.” This poem expresses the principle that personal love in romance is virtue dependent for its existence and perpetuation. Without honor, integrity, and virtue from impersonal love toward all, there is neither capacity nor ability nor success in romance.

ff. Arrogance has no virtue, and can only offer conditional love while seeking from the object unconditional love. This is where so much bullying and nagging originates.

gg. The cosmic believer is a loser because he possess wealth without honor, success without integrity, promotion without ability, approbation without achievement, love without virtue, sex without happiness.

gg. Therefore, the object of impersonal love can be known or unknown, friend or enemy, beautiful or ugly, attractive or repulsive, honorable or dishonorable, good or evil.

hh. Impersonal love perpetuates its own honor, virtue, and integrity through the three stages of spiritual adulthood. Beginning with spiritual self-esteem, it does so without reaction, retaliation, prejudice, discrimination, or arrogance.

This subject is further amplified in the Doctrine of Divine Love, the Doctrine of Love, and the Doctrine of Fellowship.

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