Here’s To The New God, Same As The Old God?
For anyone new dropping by or just as a reminder, I’m reading through the Bible in 2008. And I didn’t need to read too much of the Old Testament to see a big difference in God compared to the New Testament.
I’ve always been fascinated by this seemingly bipolar existence God possesses.
In the New Testament, God is love. I mean, he is other things, but the main point seems to be that He is love.
In the Old Testament, he seems anything but love. He is jealous, angry, vindictive, reasonable, unreasonable, prideful and capable of genocide.
I used to joke that God hadn’t “found Jesus” until the New Testament. Now I’m starting to believe some of that.
I’m not the first to notice and struggle with this fact. Smarter folks then myself have tried to reconcile the change of heart that God had from testament to testament.
Of course, there is the possibility that God hasn’t changed, but man’s view of him has changed. If God is anthropomorphic and is love, can he also be anger?
Which ‘God’ do you prefer?
Hi
You have to remember that God is a holy and righteous God. If God didn’t punish sin, He would compromise His own holiness and righteousness. God’s anger is not like ours, hot-tempered and whimsical, but it is based on His righteousness.
However, God is also love, therefore He gave people the possibility to atone for their sins through the sacrificial system. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness/remission of sins (Hebrews). (Although ultimeately it was faith that saved them, not the sacrifice. The sacrifice was only a payment for past sins.) But there are also plenty of examples of God’s grace and mercy toward people who turned to Him, who desired to live for Him. Check out the prevalence of the words mercy and grace in the book of Hoseah for instance. Note also how many times God post-poned His judgement because someone prayed or pleaded with God. The judgement wasn’t annulled though, but post-poned.
But as the Old Testament clearly demonstrates, no one could be delivered from their sin. Thus God sent Christ, the everlasting and final sacrifce, to pay for sins past, and by faith in Christ and His atoning death on the cross mankind would be saved and delivered from sin. This is surely the greatest demonstration of God’s love to us, but there are plenty of types or allusions to this act in the Old Testament, particularly the sacrifical system.
You should also note that God punishes sin in the New Testament, sometimes instantaneously (Ananias and Sapphira were killed for lying to Peter), but the ultimate punishment is reserved for the future when God will judge the living and the dead. The reason we don’t find Jesus carrying out punishment on sin was because that wasn’t His mission at that time. Nevertheless, you should note how Jesus loved the sinners and hated sin. How often didn’t he say “go away and sin no more”?
God hasn’t change, for sure, He is the same yesterday, today and forever. The Old Testament only shows how desperate and hopeless men are before the holy God, and the New Testament gives us the solution to the problem: Jesus.
God bless you!
Hi again
Just one add to the above comment. Although I believe what I wrote 100%, it doesn’t mean I think there are no difficult passages in the Bible. There are! But in the main, I think the difficulties often are a result of our limited understanding of God. We can’t fully grasp the concepts of His sovereignty, righteousness, holiness and love, and when we try to fit these into our rationalistic and humanistic mindset - “it don’t work”. Many passages will probably be left unexplained and left to faith. I still don’t think those passages can diminish or invalidate the main message of the Bible: God is holy, we are under sin and therefore cursed, by faith in Christ that curse is taken away.
God bless!
PS If you’re interested in some really good and free Bible resources, check out http://www.e-sword.net/
“Many passages will probably be left unexplained and left to faith.”
Why? Why stop trying to understand because it starts to get complicated or inexplicable? Why stop wondering? Why stop trying to understand God the Father.
As a parent, I learn everyday another thing or two about what God is like.
To reader:
I didn’t mean we should stop trying to search out the mysteries - God wants us to find the hidden treasures. I was just acknowledging the fact that there are difficult portions of scripture which we probably this side of eternety never will get an answer to. After all God is God, His thoughts are higher than ours, His ways higher than ours. If they weren’t He wouldn’t be God.
I appreciate both of you adding to the conversation.
reader - When you say, as a parent, I learn everyday another thing or two about what God is like, what are you thinking of?
Thomas - What do you do with those passages that are difficult? When you come across something that doesn’t line up internally, what happens?
I’ve been thinking about this. And it’s frustrating to limit this (any) conversation to words typed in a box. (Maybe it was frustrating for the writers of ancient scrolls to tell their stories in a box too?)
For example, I still wonder about the whole God the Father thing. OR even God the Mother. Either is another box around God.
In the sense of learning what God is like, I learn, more times as a parent, what it means to Love continuously and without conditions. Maybe I learn about being God-like?
Difficult passages
Well, sometimes I dig out some commentaries, Bible dictionaries, other translations, etc. to see if that might shed some light on the issue. Often they do, many times they don’t. If they don’t, I leave it with God and say “I don’t get it, but I know You’re in control. Maybe one day we’ll know”. As I wrote above, those passages are never strong enough as arguments to invalidate the main message of the Bible.
Learning about God
To me, the main source of revelation about God is the Bible. Whatever we can know about God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is in that book. Of course God can “speak” to us directly, through circumstances, through other people, through nature, but that “communication” will always line up with what’s in the Book. Our revelations of God outside the Bible will only confirm or illuminate the Biblical revelation.
You mentioned God the Mother. That’s according to the Bible not true as all statements about God as a person is as male as it gets. However, in that God is creator of everything, He is of course capable of showing motherly love.
Suspending the idea that we all have a Bible and have read some or all of it, I like to imagine what I would believe about God if I didn’t have a Bible or nobody I knew had a Bible or knew of one. What would I take from the world in shaping my thoughts about God, about the Divine? What would become important? What would I shed?