Interpretations reflect foundational beliefs.
Allodial has presented, with great clarity, the difference between Christianity derived from ROME and the original intent of God when He became incarnate in the form of Jesus of Nazareth to preach the gospel and redeem His creation.
God's wrath is against evil and those who willingly pursue it. An in-depth study of Levitical Law may reveal that the sacrifices practiced were meant to cleanse the space where prayers were offered, not cleanse the man himself.
The God of order and justice does not simply wipe the slate clean and start over when His creation willfully chooses to seek out knowledge, power and "life" outside of His blessings and Will. When a true debt is incurred, payment must be made to settle it. Mankind incurred the debt of death when trust was placed in someone other than The Creator; yet, God so loved the world...
in order to redeem that debt, He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone believing in Him should not perish, but should have eternal life.
Here is an interesting take on the choice of using the word "begotten".
“Only begotten” is an unfortunately confusing translation, especially for modern readers. It does sound to us as though the “only begotten” Son had a beginning because we aren’t used to the old English word. The confusion should never have happened, though, since monogenes actually doesn’t mean “only begotten.” The controversy extends from an old misunderstanding of the root of the Greek word. For many years monogenes was thought to have derived from two Greek terms, monos (“only”) and gennao (“to beget, bear”). Scholars of Greek linguistics have discovered, though, that the second part of the word monogenes does not come from the Greek verb gennao, but rather the noun genos (“class, kind”). The term literally means “one of a kind” or “unique” with no connotation of time or origin. The validity of this understanding is borne out by the New Testament itself. In Hebrews 11:17, Isaac is called Abraham’s monogenes—but it is crystal clear from the Old Testament that Isaac was not the only son Abraham had begotten, since he had also fathered Ishmael prior to Isaac. The term must mean that Isaac was Abraham’s “unique” son, for he was the son of the covenant promises and the line through which Messiah would come. Many of the more recent versions of the Bible have opted to translate monogenes as “only,” but this confuses readers when they come across references to other sons of God in the Old Testament.
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When Abraham was chosen to be the Father of God's set-apart nation of people, He was tested to ensure that he realized what was necessary to redeem the world. The Isaac test was a message to Abraham, making it clear that the only way to redeem the debt of man was to offer something of such great value that settlement cannot be rightfully denied. Of course, God knew Abraham's heart and his willingness to give his most precious son for the sake of mankind, however, God stopped him since it was only the message of what was to come that He wanted to convey to Abraham. I believe Abraham understood fully the intent behind the request and went on to lead God's special nation of people, though which would be born the savior of mankind.
Wrath has nothing to do with that.
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Originally Posted by David Merrill
