We neuter God.

Earlier in this class we talked about the idea of something verses the reality of the same something; how we build up ideas of something in our minds the second we are out of sight of that thing, or person, and the moment we reconnect with them again, it sort of breaks down all that we've built them up to be. C. S. Lewis described that in A Grief Observed. He called being in love with the warped idea of something "incestuous".

I think we do that to God: we build up our favorite parts of him; his mercy, his love, and his compassion, but we completely blot out his wrath and his anger and the fact that sometimes, due to human iniquity or inexplicable divine reasoning, hides his face from us. That sometimes he pours out his wrath.

In the Old Testament, God told his armies in several instances to lay waste, or “destroy” a certain group of people. In one, he told them not even to have mercy on the women and children. Not to let a single goat, or infant survive. This picture of God breaks my heart, and I still don’t fully understand it, but I know that this is also the same God that said that he would spare Sodom and Gomorrah if there were only a few righteous men.

This "New Testament God" can become an idol, I think. If you worship a wrong idea of God, can you still call that an idol? As I understand it, Muslims believe in what, on the surface, appears to be the same God, but I believe they worship an idol. ("Who can know another man's spirit?" though) We do the same.

We do believe in a God of mercy overflowing, but in the early years of AD, God didn't have a personality makeover. God is timeless, which would make it ridiculous to believe that over a short time, he became a radically different deity. He does express himself differently after Jesus fulfills the law ... but the character of God doesn't change. I believe in a God of justice, and sometimes that includes his wrath.