An Untamed God

Revelation 1:17-18

New King James Version (NKJV)

And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.

When I was in high school, a boy went to my youth group that many people, including myself, admired.  He always seemed to have something insightful to say about God or faith or whatever else we were discussing, and we thought he was just so wise.  One time, he said something like, "Having a kid must have really had an impact on God, because the God of the New Testament is so much more tame than the God of the Old Testament."  At the time, I was nodding my head in agreement, thinking how right he was. At first glance, it seems like the God of the New Testament really is so much more loving and compassionate than the God of the Old Testament.  He's not though.

What I have learned with much studying and growing in my faith is this: the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament is the same God.  He hasn't changed. In fact, He has been fairly consistent throughout the course of time.  People feel like Jesus was so peaceful compared to the God of the Old Testament, but Jesus is God, and God is Jesus. They are one.  Neither one is more or less powerful or peaceful than the other.

In the following paragraph, some numbers are listed, showing how God has stayed pretty consistent overall. These numbers I found from another blog. 

"A cursory non-academic scanning of the Old Testament reveals 446 mentions of God’s ‘love’ and 100 occurrences of ‘mercy’ as opposed to 135 mentions of ‘hate’ and 173 of ‘wrath’. [...] this is a significant statistic: 551 love/mercy vs. 308 hate/wrath. Compare this to the New Testament where the statistic is 291 love/mercy vs. 71 hate/wrath.

In both testaments, God has been more loving and merciful than angry or hateful.  The wrath to mercy ratio may be a bit higher in the Old Testament than the new, but much of the Old Testament took place during a time of war rather than a time of peace. Wrath was more appropriate then.  Overall, God is a loving and merciful God, no matter what testament we look at.

Now that we understand that the Old Testament is just as loving as the New, we must understand that God is just as powerful and frightening in the New Testament as he is in the Old.  Nowadays, people have a tendency to make Jesus out to be a rather nice doormat that we can walk all over if we desire. We use his mercy for our own selfish purposes, justifying our sins with his goodness, saying, "Jesus wouldn't care if I did this," or "Jesus loves us whether we sin or not, so why not sin?"

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is John 8:1-12.  In it, a woman who has committed adultery is brought to Jesus, and he has mercy upon her.  This is not a reason for us to sin. Jesus does not approve of adultery, nor does he want us to sin just because he forgives. Nonetheless, when a broken sinner humbly comes to him, he will forgive him or her.  Had she arrogantly rejected him as the people of the Old Testament did, Jesus would certainly have handled the situation a bit differently.

In Matthew 21:12-13, Jesus became angry with those who carelessly disrespected God. He even knocked over tables because he was so mad! Do not treat Jesus like a house cat when he's a lion.  God might appear more merciful in the New Testament than in the old just because His people were being changed.  They had guidance and learned to come to God with humility.  When they didn't, though, Jesus very much so reflected the God of the Old Testament. The same things that made the Old Testament God angry made Jesus angry, for they are the same. Why do you think they crucified Jesus? Because He was a nice guy? They crucified him because he was threatening and frightening. He told the truth, whether it was comfortable or not. He makes the rules.

Therefore, if someone makes a comment about how different God is now compared to how He was before Jesus came along, do not foolishly nod your head as I did. For God is as unchanging and all powerful now as He always has been.  He knows when to be merciful and when to pour out His wrath; we cannot pretend to control Him, for He isn't a tame God. 

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