No, God never changes... The new covenant just removed the curse of the law for believers who accept the Savior. But God's wrath will be poured out in judgement against all who reject Christ because his blood does not cover their sins.
Did God change from the Old Testament to the New Testament?
- Thread starter jacob_g
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No, God never changes... The new covenant just removed the curse of the law for believers who accept the Savior. But God's wrath will be poured out in judgement against all who reject Christ because his blood does not cover their sins.
So God is a kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde character?
And love is not the basis for morality and judgement, but God's capricious will?
It is more blasphemous to say God is a mass muderer. God is love. Period. We need to read such horrific passages through the lens of the life of Jesus. Jesus would never have run through children up with a sword!!
My understanding of God comes from Jesus and my own experience of God during my quiet time and contemplation. If I form my moral framework from love, then I won't go far wrong. I certainly wouldnt murder my Wiccan neighbours!
Who do you think ordered the destruction of Jericho?
I have never read of anything God destroyed that the destruction wasn't prompted by His love for us. God can make those decisions because God knows the very heart and being of any man, we don't. Each time God destroyed, it saved thousands of people and protected those who had eternal life.
How about prompted by His hatred for sin and iniquity? That is more to the point. It is Jesus who appeared to Joshua and told him to have that city destroyed (with God's help of course). And this corresponds to what we read in Hebrew 1:9 addressed to Christ: Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
There are some who do not wish to speak about the wrath of God against sin and unrighteousness. But that is presented in both the Old and the New Testaments.
God has always been patient,
God patiently waited in the days of Noah 1Pet.3:20
do you have contempt for the wealth of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, and yet do not know that God's kindness leads you to repentance? Rom.2:4
the LORD is ready to show you mercy; he sits on his throne, ready to have compassion on you. Indeed, the LORD is a just God; all who wait for him in faith will be blessed. Isa.30:18
Unfortunately, this is what I was talking about. Instead of reading the Bible and asking God for a right understanding of the stories you find unpalatable, you have taken the information about Jesus out of its proper context and now have a god of your own making. The god you believe in is not the God of the Bible, and your understanding of the God of the Bible is warped because He doesn't conform to your limited ideas of what a god should be.
I understand how you got where you are, and I also see your future path has two options: continue believing in the god of your own making and go on being your own (im)moral compass; or, abandon your false self-made god and humbly ask the true God to reveal Himself to you. I recommend the latter, because you will discover that God is more loving, gracious, patient, generous and kind than you have the capacity to comprehend.
M
Miri
Guest
God didn’t change He always had a plan from the beginning to redeem us - buy us back from the devil. That plan had to await for just the right time. In the meantime God had to ensure a remnant was preserved and not utterly destroyed by Satan, or all would have been lost. It’s the reason for the flood, Joseph and the saving of Gods people from starvation, Moses saving people from the Egyptians, capture and being taken away to Babylon, all those battles and indeed the whole Old Testament history!
Adam and Eve literally sold themselves to Satan he became their master and they became his slaves.
For those that are redeemed we are now under the authority of God and are no longer slaves to sin.
Try a word bible study about kinsman redeemer. It’s fascinating and woven all through the Old Testament. Jesus is the ultimate kinsman redeemer He paid an awful price to buy us back.
It was human beings who mucked up everything and satan who deceived them. The world forever after was changed the penalty death. Jesus bought us back by paying the penalty.
Romans 5:6-8 NKJV
[6] For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. [7] For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. [8] But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 6:21-23 NLT
[21] And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. [22] But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. [23] For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Galatians 4:4-7 NLT
[4] But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. [5] God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. [6] And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, "Abba, Father." [7] Now you are no longer a slave but God's own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.
Adam and Eve literally sold themselves to Satan he became their master and they became his slaves.
For those that are redeemed we are now under the authority of God and are no longer slaves to sin.
Try a word bible study about kinsman redeemer. It’s fascinating and woven all through the Old Testament. Jesus is the ultimate kinsman redeemer He paid an awful price to buy us back.
It was human beings who mucked up everything and satan who deceived them. The world forever after was changed the penalty death. Jesus bought us back by paying the penalty.
Romans 5:6-8 NKJV
[6] For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. [7] For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. [8] But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 6:21-23 NLT
[21] And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. [22] But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. [23] For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Galatians 4:4-7 NLT
[4] But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. [5] God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. [6] And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, "Abba, Father." [7] Now you are no longer a slave but God's own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.
M
Miri
Guest
Imagine part of your family were captured and brainwashed by a destructive enemy. You love them and will do anything to save them, but you have to wait for the right time to act. In the meantime you have to ensure at least some family members survive and remember who they are! That’s what God did.
This is a very strange statement. One would think you were inferring that God is unstable in some way. The use of word "priceless" implies you're poking fun at the idea that God could be capable of such a feat by implying he's a genocidal maniac? Sounds like atheist talk.
Here are some words of wisdom. God is the creator of all. He can do whatever He desires to do with the creation that He is responsible for. He answers to no-one, including you. If He desires to take away human life, He can do so.
The purpose of Jesus' time on earth wasn't to destroy or to overthrow. It was to usher in the kingdom of God. It was to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins, so that we could be set free and have eternal life. That does not mean that sin will not be judged and judged harshly. Be warned, Christ is coming again. The Jesus of the NT is the God of the Old. And... here's a scripture from Revelation if you want something to think about....
Revelation 1:16
And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shines in his strength.
The sword implies the coming judgement. We all should be striving to make ourselves right with Him before we too, perish.
Human beings are unstable. That is why they commit atrocities and then said, "But God told me to do it! " We don't accept it from the islamic fundamentalists of Isis, so why should we accept it from ancient peoples? In saying "priceless" I was amazed that the person to whom I was responding could see no difference between murder and mass executions. God cannot do whatever he likes to his creation and still claim to be Good and Love. If "good" and " love" are only whatever God decides they are, then they cease to have any meaning to us any more. The very moral relativity that christians decry in the modern culture is now what they belive of God.
However, I see the bible as the journey of human understanding of God. The great jewish scholars had a more nuanced understanding of the genocide passages, an example here:https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/genocide-in-the-torah/
This leads to the highest moral realisation of love itself. We understand him most when we experience his love, and then do our best to share it.
You assume I,m not asking God to guide me. And I certainly am discovering that God is more loving, gracious, patient, generous and kind than I have the capacity to comprehend! If I started hearing "his" voice asking me to kill people though, then I might doubt it and book myself into a psychiatric hospital.
Good. Now, what does God tell you about why He ordered the annihilation of the Canaanites?
The way you see the Bible demonstrates the root of the problem. It is NOT the journey of human understanding of God. Rather, it is the record of God's self-revelation to humans.
The concepts of "good" and "love" have no meaning at all if God is not the foundation of both. You're just looking at the whole thing backwards. Turn the telescope around.