To Christians: Old and New Testament

[madfrog]

According to my understanding, God spends a lot of time in the Old Testament smiting people for minor infractions but is loving and forgiving in the New Testament. How do you reconcile two seemingly contradictory belief systems into one ideology?

[Nickman]

According to my understanding, God spends a lot of time in the Old Testament smiting people for minor infractions but is loving and forgiving in the New Testament. How do you reconcile two seemingly contradictory belief systems into one ideology?

The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament is the same God.

God hates sin. In the Old Testament people were trying to obey the Laws. Over and over again people have proven that if they have to obey laws to get into heaven, it is impossible to do.

The New Testament is where God reveals his plan of love through Jesus. Jesus was sent to Earth to die for our sins. This plan was in place when God created the heaven and Earth. Once Jesus paid the price for our sins, we were finally able to understand God's plan and how we can spend eternity with God, not through works of our own, but by accepting God's gift of forgiveness through Christ's sacrifice.

How is the sacrifice of Jesus a gift from god? God created man with a sinful nature or potential to sin. He also knows all things from beginning to end, right? So he already knew he was creating a sin ful race and we would sin. This makes him accountable for our sin. He then has no right to punish us and no reason to forgive us.

Now, bring Jesus into it, and what you have is a god who cannot forgive his creation for what he is ultimately responsible for unless someone is killed. To further this, you called it a gift. A gift is free. Jesus sacrifice is conditional, what gift is conditional? None. So in essence your completely wrong.

Madfrog, your completely right the two gods are different just as cnorman said. All we must do is look to the thousands of years of Talmudic writing to get a good definition of the Hebrew god. The NT god is totally different.

[sleepyhead]

According to my understanding, God spends a lot of time in the Old Testament smiting people for minor infractions but is loving and forgiving in the New Testament. How do you reconcile two seemingly contradictory belief systems into one ideology?

Hello madfrog,

I don't see a difference between the God of the NT and OT. Except fior psalms, proverbs, and a few others the OT is largely a history/story book. In order to compare apples with apples we need to compare these to the Gospels and Acts. Beginning with Genesis God chose Abraham. God dealt with people according to how they dealt with Abraham. Later God chose Jacob and dealt with Laban according to how he dealt with Jacob. When the Israelites were freed from Egypt they built the Ark. Now for the next several hundred years God was with the Ark. When the Philistines captured it God dealt with the Philistines and they were forced to give it back.

In the book of Acts God chose Peter. People would be healed by allowing his shadowq to fall on them. When annias and saphira lied to Peter, fudging on there contribution God killed them. He also caused a magician to go dumb after he tried to buy the holy Ghost.

[bluethread]

According to my understanding, God spends a lot of time in the Old Testament smiting people for minor infractions but is loving and forgiving in the New Testament. How do you reconcile two seemingly contradictory belief systems into one ideology?

The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament is the same God.

God hates sin. In the Old Testament people were trying to obey the Laws. Over and over again people have proven that if they have to obey laws to get into heaven, it is impossible to do.

The New Testament is where God reveals his plan of love through Jesus. Jesus was sent to Earth to die for our sins. This plan was in place when God created the heaven and Earth. Once Jesus paid the price for our sins, we were finally able to understand God's plan and how we can spend eternity with God, not through works of our own, but by accepting God's gift of forgiveness through Christ's sacrifice.

This is a rather diminutive view of the nation of Israel as recorded in the Tanakh. I agree that Adonai has not changed. However, it is the Promise, that was from the beginning, that is central to being one of Adonai's people. That Promise was never dependent upon works. It was based on faith. The mitzvot of Adonai were given for the purpose of proper living and increased understanding. Those who follow the "plan of love" are no more assured of a place in Adonai's kingdom than are those who follow the mitzvot of Adonai. The mitzvot provide specific examples of proper living, while the "plan of love" speaks to the attitude with regard to the keeping of them.