Fire from Heaven. Bears mauling people. A flood wiping out almost every human on Earth. When we read the Old Testament, the God we read about seems so different from the one we know today. Sure, He still hates sin, but not so much that we need to stone our children for disobeying us. So why does God seem so different after Jesus Christ entered the story?
From tyrant to teddy bear?
Before reading on, ask yourself how you would answer this.
If you ask most Christians, the popular answer is that Jesus “softened” God. Think of God as a guy in his 20s who’s filled with fire and passion, but doesn’t have the patience and wisdom to interact with people. So God had good desires for people to live correctly and obey Him, but in His excitement and immaturity would often overreact. In short, God was a bit too heavy-handed for His own good.
Thus when Christ was born, that brash young man became a father. He got mellowed out and learned how to interact with people in a more calm, measured way. God seems so different after Christ because He is different. He’s more mature, patient, and caring because God’s love for His son has shown Him the right way.
In a way, this makes sense to us on a human level. If we’ve known someone before and after they were a parent, there’s often a clear change in how they think and act. They become less selfish, more reasonable, more mindful of money, etc. Kids really do have a way of teaching us to think beyond ourselves as we take on the responsibility of raising them to be functional, Christ-honoring adults.
Is that what’s happening with the creator of the universe? Did He go from being a God of wrath to a God of love simply because of Jesus Christ?
A God of wrath
The God we see in the Old Testament is accused of being everything from a bully to a monster. He’s described as a child who immediately jumps to the nuclear option whenever someone steps out of line. We can’t deny that God directly ended the lives of many people in the Old Testament. The big question we need to ask, however, is “why?”
There are six things which the Lord hates,
Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him:
Haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
And hands that shed innocent blood,
A heart that devises wicked plans,
Feet that run rapidly to evil,
A false witness who utters lies,
And one who spreads strife among brothers. (Proverbs 6:16-19)
Here, we get a glimpse into the character of God. We get a chance to see the world as God does, and especially view human behavior through His eyes. These are things that the almighty God of the universe hates.
At this point, we should consider who God is. God isn’t just good, He defines good. He doesn’t just love, He determines what love really is. God is ultimate, and everything He loves and hates is either absolutely right or absolutely wrong.
This is why some people define sin as “anything that Goes against God.” In the end, there’s nothing neutral in the universe. Either God loves it because it agrees with His goodness, or it’s evil because it goes against Him.
For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:14)
Before we look at God’s wrath, we must remember His justice. God is the ultimate understanding of justice. Consider how much we hate when someone lies to us, hurts a child, or murders others. We demand justice, and rightly so. Because we are made in the likeness of God, we understand that it’s right for evil to be punished. And just as we expect earthly judges to rightly punish evil, the judge of all the earth will be the ultimate judge of all evil.
So when we see God display His wrath, we must keep in mind why He’s wrathful. Is He angry because He’s not getting His way, or because an all-good God must punish evil? After all, we must remember that for Him to be truly good, He must judge and punish evil.
Take any instance in the Bible where we see God reach down to destroy someone and examine why He’s doing it. What evil are they celebrating? What level of disobedience and disrespect are they displaying? If all evil must be punished, then it’s important to figure out whether or not God is unjustly punishing something.
There may be times when it seems like God is overreacting. People love to point out 2 Kings 2:23-24, which shows God sending bears to kill 42 young men making fun of His prophet (as a note, this is sometimes mistranslated as 42 children, but it’s better understood as men in their late teens and early 20s). In times like these where it seems like God is taking things a bit too far, we are left with two possibilities.
One possibility is that an infinite, perfect God really is going overboard with His reaction. If that’s true, then our ability to see that means we are morally superior to God and have a right to question His actions. We can look at that and say “I’d never do that, so God was clearly wrong.”
The other, far more likely option, is that we have a very poor view of sin and holiness. In our depravity, we see the sins of people throughout the Bible and think “it’s not that bad” because we have a limited view of how evil something really is. It’s not that God is going too far in His reaction, but that we haven’t come far enough in our understanding of how wicked people are and how perfect God truly is.
Seeing God’s eternal goodness
God takes sin seriously, and so should we. Yet despite how things appear, God was still incredibly loving and patient in the Old Testament. Next time, we’ll see just how good God is when faced with so much evil.
