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.
Jesus represented God’s character as well as his unyielding justice....it is this very Jesus who comes with his angelic forces to hold humans to account. He is the judge of who are “wheat” and who are “weeds”...so what is the destiny of those rejected by God’s appointed judge? You can tell me your version of events but I will rely on God’s word rather than your opinion.
E.G.White did not “rediscover God”.....apparently in your mind, she reinvented him.
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.
God allows all humans, “enough rope”.....he gives them time to use that rope to either free themselves from the pit of lies concocted by the devil.....or to hang themselves. We are the ones who decide how to use it.
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.
There is a reason for that which seems to escape you....
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.
Does it? Or only in the way you choose to see God as the mamby pamby all forgiving sop you paint him to be.....he is very much the God of......”shape up or ship out”.....which he demonstrates all through Scripture. You act like the OT God is not the NT God.....show me where he changed. Scripture tells us that he does not change....so where does this new God emerge in your imagination?
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.
One of my favourite parables.....look at the story in detail.....
The son demands his share of his father’s inheritance and leaves home to live a life of debauchery, squandering his wealth on good times and false friends...until the money runs out and he discovers that his so called friends have all left, his life is in the toilet, he is destitute and no one gives a damn.
Taken to the brink of despair, envying the carob pods that the swine he was herding, were eating, (Jews did not herd swine) he determined to go back home to his father, not as an entitled son, but as a mere hired worker, humbled by his complete betrayal of his father and his family.
It is to be noted that his father did not argue with his son’s original decision, but gave him what he asked for and let him go. He did not communicate with him or send anyone to find out about his welfare or plead with him to come home. In his wisdom, the father knew that life lessons are the greatest teachers.
Only when he saw his son’s return from “afar off” and noted his contrite demeanour, did he run to meet him. The encounter was heart rending and tearful as the son asked to be a hired worker, because he was not worthy to be called his son anymore. But his father was convinced that the life lesson was worth every penny that he had wasted. He was just overjoyed to have him back, knowing that his repentance was genuine......this is the story that the Bible tells......it sounds like you have a very different take on it.
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.
It’s one God QT...he hasn’t changed and never will.
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 see” God as he has always presented himself.....and always will....as the supreme Sovereign of the Universe...the highest Being in existence....the Creator of all that exists, including his precious son, whom he sent into this world, to save those who obey him. if you want to reduce him and imply that he does not enforce his clearly stated standards on those who think “grace” means something other than what Scripture teaches, then that is on you. You have reinvented God and misrepresent him to others. Those who want an excuse to keep sinning will love it.
Why do you suppose that God has always appointed teachers for his people? They have to account to God for what they have taught, and where it has led their students. (Heb 13:17)
In the same chapter, Paul says.....(20-21)
“Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus, with the blood of an everlasting covenant, 21 equip you with every good thing to do his will, working in us through Jesus Christ what is well-pleasing in his sight, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Unless we live lives that are “well pleasing” to the God of our “great shepherd”, in ‘doing his Father’s will’, the blood of Christ has not covered our sins if we are still willfully practicing them.
