1. Jesus is the Perfect Image of God
He is the image of the invisible God… (Col 1:15)
…the exact imprint of God’s very being (Heb 1:3)
No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son… who has made him known (John 1:18).
Any portrait of God that contradicts the character of Jesus cannot be the final truth about the Father.
2. Scripture Exists to Bear Witness to Christ
You search the Scriptures… and it is they that bear witness about me (John 5:39).
Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself (Luke 24:27).
3. The Cross is the Lens
God is love — self-giving, enemy-loving, non-violent love revealed on the cross. Anything that clashes with this must be read as divine accommodation to human hardness of heart.
“Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you” (Mark 10:5).
“I gave them statutes that were not good…” (Ezekiel 20:25).
4. The Early Church Already Did This
Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, John Cassian and others insisted violent portraits of God must be read spiritually/allegorically — because the Father of Jesus could never literally command such things. We are simply making that ancient practice explicit.
5. An Open Canon
For centuries the church lived with an open collection of texts. Shepherd of Hermas, 1–2 Clement, and others were read in worship alongside Romans and Hebrews in many places. We include books the Spirit has clearly used to point people to Jesus.
6. “(filtered)” is Obedience, Not Censorship
God spoke in many and various ways — but “in these last days he has spoken to us by the Son” (Heb 1:1–2).
We refuse to let earlier, partial sketches overpaint the finished Portrait.
“Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” — John 14:9