Indeed, fully reliable love can only be the resurrected life of one who has died for the beloved ones. Contemporary society speaks much of ‘unconditional’ love, and is always disappointed. If I commit myself in love, I may die of it. If I do not, my love remains uncertain; if I do, it is lost—unless I rise again. When the gospel proclaims actual unconditional love, it proclaims a specific, individual love, the love that is the actuality of the risen Jesus. No one else can love unconditionally as does the Lord; not even the church can so love her members or they one another.

—Robert W. Jenson, Systematic Theology: Volume 1, The Triune God, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). 199.