Recently someone said to me concerning the Old Testament Portrait of God verses the New Testament Picture of God revealed in Jesus:
“I've studied the old and new testaments and have found that the god of the new is not the same as the old. It's sad really. The god of the OT is more evil it may seem then the more 'loving' god of the NT.“
The fact is that the Bible is fairly consistent in it’s portrait of God, when taken in context.
If you read the book fairly you’ll find that the God of the OT is very clearly the God of the New as well – virtually the same amount of love, same amount of things that dismay him as well, and that the grace that is offered in the New Testament and beyond, is available in the Old as well – the main change between the testaments is that the ‘mystery’ has been revealed, and that the New Testament is a universal text, with the offer of salvation, as was intended from the beginning, going out to all peoples, and not a text, like the old, directed specifically at the nation of Israel and the Jewish peoples.
One thing to consider contextually is that a majority of the OT was written to apply to Israel at a national – not individual – level, and applied to the infant nation as it was developing and not as much to the interaction of individual people as it regards their personal relationships. Granted, you may pull verses out of context that seem VERY personal from your perspective, but in context they – at that time – were meant to act as Israel’s national law. The New Testament reveals God-made-Flesh, the intimate side: How individuals relate, and behave, as a correction to the very misinterpretations and misunderstandings you seem to abhor (or enjoy, it seems like) from the Old Testament law.
Do know this: The Old Testament speaks plenty about God’s love – Deuteronomy 7:7-13 speaks of His love for the nation of Israel; Isaiah 63:9 speaks of God saving people due to His love for them. On many occasions through the Old Testament the mercy of God is praised (Psalm 57:3; 59:10; 62:12; 86:13; 100:5; 106:1, etc.). Sure, judgment is emphasized, but that is as it often is in any legal document – which the Old Testament primarily is – a legal and historical document for the Nation of Israel which gives us a backdrop to the coming of Jesus.
Also, a cursory non-academic scanning of the Old Testament reveals 446 mentions of God’s ‘love’ and 100 occurrences of ‘mercy’ as opposed to 135 mentions of ‘hate’ and 173 of ‘wrath’. Again, considering this is a legal document, including consequences, where one would expect to find a significant amount of ‘wrath’, this is a significant statistic: 551 love/mercy vs. 308 hate/wrath. Compare this to the New Testament where the statistic is 291 love/mercy vs. 71 hate/wrath. The percentage of love/wrath in the OT is 64% love to 36% wrath, again noting that it IS an ancient legal document for a nation, with consequences of the actions written into it. In the New Testament that statistics are: 80% love vs. 20% wrath… again, noting that the New Testament is a personal account written towards how individual followers of Jesus should behave, rather than a law-book given to a nation. I think we both can agree that what is right for a nation as a whole, especially in a time of war, is very different that what is allowed or accepted between individuals within a culture. Anyway… there you have it… the NT picture of God is – very roughly – 20% more loving than the OT one…factoring in the difference between the context and intentions of those written words, I personally don’t find that to be very significant.
It really helps to remember that most of the old testament is a legal document, and those parts that don’t read like a modern legal document are actually modeled after ancient legal agreements between a king and his vassals, as a great amount of research has shown over the past few years. But essentially, I just try to be a responsible reader of an ancient text that God seems to promise that if I properly understand it – according to the Spirit of Christ – will change my life, and it has.
But, let it be known, due to the complexity of the Old Testament, which many skeptics employ almost solely in their arguments against faith, it is not really the logical foundation of my faith – only the historical background to it. My faith resides in the person of Jesus, whom I’m convinced revealed the creator God of the universe… I take the OT only because of my faith in Jesus, who often referred to the text, albeit in ways that surprised and dismayed many of His hearers.
