BlessedPeace
Well-Known Member
You seem to not want to accept what is in the OT.Surprisingly AJ, God's revelation of himself is not one of 'superior' as you say.....and contrary to human reason as revealed in Jesus, he seeks out the lost and to the alarm of those who desire a dominating self willed God, he submits....even to the point of death. This is Grace on a level unimaginable to the pretentiously pious human heart.
Grace is not licence but it is freedom. Don't you do what you like? Didn't Adam and Eve do what they liked?......and if we push the idea further, various pagan nations through history and even Israel for that matter sacrificed their children in ways we would find totally abhorrent yet God's freedom given them allowed even this.
Did he approve of it? of course not. The pain he suffered in seeing his creatures whom he had given choice to, no doubt tore his heart and continues to tear it while we observe the recalcitrant behaviour of our fellows from comfortable arm chairs and convenient electronic communication.
This begs the question, was it God who drowned the antediluvians? Well, Moses who we understand wrote the record seems to think so but when I look at how Jesus behaved towards those who stuck their fingers up his nose and did all sorts of unimaginable things to him which are not recorded, (to the point where scripture tells us he was hardly recognisable as a human being) a different picture emerges.
If one wants to use the OT perspectives of how the folk who wrote the scriptures understood God to be, we fall at odds with the testimony of Jesus. Consider the story of the Prodigal Son, one which Jesus coined (not borrowed) to relay the attitude of his Father....and the attitude of his older brother.
It seems to me that largely, the OT peoples view of God is preferred by most in NT times yet somehow these same folk use Jesus as a rubber stamp to sanction their 'correct' view of the OT ideas of God's character.
I see Jesus as the full revelation of the character and attitude of God towards the messed up inhabitants of this planet and as a result a different picture than that of a God itching for his pound of flesh and of his heart emerges.
I would go so far as to assert, that unless we see Jesus we will, according to our sinful nature, tar God with the attributes of evil.....and would add, that is how clever that former shining angel has been to influence our understanding of God.
I don't think you can criticize others given that.
