A false narrative about God that James Bryan Smith mentions in his book, “The Good and Beautiful God“, is that of a “teddy bear” god. This is a god who is soft on sin and not willing to judge and certainly not likely to send anyone to hell. This false narrative is an overreaction to the “angry God” narratives that present God as mostly angry and desiring to strike humans down whenever he feels like it.
Anyone who takes the “teddy bear” God narrative obviously has not read Revelation. In chapter 11, a great battle breaks out between the Angel Michael, and his angels, and a dragon, which is Satan. Satan is eventually defeated and hurled out of heaven and into the Earth.
In Revelation, we see a God who takes unbelievable steps in ridding the Earth of sin and destroying that which is against Him. There is no soft and cuddly images in Revelation except when you look closely and realize that God is doing all of this for us. His love is so great for his people that wars break out on our behalf, God’s son take the throne of the Earth so we can reign with him, and those who want to destroy God’s people are themselves destroyed. We do nothing except remain obedient; God handles the rest. If you don’t see love in this then you are missing the meaning of the word.
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