I have a question. I was talking with some people in class one day and they said they don’t believe that the bible is anything more than a paperweight because of the differences between Old Testament God and New Testament God. They said in the Old Testament he was mean and spiteful, but you don’t see that in the new testament. I know that there are many themes, commands, things like that that are in both testaments but how do you argue the bible is legit when people look at the big picture and see a vengeful God in some books and a merciful one in others (and even if you brought up the fact that God did things like bringing Israel back to him making good of the damage done it is still arguable that in the new testament, he never did anything like that in the new Testament.) I guess my question comes down to how can you show and explain that the bible is legit despite the differences seen by non believers.
Have a blessed week.
Excellent question! This contrast between the Old and New Testament actually constituted the Marcionite controversy of the early second century. Marcion of Sinope was an early theologian who was deemed a heretic by the early Church in Rome. His complaint of the dominant church was that the Old Testament could not possibly be from God since it betrayed the God of love, grace, and mercy as portrayed in the Pauline Epistles (as a side note, it’s Marcion’s protest that shows that the Pauline writings were already canonized as authentic Scripture else it would not have served his purpose in using it to defend his views).
The problem here is based on a bad presupposition about how God is supposed to act throughout history. It’s implied that how God acts in 1500 B.C. is precisely how God is going to act in 1500 A.D. But not even the Bible follows this static pattern. For example, the Sabbath is a Mosaic law that almost seems to be bigger than God Himself (cf. Leviticus 23:3) in that defiance of it warrants death (Exodus 31:14)! But upon Jesus’ arrival, he makes it clear that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27) while Paul almost dismisses it altogether (cf. Colossians 2:16). The same could be said for how God reveals Himself to His people. In the Old Testament, God is very much revealed in an external fashion (viz., visibly appearing as fire and cloud; giving visible demonstrations of Himself, etc.) while come the New Testament God His approach is quite different:
1:1 God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners,
1:2 hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in `his' Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds;
Thus God’s revealing of Himself takes on a more internal approach:
4:6 And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
4:7 So that thou art no longer a bondservant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.
So in a sense here I’m arguing for God’s right to be different from one period to the next if He so chooses to be. But this is only to show that it does not follow from God acting differently from era to era that, therefore, the Bible is not legitimate. This is a non-sequitur. It would be like arguing that a politician (like Nevada’s John Ensign) who once used Congress to enact policy now works in the Senate for such policy proves that the House of Representatives is not legitimate!
Secondly, I actually disagree anyway that God is somehow less merciful in the Old Testament as opposed to the New. For those who understand mercy itself to be an immutable moral attribute will not likely be moved by the previous response. But nevermind. Here I mean to show that the God portrayed in the Old Covenant is consonant with His portrayal in the New. All throughout the Old Testament we find God literally pleading with people to repent and turn away from their sins:
8:47 yet if they shall bethink themselves in the land whither they are carried captive, and turn again, and make supplication unto thee in the land of them that carried them captive, saying, We have sinned, and have done perversely, we have dealt wickedly;
8:48 if they return unto thee with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who carried them captive, and pray unto thee toward their land, which thou gavest unto their fathers, the city which thou hast chosen, and the house which I have built for thy name:
8:49 then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in heaven thy dwelling-place, and maintain their cause;
15:19 Therefore thus saith Jehovah, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, that thou mayest stand before me; and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: they shall return unto thee, but thou shalt not return unto them.
14:6 Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Return ye, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
Moreover, the Old Testament incessantly communicates God’s mercy:
13:17 And there shall cleave nought of the devoted thing to thy hand; that Jehovah may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and show thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers;
9:31 Nevertheless in thy manifold mercies thou didst not make a full end of them, nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God.
25:6 Remember, O Jehovah, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindness; For they have been ever of old.
63:9 In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.
These are just a few of those passages exemplifying the mercy of God. In fact, if you do a simple word count, the word “mercy” appears more in the Old Testament of God than the New by a ratio of almost two to one! But perhaps the objector is simply appalled by the content of certain passages that seem to portray God as a brutal dictator. I think this is the heart of the difficulty in all reality. Consider:
20:16 But of the cities of these peoples, that Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth;
20:17 but thou shalt utterly destroy them: the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; as Jehovah thy God hath commanded thee;
15:3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
These sorts of passages rest uncomfortably on the eyes and ears of Christian readers who see God as merciful (and indeed God’s mercy has been established above). And even the inclusion of killing women and children is extreme. How atrocious!
To give a short response, we must first consider that there is a difference between the Old Testament governmental theocracy that existed in Egypt, Israel, and Canaan versus the New Testament’s secularized form of government in Palestine. God often meted out judgment in the here and now because sin was serious business back then. There was no benefit of God’s grace through Jesus since this era antedates Jesus. Thus nations were judged and literally cut off so that the spread of their corruption did not serve as a cancer to God’s people. But children and infants?? Actually, God is always taking the lives of everyone through old age, disease, or accident. God permits these things to happen in our lives so that each of us will inevitably have a final moment on earth. That God has used the vehicle of war during this time period should be of no surprise. Indeed, God as the creator of human life has the moral right to take it as He deems fit but us as human beings do not possess that right. Now I’m not special pleading here. You, as a human being, have the right to arrange and rearrange the contents of your own house as much as you want to. But nobody else is permitted to come in and do it. Analogously, we belong to God and if He thinks that in the grand scope of human history more people will benefit with eternal life than not by judging these corrupt nations by having even the children killed then so be it. Eternal life with God is an incommensurable good! After all, the children and infants themselves will actually benefit as they will receive eternal life whereas had they been raised to adulthood would have almost certainly embraced the pagan doctrines and ideals of their culture that would have damned them (since children lack the moral decision-making ability, they will not be held accountable for their sins - Isaiah 7:16; And also the Patriarchs expected children would be with God – Genesis 37:35). Thus, these reasons and more show that God’s mercy is logically consistent with His judgment and, hence, cannot serve to show that in and of itself God is morally distinguishable from Testament to Testament.
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