Why is God angry in the OT but loving in the NT?

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Kudos to Mintaka for that post.

I completely agree: Yes, the human authors’ portrayal of God does develop throughout Scripture, but there’s not a sharp OT/NT dividing line. The God portrayed in the Prophets and Wisdom books is quite loving and protective of His people. Even as far back as the book of Jonah, we have God caring about the fate of the citizens of Israel’s enemy nations (much to the shock and resentment of Jonah himself).

Yes, God through the prophets frequently warns of terrible fates that will befall Israel if the people are not faithful, and a time or two He actually leaves them to those fates for a few centuries, but the overall thrust of the OT is that God is a faithful “husband” even when Israel is an unfaithful “bride.” Poor Hosea spent his entire prophetic career carrying out a piece of God-ordered “performance art,” taking a prostitute off the streets as his wife and then taking her back even after she abandoned him, just to show how God related to His people.

Even Jesus, who reveals God’s loving Fatherhood to us most clearly, also warns of damnation for those who refuse to hear Him. The main difference seems to be that Jesus operates on more of an individual level, while God in the OT worked on the level of nations (and thus can seem, to our eyes, callous when permitting the suffering or death of individuals to teach a lesson to an entire people).

Also, in the OT the full truth about the afterlife had not yet been revealed. An untimely physical death was seen as God’s ultimate punishment. Now, knowing that death is not the end nor the ultimate evil, we should be able to take some comfort even when reading about stories of God’s fatal punishments, since any innocents who died can easily have been rewarded after death. When we think “But God used to kill people,” we must remember that God at least permits, if not directly causes, every human death, whether of old age or untimely accident. It is evil for us to take life unjustly, because we did not give it. But God ultimately gives, and takes, every life.

Usagi
 
BlueShadow123 said:
Nope. I don’t know where you saw that in my post.
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Then I’m sorry I misunderstood. But you began your response with “Because…”. Without quoting who you are responding to, one can assume you are responding to the opening query. That query being Why is God angry in the OT but loving in the NT?

Again, I am sorry if I misread your post, brother.
 
NotWorthy said:
Then I’m sorry I misunderstood. But you began your response with “Because…”. Without quoting who you are responding to, one can assume you are responding to the opening query. That query being Why is God angry in the OT but loving in the NT?

Again, I am sorry if I misread your post, brother.
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I am a girl. 😃
 
If you really consider some of the things in the Old Testament you’ll see they’re much more a showing of love than anger. Why did God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden and send them to the earth? Because he loves them and wants them to be in heaven, punishment was in an effort to straighten them out! 👍
 
catholicpublish said:
If you really consider some of the things in the Old Testament you’ll see they’re much more a showing of love than anger. Why did God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden and send them to the earth? Because he loves them and wants them to be in heaven, punishment was in an effort to straighten them out! 👍
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The same, of course, goes with Israel. Whenever she thrived and succeeded, Israel would turn away from God. Whenever she suffered, Israel would return to the Lord.

Do you ever wonder why God allows suffering to exist in the world? So people can repent and return to Him.
 
I used to wonder the very same thing. In fact it is the same God in both testaments. And Jesus was hardly all-loving in the NT. He kicked over the moneychanger’s tables, was very angry with the Pharisees, did not walk over to them and put His arm around them and say to them, I think you will be fine eventually, no, he called them a brood of snakes, vipers, and in many other passages in the NT He expressed anger, wondering at people’s unbelief, asking the 12 how much longer He had to be around them.
It was not unbridled or unreasonable anger, it was just and righteous, as He is God.
The God of the OT was not always angry. He was with the constant disobedience of His people, yes, and rightfully so, every time they were by themselves for any length of time, they began worshipping other gods, a golden calf while Moses was up on Sinai talking with God! But the God of the OT also rescued them from slavery in Egypt, drowned the Egyptian army in the Red Sea, provided manna from heaven in the desert, the word Manna ,meaning literally “what is it?”. So the God of the OT was not always angry, and when He was it was His perogative. And the God of the NT was not always loving and soft-hearted, and again, rightfully so.
 
Think of this too - the Old Testament covers the development of the entire human race! If you were an inventor you wouldn’t go with a first draft, you’d kick a few things into place first!
 
I just posted a question about this in the Philosophy forum, and I think this will drastically change your view!

**It is infallible Catholic teaching that God cannot have feelings of any kind. **This is for philosophical and theological reasons, but it is enough to say right now that it is infallible Catholic teaching inspired by the Holy Spirit. So it’s the truth! What this means is that whenever you see God described as “angry” or “jealous,” what you are seeing is God from a human point of view, and a limited one at that. Remember, in the arc of salvation history, from Abraham to the fullness of truth found in the Catholic Church, there is a moral and theological development in the understanding of God’s people. We start out very ignorant, but we learn more and more until we get to the fullness of truth found in the Church.

Hope that was a help!!!
 
Back to OP, I feel that the paradox is part of the beautiful complexity of our faith. In both the OT and NT we see insights of God’s Perfect Justice, but we also see the Perfect Love that is behind the whole story of creation. Its a paradox that only God, it seems, can solve. Remember though that God’s Justice is Perfect, his love infinite, and that death is not the end.

Lot’s offer of his daughters to his neighbor in Sodom does sound outrageous to our ears, but it was probably a desperate situation and the least worst evil, he could think of at the time. I don’t think its condoned, but it highlights his reverence for his angelic guests. I mean what would you do? Later both his daughters slept with him (incest) and conceived. Just because the Bible reports it doesn’t mean it was condoned.
 
Has everyone forgotten Ananias and Sapphira?
Elymas?
Herod Agrippa I?
or the pains described in the book of Revelation?

Who says God is all lovey-dovey even in the New Testament? He is as just as he ever was in the Old, just as he is as loving as in the Old as he is in the New.
 
porthos11 said:
Has everyone forgotten Ananias and Sapphira?
Elymas?
Herod Agrippa I?
or the pains described in the book of Revelation?

Who says God is all lovey-dovey even in the New Testament? He is as just as he ever was in the Old, just as he is as loving as in the Old as he is in the New.
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I agree. Jesus speaks more about the pains of hell than He does the rewards of heaven, too.
 
Windfish said:
Remember, in the arc of salvation history, from Abraham to the fullness of truth found in the Catholic Church, there is a moral and theological development in the understanding of God’s people. We start out very ignorant, but we learn more and more until we get to the fullness of truth found in the Church.
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This is an important point with regards to the original question asked.

It’s important to remember that God had not fully revealed himself until the advent of Christ and as such, knowledge of God was incomplete in the OT. John sums up the revelation of God through Jesus in the New Testament when he says simply, “God is love.”

The anger and punishment in the OT was seen as coming from God but in the New Testament it was revealed as being a turning away from the God (who is love) and therefor the absence of God brought on by one’s own actions (sins). As an example, an Evangelical friend asked me how a loving God could send an evil spirit to Saul. He was interpreting the Bible literally and could not grasp that it was only an incomplete view - a loving God does not send evil spirits to people.

Psalm 95 (I think, from memory) testifies to this;

I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray and the do not know my ways.” So I swore in my anger, "They shall not enter into my rest." -Tim-
 
For what it’s worth, I’ll throw this explanation out there which I saw in some protestant tract. It delt with exactly the same question.

It said we can think of God as having different sides to his personality. Similar to a good judge in a court of law. At times hes is strict and gives out harsh (but just) punishments. Other times he is compassionate. He goes home at night and is a kind and loving father to his children.

just thought I’d thow it out there
 
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