Is The God of The Old Testament The Same As The God of The New Testament?
Pastor Leslie Chua
“Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off.”
Many Christians have the impression that God behaves differently in the Old Testament and the New Testament. His personality as well as the way He deals with people are different.
To these Christians, the God of the Old Testament is distant and unapproachable. He is often angry, harsh, demanding, vengeful, merciless, and violent. He meted out severe punishment on His people at the slightest displeasure. He also ordered the slaughter of entire tribes and nations, including innocent women and children, without batting an eyelid. His genocidal tendency is troubling to many in our modern days.
Richard Dawkins, the outspoken professor from Oxford University and a fierce critic of Christianity, said this about the God of the Old Testament – “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
On the contrary, the God of the New Testament as revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ and the message He carries is completely different. He is the polar opposite of the God of the Old Testament.
Jesus is full of grace, loving, compassionate, non-violent, and forgiving. He teaches His disciples to love their enemies and forgive those who have wronged them. Jesus’ greatest act of love and grace is to die on the cross for sinful humanity, which includes His enemies. On the cross, He prayed for His enemies, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 24:34).
Mitigating the Differences
Attempts have been made to explain and mitigate the differences in the nature and behaviour of God in the Old Testament and New Testament.
A common explanation is God relates differently with humanity living in the 2 distinct periods, the dispensation of law and the dispensation of grace. Under the dispensation of law, which is associated with the Old Covenant, the emphasis is on obedience to God’s laws and commandments. Whereas under the dispensation of grace, which began with the arrival of Jesus Christ, the emphasis is on salvation by grace through faith.
While I do not argue with the dispensational theology, it is wrong to say that God behaved differently during the 2 different dispensations, angry and hostile in the Old Covenant period and loving and forgiving in the New Covenant era. God is immutable. He is unchanging - Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
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Some scholars argue that God remains the same but He is presented differently in the 2 Testaments. There is the “actual” God and there is the “textual” God.
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Here is another explanation for the differences in God’s behaviour in the New Testament and the Old Testament. Some scholars argue that God remains the same but He is presented differently in the 2 Testaments. There is the “actual” God and there is the “textual” God.
Let me explain.
The “actual” God is accurately portrayed in the New Testament Scripture. He is nice and benevolent. Jesus is the personification of this “actual” God.
On the other hand, we find in the Old Testament Scripture the “textual” God, who is nasty and merciless. But the “textual” God is a misrepresentation of the “actual” God.
Why is God misrepresented? Who misrepresented Him?
The finger is pointed squarely at the misguided authors of the Old Testament Scriptures. These are the angry prophets who were violence-prone. They were overly zealous for God’s righteousness and justice. Inevitably, unfaithful Israelites were caught in their crosshairs and they received frequent verbal lashing by these prophets.
These prophets were also fiercely nationalistic. Given that, they harboured a deep hatred for Israel’s enemies. As such, their angry and volatile emotions are inadvertently reflected in their writings. Intentional or otherwise, they misrepresented the good character of God.
Mitigation by Jesus
These scholars who are critical of the God of the Old Testament cited some of Jesus’ teachings as proof of their argument. Let me give you an example.
At the beginning of His public ministry in Nazareth, Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah - “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).
After reading, Jesus proclaimed to the people listening to Him, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). Essentially, Jesus was proclaiming His mission as the Messiah sent by God.
These scholars pointed out that Jesus did not complete Isaiah’s prophecy concerning the Messiah. Jesus actually stopped mid-sentence.
In Isaiah’s prophecy, the phrase - “to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor” - is immediately followed by these words - “and the day of vengeance of our God…” (Isaiah 61:2). But Jesus did not read the part about vengeance.
They claimed that Jesus did that because He was correcting Isaiah’s misrepresentation of God being vindictive.
Is this true?
The answer is no. While they rightly pointed out that Jesus deliberately excluded the phrase - “and the day of vengeance of our God” - their reason for Jesus’ exclusion is wrong and misleading.
The prophet, Isaiah, did not misrepresent God and Jesus was not correcting Isaiah’s alleged misrepresentation.
Jesus excluded mentioning executing God’s vengeance because that was not part of His mission in His First Coming. In His First Coming, Jesus came to proclaim the good news, liberty, and the year of the Lord’s favour.
There is a Second Coming of Christ. When Jesus comes again, He will come as a Judge and King to execute God’s justice and vengeance against the wicked.
Reading from Their Preferred Perspectives
These critics of the God of the Old Testament are reading the Scriptures from a narrow perspective to justify their personal preference.
Richard Dawkins is a hard-core and outspoken atheist who takes pleasure in disparaging God and discrediting belief in God. He intentionally and selectively highlights the so-called unsavoury aspects of God such as divine judgement.
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These critics of the God of the Old Testament are reading the Scriptures from a narrow perspective to justify their personal preference.
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As for the Christian critics, they cannot accept God’s full revelation of Himself in the Bible. They have their own preferred view of God. They reject anything that does not fit into their image of God. So, out goes divine jealousy, discipline, justice, wrath, vengeance, and judgement. What remains is a loving God who is safe and incapable of anger with sin and injustice.
Another category is the pastors and preachers who find it inconvenient to talk about the unpleasant attributes of God. Nobody wants to hear about divine warning and judgement. Sermons of this genre are repulsive. It is next to impossible to grow a church in this way. The sad truth is attractive churches preach what itching ears want to hear.
Jonathan Edwards’ “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” is out of fashion in our contemporary world. “Sinners in the hands of a loving God” would be more appropriate and appealing. This is where things are presently, unfortunately.
The Kindness & Severity of God
But what does the Bible say about God?
Paul warned – “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off” (Romans 11:22).
This is New Testament Scripture. Both the kindness and severity of God are two sides of the same coin. God can be kind and nice as well as severe and wrathful depending on the issues and circumstances.
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To deny God’s wrath is to deny God’s love.
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To deny God’s wrath is to deny God’s love. If God sees injustice and bloodshed and He does not get angry, He is not a good God. If God sees systemic corruption and the nation goes hungry and destitute and He does not punish the perpetrators, He is not a kind God. If God sees the weak getting abused and He does not hate it, He is not a loving God.
God loves mankind and the world that He had created passionately. Therefore, He must necessarily hate anything that distorts and destroys His creation and the plan that He has for it.
God’s kindness and severity is a consistent theme that runs throughout both the Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures. There is no dichotomy between the two. You can find God’s compassion and lovingkindness in the Old Testament and God’s wrath and judgement in the New Testament.
You should not be surprised to hear that unless you have not read the Bible for yourself.
The Israelites cried out to the LORD to deliver them from slavery in Egypt. God heard their cries. He had compassion on them and He delivered them. This is an act of divine grace because the Israelites had not done anything at all to deserve God’s deliverance.
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God’s kindness and severity is a consistent theme that runs throughout both the Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures. There is no dichotomy between the two. You can find God’s compassion and lovingkindness in the Old Testament and God’s wrath and judgement in the New Testament.
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Throughout the Psalms, you read of the psalmists singing about the lovingkindness and mercies of God.
The LORD assured the Jews of His love through the prophet, Jeremiah – “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you” (Jeremiah 31:3 – NKJV).
These are just a few examples of God’s lovingkindness in the Old Testament Scripture.
What about God’s severity in the New Testament Scripture?
You find many examples of it in the Gospels and you hear it straight from the mouth of Jesus. Jesus is not just full of grace but He is also full of truth. This is the truth of the gospel: if a person rejects the grace of God, judgement awaits him.
Consider these words of Jesus – Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 13:40-42).
Jesus often spoke harshly to the religious leaders because of their pride, hypocrisy, and wrong teaching.