If we are to be Christ-centered or Christian, we must force every idea from the Old Testament (and New Testament) to flow through the cross, our theological filter, or else we must stop insisting that we are of Christ, in Christ and submitted to the rule of Christ.  Many principles and truths will make it through and survive the scrutiny of the cross.  And it is a beautiful thing to see the old and new ideas of God flow together timelessly and seamlessly.

Yet, some of the old ideas and perceptions will not make it through this filter, which must be utilized as a strainer and sifter, purifying all ideas we want to grant passage into the new creation.  For instance, the fragments of the idea of an angry God full of pent up hatred and insatiable desire for revenge will not flow through the grid of the cross.  

After Christ and his depiction and representation of a father who loves His creation absolutely unconditionally, how can we continue to hold in our minds the perception of a God who has only a limited supply of mercy, while at the same time a seemingly endless surplus of wrath and punishment? The presumed anger of the pre-cross God will not make it through the filter of the cross.

This is why the cross is so beautiful.  It discriminates, but not against God's redeemed creation.  The cross discriminates against anger, separation and judgment.  In the new creation, God remembers our flesh no longer.  Our sin, and the memory of our imperfect flesh are cast into a sea of forgetfulness and removed from us as far as the east is from the west.  All that remains is spirit.  And spirit is the only thing we can take with us into eternity.