A Different God?

[Pard]

All to often I hear the cringing excuse that goes something to the effect of:

"Well that was the 'Old Testament God'. The 'God of the New Testament' is different."

How much more wrong can you get without outright denying God?! I don't know how to react to these types of statements. Do I laugh or do I cry?

My God is the One who Spoke the world into creation in Genesis 1 and He is the God who led the Jews into many a victorious war and He is the One who leveled two entire cities and he is the One who brought upon the Great Flood which reduced the human population to less than a dozen. And He is also the one who cleaned the feet of His own disciples and He is the same God who cured the sick and gave sight to the blind. And He is the same one who said to love our enemies.

Could someone please explain this rationale people have? God is God and there is no difference between my God from the Old Testament to the New Testament. I don't know about your god but my God is unchanging and is the same and has always been the same.

Psalm 140

1Rescue me, LORD, from evildoers;
protect me from the violent,
2 who devise evil plans in their hearts
and stir up war every day.
3 They make their tongues as sharp as a serpent’s;
the poison of vipers is on their lips. 4 Keep me safe, LORD, from the hands of the wicked;
protect me from the violent,
who devise ways to trip my feet.
5 The arrogant have hidden a snare for me;
they have spread out the cords of their net
and have set traps for me along my path.
6 I say to the LORD, “You are my God.â€
Hear, LORD, my cry for mercy.
7 Sovereign LORD, my strong deliverer,
you shield my head in the day of battle.
8 Do not grant the wicked their desires, LORD;
do not let their plans succeed.
9 Those who surround me proudly rear their heads;
may the mischief of their lips engulf them.
10 May burning coals fall on them;
may they be thrown into the fire,
into miry pits, never to rise.
11 May slanderers not be established in the land;
may disaster hunt down the violent.
12 I know that the LORD secures justice for the poor
and upholds the cause of the needy.
13 Surely the righteous will praise your name,
and the upright will live in your presence.

 

[glorydaz]

All to often I hear the cringing excuse that goes something to the effect of:

"Well that was the 'Old Testament God'. The 'God of the New Testament' is different."

How much more wrong can you get without outright denying God?! I don't know how to react to these types of statements. Do I laugh or do I cry?

My God is the One who Spoke the world into creation in Genesis 1 and He is the God who led the Jews into many a victorious war and He is the One who leveled two entire cities and he is the One who brought upon the Great Flood which reduced the human population to less than a dozen. And He is also the one who cleaned the feet of His own disciples and He is the same God who cured the sick and gave sight to the blind. And He is the same one who said to love our enemies.

Could someone please explain this rationale people have? God is God and there is no difference between my God from the Old Testament to the New Testament. I don't know about your god but my God is unchanging and is the same and has always been the same.

Psalm 140

I don't understand it either. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is a God of Love and a God of Wrath, and nothing has changed with Him. The same God who barred Adam and Eve from the garden for taking a bite off an apple is the same One many claim will love us no matter what we do. Sometimes, when I hear someone say Jesus didn't really have to die for our sins or Jesus is so loving He would never punish us, I think of John's description of Him in Revelation. This is the same Jesus who wore a crown of thorns...how He appears today. No wonder John "fell at His feet as dead."

He heard a voice saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega...

And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

 

[jasoncran]

All to often I hear the cringing excuse that goes something to the effect of:

"Well that was the 'Old Testament God'. The 'God of the New Testament' is different."

How much more wrong can you get without outright denying God?! I don't know how to react to these types of statements. Do I laugh or do I cry?

My God is the One who Spoke the world into creation in Genesis 1 and He is the God who led the Jews into many a victorious war and He is the One who leveled two entire cities and he is the One who brought upon the Great Flood which reduced the human population to less than a dozen. And He is also the one who cleaned the feet of His own disciples and He is the same God who cured the sick and gave sight to the blind. And He is the same one who said to love our enemies.

Could someone please explain this rationale people have? God is God and there is no difference between my God from the Old Testament to the New Testament. I don't know about your god but my God is unchanging and is the same and has always been the same.

Psalm 140

simple plain ignorance of the old testament!

 

[Gazelle]

Reply with Bible verses. For a start, "I AM the Lord thy God, I change not." Malachi 3:6

 

[stovebolts]

Honestly, I think people view God differently in the OT than they do in the NT because they haven't grappled with the truth that God actually told the Israelites to kill every man, woman and child thought out many villages. also, they don't understand the differences between the covenants.

I don't know about you, but if I'm honest with myself, I have a hard time comprehending this from the offset. Put it this way, God commands the Isrealites not to kill as outlined within the 10 commandments, yet he tells the Isrealites to kill every man, woman, child and donkey in an entire villiage. How does one wrap their minds around the idea in the NT that "God is love" and that "God is the same today, as he was yesterday".

While this is something that I worked through long ago, how do you explain the idea that "God is love" when there is so much violence. Furthermore, how do you explain the apparent contradiction about not killing, then commanding to kill?

Again, these are things I've worked through, but many won't. It's too easy to put on our rose colored glasses and sing "God is love" and get that warm fuzzy.

The world around us is full of evil, and we ought to open our eyes once in awhile to see it the way God sees it.

 

[jasoncran]

i still hold to the idea that in jude it says this enoch prophesied of these the lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints.


hmm. he talking about the saints (us) with him taking lives of sinners on that final day.

i do see support for that. paul spoke of us judging the world and angels.

 

[Pard]

I'm a very legalistic person in both Biblical terms and human laws. If you break the law you are subject to the penalties thereof. The penalty for sin is death. God has every right to demand justice for the injustice done against Him and if He asks His people to exact this justice than so it shall be. I have never had a problem rationalizing this issue. It makes you really take every moment as a gift because truly He could strike any of us sinners down at any moment and He'd be right in doing so.

God gave the world Jesus as a means to escape this. Jesus is (in modern legal terms) AR (Accelerated Rehabilitation). You accept Jesus and you can forgo the penalties for breaking that law because you accepted God's love. Or you can be that guy in every courtroom who thinks he can plead his case before the jury and that guy gets shafted with maximum sentencing.

 

[jasoncran]

jewish laws dont really work like that totally. yes they had punishments as isreal was theoracry. the torah was there to teach man what sin was and should be the means wherewith we lead sinners to repent. all that is in the law as ins can be found in galatians 5 in short.

 

[Pard]

But I'm not talking about the Hebrew Law :p

I speak of the superseding law of God and the U.S. Penal Code and the penal codes of the various states.

The very act of sinning itself. To sin (it doesn't matter what) is a crime with the punishment of death.

Ezekiel 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
James 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death

 

[jasoncran]

i know that but if the laws dont and arent based on biblical values then what law are they?

ie abortion. i may abort billions and never be jailed and yet i stand condemned for god for murder.

god laws are the only right laws to base a land on. of course we should use common sense one some of that.

if we apply the death penalty to the gays then so must liars, idol worshippers and also that list in romans be made to die.

 

[stovebolts]

i still hold to the idea that in jude it says this enoch prophesied of these the lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints.


hmm. he talking about the saints (us) with him taking lives of sinners on that final day.

i do see support for that. paul spoke of us judging the world and angels.

I'm not sure I'm following you Jason. I'd like to hear more about what you have to say here.

Thanks!

 

[stovebolts]

I'm a very legalistic person in both Biblical terms and human laws. If you break the law you are subject to the penalties thereof. The penalty for sin is death. God has every right to demand justice for the injustice done against Him and if He asks His people to exact this justice than so it shall be. I have never had a problem rationalizing this issue. It makes you really take every moment as a gift because truly He could strike any of us sinners down at any moment and He'd be right in doing so.

God gave the world Jesus as a means to escape this. Jesus is (in modern legal terms) AR (Accelerated Rehabilitation). You accept Jesus and you can forgo the penalties for breaking that law because you accepted God's love. Or you can be that guy in every courtroom who thinks he can plead his case before the jury and that guy gets shafted with maximum sentencing.

Hi Pard,

I want to start off by saying that I don't in essence disagree with you. But what you gave was your biased opinion and you didn't address the presumed contradiction in scripture that I presented.

I think that as Christians some of us really need to develop our understanding of the scriptures. So if you dont mind Pard, can I lead you in a way that is going to push you a tad? Also, I don't mind people pushing me either, because I don't think it's a wrong thing to wrestle with scripture.

I'll give you the first piece, and it's fairly easy. The question was: How does a loving God go in and kill all the men, woman and children of Jericho.

You'll find the first part of the answer in God's conversation with Abram when God tells Abram that his decedents will be in a land not their own for 400 years. Seek the reason they will be in Egypt for 400 years and you'll find the answer as to why the men, woman and children were to be killed in Jericho.

This then takes us to the command: Thou shall not kill which appears as part of the 10 commandments, yet we see them being commanded to kill when they enter the promise land. But we even see them kill their own by means of stoning by God's command.

I hope this will be an educational discussion.

 

[Jam]

Although this doesn't neatly dissolve the issue, am I wrong in believing that a more literal translation of the Commandment renders it a prohibition of murder; not simply killing..? otherwise we would be breaking the Commandments consistently and on a massive scale for our entire lives: consider all the microorganisms, plants and animals that we kill!

Even excepting the killing of non-humans, I think "murder" makes the Command clearer. Murder is, essentially, unlawful killing and therefore when God, as the arbiter of the Law, commands killing, it ceases to become unlawful and is therefore not murder... But then, I suppose, what use is a law that states "you shall not kill unlawfully."? It means nothing without further elaboration on what is and is not lawful...

Anyway, sorry for my rambling- I've basically just been typing what I thought as I thought it haha! So yeah, please forgive me if I've said anything stupid!

 

[stovebolts]

No Light, I don't think what you wrote was stupid at all. Actually, I'm glad somebody took enough time to even think about it!

When it comes to killing people, what types of people do we see that God authorizes the killing?

 

[Jam]

Okay, I'm glad I've been of some use haha! I just checked up the Commandments in Young's Literal, and it is there translated as murder, so I think I'll go with that...

14Thou dost not murder.

But that still leaves us with the issue of an apparently loving god doing things that seem to us, on the surface, to be immoral, yes? My usual reconciliation of God's omnibenevolence with some of His acts is actually a direct appeal to His omnibenevolence and status as the arbiter of morality... if God does something, then it is (by God's very nature) necessarily just and moral (that isn't to say that it is just/moral for us humans to do what God does, mind). If something that God does seems immoral to us, then we must conclude that it is our own perceptions of morality that are flawed and not those of God...

I don't think that idea goes down well with some people, though, as it offers no reasons as to why God might do these things. Again, I can just say that this does not mean that there are no reasons, but I'm aware that this answer isn't very satisfactory for some people... unfortunately I can't really add anymore, because my simple answer would just be that I don't know why God does things; His transcendence often makes such knowledge impossible to obtain!

 

[childeye]

=Pard;588865]All to often I hear the cringing excuse that goes something to the effect of:

"Well that was the 'Old Testament God'. The 'God of the New Testament' is different."

How much more wrong can you get without outright denying God?! I don't know how to react to these types of statements. Do I laugh or do I cry?

Could someone please explain this rationale people have? God is God and there is no difference between my God from the Old Testament to the New Testament. I don't know about your god but my God is unchanging and is the same and has always been the same.

This was written by Justin Martyr: second apology of Justin for the Christians addressed to the Roman senate, chapter five:

But if this idea take possession of some one that if we acknowledge God as our helper, we should not act as we say, be oppressed and persecuted by the wicked; this too I will solve. God, when He made the whole world, and subjected things earthly to man, and arranged the heavenly elements for the increase of fruits and rotation of the seasons, and appointed this divine law- for these things also He evidently made for man-committed the care of men and of all things under heaven to angels whom He appointed over them. But the angels transgressed this appointment and were captivated by love of women, and begat children who are those that are called demons; and besides, they afterwards subdued the human race to them selves, partly by magical writings, and partly by fears and the punishments in need after they were enslaved by lustful passions;and among men they sowed murders, wars,adulteries,intemperate deeds, and all wickedness. Whence also the poets and mythologists, not knowing that it was the angels and those demons who had been begotten by them that did these things to men, and women, and cities, and nations, which they related, ascribed them to God Himself, and to those who were accounted to be his very offspring, and to the offspring of those who were called his brothers, Neptune and Pluto, and to the children again of those offspring. For whatever name each of the angels had given to himself and his children, by that name they called them.


2 Corinthians 3:6

King James Version (KJV)


6Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.


Romans 2:29

King James Version (KJV)


29But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
Colossians 2:14-15

King James Version (KJV)



14Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

Galatians 4:21-26

King James Version (KJV)



21Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
22For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
23But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
24Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
25For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. 26But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

 

[jasoncran]

I'm not sure I'm following you Jason. I'd like to hear more about what you have to say here.

Thanks!

paul said in 1 corthinians 6 that you dont know that we will judge men and angels?

and in revalation it says those that died in the tribulation for the lord sat on thrones and reigned with him for a thousand years.

it also says in jude that enoch prophecied of these saying the lord cometh with his ten thousands thousands.

so we do come back to judge the sinner when we are caught up so to speak.

 

[stovebolts]

Okay, I'm glad I've been of some use haha! I just checked up the Commandments in Young's Literal, and it is there translated as murder, so I think I'll go with that...

But that still leaves us with the issue of an apparently loving god doing things that seem to us, on the surface, to be immoral, yes? My usual reconciliation of God's omnibenevolence with some of His acts is actually a direct appeal to His omnibenevolence and status as the arbiter of morality... if God does something, then it is (by God's very nature) necessarily just and moral (that isn't to say that it is just/moral for us humans to do what God does, mind). If something that God does seems immoral to us, then we must conclude that it is our own perceptions of morality that are flawed and not those of God...

I don't think that idea goes down well with some people, though, as it offers no reasons as to why God might do these things. Again, I can just say that this does not mean that there are no reasons, but I'm aware that this answer isn't very satisfactory for some people... unfortunately I can't really add anymore, because my simple answer would just be that I don't know why God does things; His transcendence often makes such knowledge impossible to obtain!

Hello Light,

Kill, Murder... I think there's more to it than that.

It looks like you understand your theology, but lets get to know the story a little bit better because theology, even correct theology is never as powerful as the story.

In Genesis 15 we find this verse.

In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

Why are the Israelite's in bondge for 400 years? Because the sin of the Amorites hasn't reached it's full measure. Now then, what in the world does that mean?

BTW, do we know what gods the Amorites served? What was their rituals?

When we find that piece, we see the intended interpretation of "Thou shall not kill" and how to deal with those that do... and if we're good students in this area, that points us directly to hell.

 

[Pard]

I didn't forget you Jeff!

I'll give you the first piece, and it's fairly easy. The question was: How does a loving God go in and kill all the men, woman and children of Jericho.

Just before I dive into this I'd like to state my answer from a current frame of mind. He does this because they have broken the Law. Even those who do not know the Law in an intimate fashion (i.e. Jews) still know the Law through other means (Romans 1:18-20). God has ensured that His Law transcends all nations and nationalities. In this way they cannot even plead ignorance of the Law.

It is also the case that the penalty for breaking the Law is death. He is a just God for following through with the penalty for breaking the Law. Today we often get caught up in the persons who break the laws and not in the enforcement of the law. We say it is "just" when a judge lets a thief off with community service but this isn't so. And we see people cheer when rapists are released from jail after serving only a year. These things are not just. Just means to compliment justice and the only way to do that is to punish the law breaker with a fitting penalty. In the case of breaking the Law the penalty is death and God deals out this penalty the same way a parent deals out a spanking for back mouthing or vandalizing the wall.

He is also loving in this way. The same way a parent is still loving when they punish their child He is also loving in punishing us and the people of Jericho. A parent only becomes unloving in punishment when the parent comes to enjoy dealing out this punishment and we never see any hint of God finding pleasure in His justice.

OK and now to follow your train of thought...

You'll find the first part of the answer in God's conversation with Abram when God tells Abram that his decedents will be in a land not their own for 400 years. Seek the reason they will be in Egypt for 400 years and you'll find the answer as to why the men, woman and children were to be killed in Jericho.

Scavenger hunt! Yes!!!

Well I'm not entirely sure but I'd have to say this was because they were often very negative towards God's ability. Abram went to Egypt before because of famine which shows that he didn't have much faith in God's ability to provide. Instead of raising 4 generations of Hebrews in this same environment God decided that it'd be better if they knew strife so that they could better appreciate and rely upon God.

This then takes us to the command: Thou shall not kill which appears as part of the 10 commandments, yet we see them being commanded to kill when they enter the promise land. But we even see them kill their own by means of stoning by God's command.

13`Thou dost not murder.

The word isn't "kill" but "murder".

Murder is the unlawful and premeditated killing of another human being.

Killing is simply the taking of a life.

 

[childeye]

God is not different in the Old Testament. It's just that the Old Testament was under the administration of angels, even corrupted angels. It was not under God's administration.