The Fiery Wrath of God

                                Genesis 22:1-14 (KJB)

Some people, who disbelieve in God anyway, have charged God with being cruel for commanding Abraham to offer his son as a burnt offering to God. But the context of the story indicates that Abraham suffered no agony whatsoever because He relied on the faith that God had given him that he would not have to kill his son. Abraham demonstrated his faith when he told his young servants who traveled with him that he and Isaac would return to them after their worship on the mountain. Genesis 22:5 (KJB). Abraham again demonstrated his faith in God when he told his son that God would provide Himself as a lamb for the burnt offering. God gave Abraham this prophecy that God would provide His own Son to be a burnt offering for the salvation of the human race. Genesis 22:8 (KJB).

But when Jesus died on the cross, His body was not burned but buried. So how did Jesus suffer the burnt offering sacrifice? His Spirit suffered it. God commanded the Israelites who were slaves in Egypt when He liberated them from slavery to sacrifice a lamb and apply its blood to the doorposts of their houses so that the death angel who would kill the firstborn of every Egpytian would pass over them and spare their firstborn. But God also commanded that they roast the lamb with fire, eat it, and completely burn the rest of it with fire before the morning. Exodus 12:1-13 (KJB). But the sin offering must always precede the burnt offering. This prophecy from God clearly revealed two different purposes for these two offerings. The coming Messiah would shed His blood for one form of salvation, the new birth, and He would suffer a burnt offering sacrifice for another form of salvation, the rest of humanity. Matthew 26:26-29; John 6:32-33; John 6:63; Luke 23:46; Acts 2:25-31; Ephesians 4:8-10; Psalm 16:9-11; Luke 3:16-17; II Peter 3:9-13; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB). When Jesus suffered on the cross, the Father also suffered, and He had to turn His face away from Jesus on the cross because His pure Son had become immersed in the filth of sin and evil. Psalm 22:6; Matthew 27:46 (KJB). The Spirit of Christ also suffered from His descent into the filthiness of Hell, but He did that to leave behind there all of the sins and evil that Jesus bore on the cross that He had not already purged with His shed blood so that He could rise immaculate from the dead to reanimate the perfect body of Jesus so that He could rise from the grave victorious over all sin, evil, and spiritual death which would save the entire human race not already saved by being cleansed by His shed blood. II Timothy 1:10; I Corinthians 15:20-28; I Timothy 4:10; Revelation 1:17-18; Ecclesiastes 3:14; I Corinthians 13:8; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB).

God gave the sin offering to Adam and Eve, and to the Israelites, to symbolize the fact that He would save some humans through the blood that Christ would shed on the cross. Genesis 3:20-21 (KJB). But God also gave the burnt offering to Noah after the flood, and also to the Israelites, to symbolize the fact that He will use His fiery wrath against evil to save the rest of humanity, which the Spirit of Christ accomplished by His descent into Hell. Genesis 8:20-21; Acts 2:25-31 (KJB). Since all humans must have faith in the power of God to save them, then some humans will be saved from evil and spiritual death when they hear the gospel and put their faith in the shed blood of Christ to cleanse them. John 5:24; I John 1:7 (KJB). But all other living humans "on the earth and under the earth" will be saved with a lesser form of salvation when Christ appears to them in the end of the world and brings them back to faith in Him as the Lamb of God who was burned for their salvation. Revelation 5:11-14; John 5:28-29; Luke 3:16-17 (KJB). In the Old Testament, an Israelite could bring two turtledoves or two pigeons to the priests, one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering, and that person would be forgiven of their sins by either offering. This fact clearly proves that the sin offering and the burnt offering were meant for two different forms of salvation. Leviticus 5:7-10 (KJB).