A Few More Things About God

"The indignation of the Lord is upon all nations...He hath delivered them to the slaughter...[He] hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of [Edom]...for it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, and the year of recompenses for the [cause] of Israel." Isaiah 34:2, 6, 8

I believe this is what atheists call the "ugliness" of the Old Testament, i.e., the horrors of the genocidal wrath of God, a topic that we poor, deluded Christians try to ignore instead of deal with (unfortunately, there are Christians who ignore it). I do not plan on dealing with it, because despite our late twentieth century inherited squeamishness and wussy "let's just all get along" attitude, there is nothing in the Old Testament I have to deal with, as though it were detrimental to my faith. I will, however, attempt to answer the accusers as best I know how:

1. God is a person. He is not mere brain, a machine, a life force, or emotive energy diffused throughout the universe. He is a person, which means He can love and hate just like (and infinitely more than) any other person. He carries all the emotive capacities of personality. Where exactly do you think we, His creation, got the same capacities from? We are in His image, and our personality comes from Him. He is just as much (and much more) a person as we are. Why people get so hung up with the fact that God can be as (and more) passionate as any person can be is beyond my understanding.
2. God is holy. I cannot stress this enough: Sin must be dealt with. Those who choose Sin over God will be destroyed along with Sin. If His holiness offends you, then that's just too bad. You cannot expect fallen creatures to fully grasp or appreciate the holiness of a perfect God any more than you can expect an ignorant child to fully grasp or appreciate Dante's Divine Comedy in the original Latin; it is something beyond the scope of their comprehension. Just hear this: God is holy, and therefore He punishes Sin.
3. God is in love. God has a bride, folks. He has a chosen people who He has called away to His divine intimacy. That people get bumfuzzled at God's destroying His chosen people's enemies simply blows my mind. God is as chivalrous as any burning heart of passion and zeal can be. His actions are not an ounce less than what any man would do to someone who attacked, insulted, and dishonored his wife before his eyes.
4. God is love. God does not want people to be destroyed, He wants them to be a part of His chosen ones (II Peter 3:9). Christ proved God's love when He came to make us part of the bride (Romans 5:8). If anything, Christ is the ultimate answer to the "ugliness" of the Old Testament: God has made a way for us to escape the destruction of His and His people's enemies.

"Oh Love that moves the universe in Dance,
How can I describe the Indescribable
To those who want just the facts..."
-Jon Vowell

On Forgiveness

"...the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity." Isaiah 33:24b

Added within the list of the restoration of Israel, next to the defeat of enemies and return to the land, is the promise of forgiveness, which may seem strange to some, but only because we have a shallow conception of forgiveness; we do not realize that it is the hope of us all. Whether we admit it or not, our souls pine for the forgiveness of Sin, for the reconciliation of our souls back to something that we have lost, something that is vital to our humanity. We do not see forgiveness is such a light. For us, forgiveness means to overlook sin, and on the human level, that is all we can do. However, on God's level, forgiveness can never be mere willful ignorance. God cannot overlook sin and remain holy. Sin must be dealt with, not overlooked. The forgiveness from God does not mean sin has been overlooked, but paid for on the cross, and it no longer applies to us in His eyes.
Forgiveness is not an illusion: we really do stand before God as though we've never sinned. To say that "God does not see us anymore but His Son," though fundamentally true (for we are "hidden in Christ"), is ultimately misleading. It makes it sound as though salvation means to somehow fool God, like it is a grand deception. Christ is not a smokescreen. Being "hidden" in Him does not equal being hidden from God; His "hiding" us means that all that He is, we are, which equals the removal of sin and the coming of God in us. Christ is our righteousness (I Corinthians 1:30), and as God, He is the righteousness of God; our filthy rag righteousness is not hidden, it is replaced entirely by the righteousness of God in Christ. God's forgiveness means that His righteousness is now ours.
Forgiveness is the hope of every nation: that God will not judge us by who we are but by who Christ is. That is the hopes and fears of all the years: God offering us forgiveness in His nail-scarred hand, though we deserved it not.

"Forgive us our trespasses.
Forgive us our debts.
Forgive us all that we are.
Make us All that You Are..."
-Jon Vowell