Many believe a ferocious Old Testament God has been replaced by a 'gentle Jesus'. Has He?
The image of God supposedly projected by the text of the Old Testament is one of hard-hearted disregard for human rights. By contrast, Jesus is said to have replaced his Father with loving concern for all mankind. Simple logic, however, dictates that 'God' can not change His basic nature! Indeed the Scriptures clearly state; "I am the LORD. I change not" (Malachi 3:6). And Jesus - who claimed to perfectly reflect the Father - is described as 'the same yesterday, today and forever' (Hebrews 13:8). With God there is 'no variableness or shadow of turning' (James 1:17).
Disregard for human rights is certainly a divine trait! 'Ethnic cleansing' began with God. Look at how He encouraged the Israelite nation to drive out the Canaanites from the land He had set aside for Israel. Look at how he commanded the extermination of the Amorites. And were the human rights of the Israelites not violated when God forced them to wander forty years in the wilderness - simply because they got scared?
Capital Offence
What about those divine laws which commanded the death penalty for first degree murder? Or for adultery? Or rape? Even for violent and rebellious youth (Exodus 21:15)? God also commanded the death penalty for those who worshipped any other God but Him and who worshipped in a way He had not commanded (eg Deuteronomy 5:17ff). Nor was He comfortable with witches (Exodus 22:18) or h**ls (Leviticus 20:13) or kidnappers (Exodus 21:16): they were to be put to death.
So - has God changed His mind about all these practices? Has God's representative, Jesus, now shown his Father to have been in gross error? And have our legislators moved on, become more caring? Are we now more compassionate than the Creator? More 'Christian'?
Let's look at 'gentle Jesus' for a moment. Caring and sharing, certainly. Loving. Generous. Peaceable. That's how the whole world should be! Yet he said he wasn't about to negate the divine Law. That Law embraced all those activities - and the death penalty - mentioned above. So he wasn't against capital punishment. .
Nor was Jesus in any way squeamish about the destiny of 'the wicked' in our midst. They will, Jesus says, be consumed in a future conflagration. Hell (Gk. gehenna) he calls it. And when God finally draws a line under His patience, His plan is to exterminate all who refuse to obey Him. All who in the final minutes of man's day remain unrepentant, all who have mistreated Christians (Matthew 25:31-46) 'will go away to everlasting punishment' (v.46). He hasn't changed - not the Father, not Jesus.
Bitter Fruit
Mankind is now reaping the bitter fruit of self-righteous tampering with the divine Law. 'Human rights' trample all over sanity. It's an obsession with 'rights' - not right. The fruit? Murderers are locked up at great public expense and then released often to kill again. Never mind the agony of victim families. Vile rapists pornographers get a judicial slap on the wrist - a couple of years and then out to again exercise their perverted lusts. Never mind the ever- present physical and emotional pain of the victims. Terrorists walk the streets to plot and plot again. Perverted sex is paraded by government and populace alike as a triumph of free thought. All are handled with kid gloves to appease the tender - but distorted - conscience of the twisted libertarians who dominate Western thought.
Heart of the Matter
'Sin' no longer enters the vocabulary of government or the justice system. All too often it is taboo even in the world of faith! Yet sin is at the core of all man's ills. It won't be safely dealt with by woolly liberalism! Such cozy liberalism contrary to the revealed will of God for an orderly society has brought mankind to the brink of self-destruction.
Every profession is shot through with a streak of death-dealing perversity and lack of integrity. It's a result of failure by authority to curb sin - defined in part in the New Testament as 'transgression of law'. Humanity apart from God will behave only when the big stick of law is there to restrain. Clearly, human substitutes for divine law have failed us utterly. Civilization is merely a thin veneer, soon torn apart by perverse human nature under pressure.
A Different Way
Jesus, of course, presented us with a different way. Through the indwelling holy Spirit those who commit to him are guided to follow his example. That is, to submit to the divine Law - a Law 'written in our heart'.
We are to worship God in the only way He has prescribed through His weekly and annual holy days - for all else is idolatry. Christians are constrained to live honestly, peacefully and without violence. We are to lovingly express our sexuality only within opposite-gender marriage. We are to avoid all contact with the occult. And to treat all mankind with generosity and concern.
[Christians as individuals do not administer the tenets of the divine Law. This is a matter God has delegated to the civil authorities. (e.g., Romans 13) It is they whom God holds responsible for maintaining law and order - and they must in the future answer for how they did it.]
But the 'Jesus way' isn't new! It's exactly what the Creator ordered for mankind from the beginning. 'Love your neighbour' was an instruction the LORD gave to Israel through Moses (Leviticus 19:18). God, in the Old Testament is described as 'a God full of compassion and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth' (Psalm 86:15). Can you find a better description of Jesus?
The LORD of the Old Testament and of the New is patient with us, withholding just punishment and allowing space for us to change.
However, as wise King Solomon noted: "He who is often rebuked and hardens his neck will suddenly be destroyed - and that without remedy " (Proverbs 29:1). As in the 'days of Noah' God's almost endless patience has a limit (Genesis 6)! The tumultuous end-times will herald an end to God's merciful toleration of human depravity. The unrepentant among mankind will be literally destroyed by the returning King of kings, Jesus Christ, as he separates the righteous from the wicked, the obedient from the disobedient, the sheep from the goats.
In both Old and New Testament - under law and under grace - God shares the same love for mankind - and the same hatred of all that defiles mankind.
God has not - will not - change.
To comment on this article or request more information, please contact James McBride by e-mail at the comment form below.
For PDF or mailed copy, see CGOM. Excerpt from New Horizons Issue 35, September/October 2002. Edited by James McBride of the Churches of God, United Kingdom.
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