Why is God so different in the Old Testament than He is in the New Testament?

[PJM]

=ahs;13239593]Ya’ know, before you can refer to God as the “wrathful God of the OT”, you’re probably gonna have to explain how it was “wrathful” to create man, give him a chance at eternal bliss, watch man totally blow it, and then STILL have mercy on man and offer him a way back to eternal bliss that not only include the often-ungrateful Israelites, but the whole of humanity.

Porthos 11 points this out as well a few comments above…

Great and very insightful response:thumbsup:

 

[Heismysword]

2 Samuel 6:7, “The anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark; and he died there beside the ark of God.”

Uzzah is not an innocent in the story. While a cursory reading makes it seem like God was punishing him for “saving” the Ark on deeper reflection we find that this was really not the case. Uzzah was helping to transport the most sacred item in the OT era, where God himself was Enthroned in an ox cart!. Let us not forget that earlier in the book the Philistines, after capturing the Ark and suffering plagues, sent it back * in an ox cart!*. The story is portraying a group of believers who treat Gods commandments/artifacts with the same scorn as the Unbeliever.

 

[fred_conty]

I know that we say God never changes…“I am who am”. So it would seem that God would be the same in the OT and the NT.

But there is something new about God in the New that isn’t in the Old…Jesus, the Son of the Father, who became MAN. He became one of us. That is very different and is a big change, not in God, but that God became one of us and made us one with him.

Isn’t the Father so pleased by his only beloved Son’s act of atonement for us, that the Father would deal with us in a totally new way…seeing us now as his sons/daughters as well…the life of Jesus in the souls of men. Wouldn’t that make a huge difference in his treatment of mankind…being now his family and not just his chosen people?

 

[Thorolfr]

Uzzah is not an innocent in the story. While a cursory reading makes it seem like God was punishing him for “saving” the Ark on deeper reflection we find that this was really not the case. Uzzah was helping to transport the most sacred item in the OT era, where God himself was Enthroned in an ox cart!. Let us not forget that earlier in the book the Philistines, after capturing the Ark and suffering plagues, sent it back * in an ox cart!*. The story is portraying a group of believers who treat Gods commandments/artifacts with the same scorn as the Unbeliever.

Then God should have smitten and killed David who as king had probably directed and allowed that the ark be transported in this manner to Jerusalem.

 

[fred_conty]

In the case of Uzzah, it seems that God is expressing his divine majesty, and that there is a certain proprity that must be kept because he is what he is.

In the New Testament, it seems that God’s emphasis is not on his divine majesty, or as the Bible put it, Christ clinging to his greatness, but rather God shows us his humility thru his Son, and now his extreme love for us in the Eucharist, which we touch with our own hands, greater than touching the ark in the Old Testament.

“I no longer call you servants, but friends.”

 

[Heismysword]

Then God should have smitten and killed David who as king had probably directed and allowed that the ark be transported in this manner to Jerusalem.

Now you are speculating on what happened/didn’t happen. We don’t know if David did, or did not, tell Uzzah to transport it in an ox cart It is equally as possible that David just said “Go get the Ark” and assumed that they would do so according to the Law.

In no way does this story reflect God as being the one in the wrong. He gave humans a set of rules to follow, and by consciously rejecting the Lord’s Law, Uzzah paid the price. Love, and mercy, are a two way street. Without reciprocating Gods love, by following the Law he placed on us, we are doomed to be parted from him for eternity.

 

[kayla]

I just finished reading this “wonderful book” by Scott Hahn called
" A Father who keeps his Promises" It explores the covenant of love God reveals to us through the scriptures and how he remains consistent from the old testament into the new. In this book, I believe you will find the answer to your question.

 

[Thorolfr]

Now you are speculating on what happened/didn’t happen. We don’t know if David did, or did not, tell Uzzah to transport it in an ox cart It is equally as possible that David just said “Go get the Ark” and assumed that they would do so according to the Law.

In no way does this story reflect God as being the one in the wrong. He gave humans a set of rules to follow, and by consciously rejecting the Lord’s Law, Uzzah paid the price. Love, and mercy, are a two way street. Without reciprocating Gods love, by following the Law he placed on us, we are doomed to be parted from him for eternity.

You seem not to have read the story:

3 They carried the ark of God on a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio,[a] the sons of Abinadab, were driving the new cart 4 with the ark of God;** and Ahio[c] went in front of the ark. 5 David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their might, with songs[d] and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.**

So David and his household were dancing and playing music in front of the ark as it was being transported. It can’t be pretended that David didn’t know how it was being transported.

 

[ynotzap]

For what it is worth: In the Old testament, it was the letter of the law that was enforced, At that time the Sanctifying Spirit, the Holy Spirit was not given, it was lost by Adam and Eve. It was through Jesus that the Holy Spirit was merited for us. With the coming of Jesus, it was the spirit of the law that was emphasized. Jesus brought out this truth in His criticism of the Pharisees calling them hypocrites following the letter of the law, but not the spirit. When the Israelites complained that they had no food while crossing the desert, God gave them manna from Heaven, but He also sent a plague of serpents to bite them, then He had Moses raised a brass or gold serpent (representing Jesus) and all who gazed on the serpent were healed. Discipline was apparently severe because it probably was needed at that time, God often referred to them, even in the New Testament, as a “stiff neck people” God loved His people then and now, but He deals with them and us with loving discipline , measured out in a just, and loving way, even if it is not understood. Even in our day we see God allowing tyrants to kill the innocent. God views are different then ours, His has to do with a “real eternity”, a real destiny for mankind, not just a temporal one. We judge as humans, not as God.

 

[gus]

This is actually one of the oldest heresies in Christain history
Marconism actually totally dismissed Jews by illiminaing the Old Testament and all the gospels except a revised Luke.
As in many Gnostic sects , the Old Testament God was not the New Testament God
But a Demiurge a kind of imperfect assistant who created the heavens and earth.not God the Father of Jesus ,who actually was all loving.
Moses and the prophets were sent by this asst.

Catholic Refutation to Marcionism was first offered by St Justin Martyr
In his dialogue with Trypho the Jew stating that the God of the Jews ,the creator of the universe and God the father of Jesus where one in the same. There was only one God for both Jews and Christains.
So powerfull do we refute this heresy
That our Creed States
The line from Iranaous
We believe in one God the father Almighty Creator of heaven and earth.
It was incorporated into the Roman rite of baptism and later into both the apostles and Nicene creeds

 

[MarcoPolo]

Part of it may be the perception of the OT authors. That is a principle of Catholic interpretation, to derive the original author’s meaning. For example, in the Church’s 1994 document The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, we see:*Catholic exegesis does not claim any particular scientific method as its own. It recognizes that one of the aspects of biblical texts is that they are the work of human authors, who employed both their own capacities for expression and the means which their age and social context put at their disposal.*With regard to Old Testament morality, the document states:*The writings of the Old Testament contain certain “imperfect and provisional” elements (“Dei Verbum,” 15), which the divine pedagogy could not eliminate right away.*This does not mean the OT contained “error” in teaching truth, but that the truth is taught through the accounts presented. Think of the OT and the NT as the life of a child (OT) and a young adult (NT). The child might be more likely to experience something like a spanking or have perceptions that are real to that child, but not entirely accurate. As the child grows up, he understands more clearly what the events in his youth signified, and thus, his picture is clearer. Even in the NT, Paul tells us that we still see through a “glass dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12).

So to see apparent variation in God from testament to testament could simply be the less clear and clearer perception of a younger versus more mature people of God viewing and understanding the same Divine Being.

 

[Abba]

How can the wrathful God of the Old Testament be the loving God of the New Testament?

He is the one and only God, the same God of the whole bible - a Trinitarian God.

He was guiding His beloved children. For their ‘hardness of heart’ He guided them in the manner that He did. When the Messiah finally came, they were still not ready to receive Him. The timing was right even though not all were ready to receive Him as He came - in sandals to tell them they could call God ‘Abba.’ Of course, let’s not lose sight of who we are talking about, the second person of the Trinity - God.

 

[Abba]

Death is not necessarily a punishment from G-d.

Hello meltzerboy,

Can you expand on this statement. What is the Jewish understanding?

Thanks.

 

[teeboy]

How can the wrathful God of the Old Testament be the loving God of the New Testament?

Justice is still preserved in the NT. God’s anger is just. Some may say God doesn’t have emotions, but using the phrase “just anger” can be a human way of explaining God.

The main thing that is new in the NT is grace. God didn’t bestow sacraments to individual to give his help in overcoming sin in the OT times. Israelites were bound not to sin yet they had no help from God. The priests in the OT merely offered up sacrifices in reparation for the sins of the Israelites. In the NT reparations are still made for sin yet grace exists to help us obey the Commandments.

 

[teeboy]

BTW… Grace is bestowed on us based on our actions.