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?

[JehovahsWitness]

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?

I don't because I don't hold to what I believe to be a false premise.

[madfrog]

Isn't it fair to say that God acts a little differently in the New Testament than in the Old? There's a big difference between the Book of Job and the teachings of Jesus.

[cnorman18]

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?

Well, that's a VERY simple question for us Jews; the NT isn't in our Bible.

But I'd question the premise anyway. There's no eternal fiery Hell in the Hebrew Bible. That was a Christian invention. One wonders about calling a God "loving and forgiving" who would condemn people to eons of horrible agony....

[JehovahsWitness]

Isn't it fair to say that God acts a little differently in the New Testament than in the Old? There's a big difference between the Book of Job and the teachings of Jesus.

God acts, and has always acted in perfect harmony with his four main qualities of Love, Justice, Wisdom and Power. Any actions he takes always reflects a perfect balance of all four and that has (and will) never change (see Malachi 3:6). This is reflected both in the book of Job (where God is neither cruel nor vindictive but patient and wise) and in the Christian Greek Scriptures (NT). Jesus mirrored God's qualities (ALL four) and the CGS enlarge on how He (God) will express them in the future. God is never short on his main quality of love when he deals with humans.

What DOES change however is circumstance and God will act and react to those in the most fitting way according to his will and purpose. Thus we see various aspects of his personality, standards and requirements maybe in one bible book over another. The "God is Cruel God is Kind" scenariou reminds me of the traditional Indian story of the blind men and the Elephant.

The illustration of the blind man and the elephant shows what happens when one fails to see the balance of the whole in favor of a perception of the particular. God is neither his mighty destructive powers of this "tusks" (as revealed in some passages of the Hebrew Scriptures) nor the soft fluffy hairs of his "tail" his is the whole (as revealed by Jesus in some of his teachings) he is the WHOLE. And if a summary CAN be made it was made by John in his first letter -- 1 John 4:8

[madfrog]

God acts, and has always acted in perfect harmony with his four main qualities of Love, Justice, Wisdom and Power. Any actions he takes always reflects a perfect balance of all four and that has (and will) never change (see Malachi 3:6).... God is never short on his main quality of love when he deals with humans.

In the Book of Job, God took Satan's advise by destroying Job's livestock and killing his sons. Where is the love in that?

[cnorman18]

God acts, and has always acted in perfect harmony with his four main qualities of Love, Justice, Wisdom and Power. Any actions he takes always reflects a perfect balance of all four and that has (and will) never change (see Malachi 3:6).... God is never short on his main quality of love when he deals with humans.

In the Book of Job, God took Satan's advise by destroying Job's livestock and killing his sons. Where is the love in that?

Just to clarify some things: Job is acknowledged by most non-fundamentalist Bible scholars, both Jewish and Christian, to be a parable -- a fictional teaching story and not a factual report of God's actions.

Also, the figure of "Satan" is not the same figure in Job as that in later Christian tradition. The word in Hebrew means "adversary," and it doesn't mean "the Devil." The angel who stopped Balaam's talking donkey in Numbers is also called "Satan" in the Hebrew text.

All together now, one more time: The Bible is the literary heritage of an ancient people, not a history book. It's not even a book of moral instruction or theology. For those, one must look to the tradition, primarily to be found in the Talmud and related texts, which DOES claim to be those things. The same is largely true in the Roman Catholic Church, in which tradition, i.e. the teachings of Holy Mother Church, is acknowledged as an authority superior to the unaccompanied text of the Bible, which does not interpret or comment on itself. That's true of Protestant traditions as well, though it is less often acknowledged in those cases.

[JehovahsWitness]

God acts, and has always acted in perfect harmony with his four main qualities of Love, Justice, Wisdom and Power. Any actions he takes always reflects a perfect balance of all four and that has (and will) never change (see Malachi 3:6).... God is never short on his main quality of love when he deals with humans.

In the Book of Job, God took Satan's advise by destroying Job's livestock and killing his sons. Where is the love in that?

If you read the account carefully GOD didn't kill Job's family, God allowed Satan to do so which is not exactly the same thing.

God's love was still manifest towards Job in that he supported Job, helped Job to understand the central issues (and thus why He (God) allowed his suffering, and rewarded Jobs faithfulness. Job was also given the unique privilege to prove the depth of his devotion to his Creator and play a part in vindicating God's name.

#QUESTION Why did God allow Job to suffer so?

Job found himself unwittingly the central figure of a vital issue that could not rightly be ignored, that of the validity of asking for human integrity.

The central issue raised by satan in the Garden of Eden was that of human integrity. The first humans chose to collaborate with Satan, so he (satan) could arguably claim that humans were incapable of complete integrity. Haviing won "round one" Satan later turned his attention to Job, but his wording implicated all humans. As Satan himself put it this way "Skin for skin! A man will give up everything he has to save his life." Job 2:4 (New Living Translation ©2007). Killing Satan would not settle this issue namely-- is it possible for a human, to keep complete integrity? if pressured or even threatened with death (or worse for many the death of their child), will all humans break their personal integrity to God?

#QUESTION: But why allow so much suffering only to prove such a 'minor' point about "human integrity"? Why use humans as ' guinea pigs for some celetial chess game?

Refusing to allow human integrity to be tested would have implied that any rule by God can only be sustained through the manipulation; it would imply that humans will break any and all laws if pressured to do so - since this is a basic limitation of the "design". No society can exist without respect for law and order. No law and order will be respected unless those laws are percieved to be just and right by its subjects. God demands complete integrity from his subjects (respect for his law and order). Without establishing if this demand is reasonable, sooner or later the system would collaspe.

To illustrate: Most modern societies have laws against drinking and driving. These laws are, for the most part, respected because people recognise them as good laws. What would happen if it was established that drivers were physically incapable of refusing a drink when offered. How "just" and "good" is a law that asked them to refuse drinks when they are not capable of doing? People chose NOT to drink and drive because a) they are aware that its dangers have been PROVEN and b) they have reliable proof humans can refuse liquor if given a stronge enough motivation to do so. In the absense of the above, authorities would have no alternative but to ensure that there were indeed no contenders to the law, that alcohol didn't exist and that noone was ever offered a drink. In short, rulers would have to PROVE that humans can (and should) obey or deny them the freedom to chose. They cannot legitimately do neither.

God was not playing or gambling with human happiness to prove some vain but ultimately irrelevant point of law; he was allowing the painful but necessary establishment of a legal precedent so that divine rule would later not be imposed but accepted by its subjects. No "free" society can succeed without this being done - in Job's painful experiences therefore the happiness of all humans came to play and through how God handled the matter another opportunity to see how His love for Job (and all humans) is perfectly balanced with his wisdom.

To learn more please go to other posts related to...

ORIGINAL SIN , THE STORY OF JOB and ...HUMAN SUFFERING

[wonderer]

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 Book of Revelation in the NT is more in keeping with the God of the OT, re smiting people for minor infractions.

[aguy]

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.