There’s a common misconception out there. Being the inquisitive reader that you are, I bet you’re wondering what that misconception is and what it has to do with killing. So I’ll tell you because I wouldn’t have brought it up unless I was going to write about it.
The misconception is this: the Old Testament God is different from the New Testament God. You don’t have to go to church very long to hear people talking about things being “Old Testament,” by which they mean that whatever they were talking about is merciless and cruel. If you travel in slightly loftier crowds, you might hear the term “old covenant” used in a nearly identical manner. Regardless, the basic idea is this: God pre-Christ was a big, mean guy who went around cracking skulls, wiping out cultures, and pretty much making people feel small and scared. You don’t have to read much of the Old Testament to figure out that there’s a lot of killing in it, and a lot of that killing is under God’s orders. (This is bound to be a terribly unpopular statement. Please note that I’m not implying that we should go around killing people and then saying God told us to. I’m just stating that in the Old Testament, God told people to kill other people. Read it for yourself.)
And the New Testament God? Well, post-Christ, God decided to put up the iron scepter, set aside his skull-cracking-stick, and be the nice, warm, loving, fuzzy-bunny-esque God we know from children’s stories.
Both descriptions are complete hogwash.
Pop quiz: Which God (Old Testament warmonger or New Testament fuzzy bunny) said this, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
Answer: Both. The quote first shows up in Hosea, a book where God tells a prophet to marry a prostitute just so He can make a point about man’s inability to stay faithful to Him. Christ quotes Hosea (who quoted God) in the book of Mathew.
If the Old Testament God was a merciless warmonger, why did He go around saying that He wanted His people to be merciful? Read the book of Hosea. What you’ll find is four chapters about Hosea and his fun-filled antics with his prostitute wife, nine chapters about how Israel is just like the prostitute wife and how God is going to punish Israel for being a philandering hussy (and He gets graphic, read those chapters aloud to your kids if you want to scar them for life), and one chapter, right there at the end, that says that God really doesn’t want to do any of that stuff He said He was going to do. What he really wants is simple: he wants his wife to stop acting like a prostitute so He can love her like a husband should.
You’ll find the same pattern (albeit sans as many graphic threats) in the New Testament. The New Testament God doesn’t seem to like his wife acting like a prostitute any more than the Old Testament God. And, what’s more, He’s just as ready to show mercy, to turn a blind eye to the past for the sake of the future. The reason that the Old Testament God sounds so much like the New Testament God is that they’re one and the same. (I’ll pause here to let you regain your breath. Epiphanies like that can be physically draining.) This is the God that chose to describe Himself to His people by calling Himself, “I Am.” The kind of God who picks His existence as a defining characteristic isn’t likely to undergo a massive personality change in a mere few thousand years.
That’s it, really. That’s all I have to say tonight. Well, I guess I could add that people should read the minor prophets (Hosea is a minor prophet) at least once. They can be a bit repetitive, but, taken as a whole, they paint a good picture of the kind of God that people say they’re serving.
The misconception is this: the Old Testament God is different from the New Testament God. You don’t have to go to church very long to hear people talking about things being “Old Testament,” by which they mean that whatever they were talking about is merciless and cruel. If you travel in slightly loftier crowds, you might hear the term “old covenant” used in a nearly identical manner. Regardless, the basic idea is this: God pre-Christ was a big, mean guy who went around cracking skulls, wiping out cultures, and pretty much making people feel small and scared. You don’t have to read much of the Old Testament to figure out that there’s a lot of killing in it, and a lot of that killing is under God’s orders. (This is bound to be a terribly unpopular statement. Please note that I’m not implying that we should go around killing people and then saying God told us to. I’m just stating that in the Old Testament, God told people to kill other people. Read it for yourself.)
And the New Testament God? Well, post-Christ, God decided to put up the iron scepter, set aside his skull-cracking-stick, and be the nice, warm, loving, fuzzy-bunny-esque God we know from children’s stories.
Both descriptions are complete hogwash.
Pop quiz: Which God (Old Testament warmonger or New Testament fuzzy bunny) said this, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
Answer: Both. The quote first shows up in Hosea, a book where God tells a prophet to marry a prostitute just so He can make a point about man’s inability to stay faithful to Him. Christ quotes Hosea (who quoted God) in the book of Mathew.
If the Old Testament God was a merciless warmonger, why did He go around saying that He wanted His people to be merciful? Read the book of Hosea. What you’ll find is four chapters about Hosea and his fun-filled antics with his prostitute wife, nine chapters about how Israel is just like the prostitute wife and how God is going to punish Israel for being a philandering hussy (and He gets graphic, read those chapters aloud to your kids if you want to scar them for life), and one chapter, right there at the end, that says that God really doesn’t want to do any of that stuff He said He was going to do. What he really wants is simple: he wants his wife to stop acting like a prostitute so He can love her like a husband should.
You’ll find the same pattern (albeit sans as many graphic threats) in the New Testament. The New Testament God doesn’t seem to like his wife acting like a prostitute any more than the Old Testament God. And, what’s more, He’s just as ready to show mercy, to turn a blind eye to the past for the sake of the future. The reason that the Old Testament God sounds so much like the New Testament God is that they’re one and the same. (I’ll pause here to let you regain your breath. Epiphanies like that can be physically draining.) This is the God that chose to describe Himself to His people by calling Himself, “I Am.” The kind of God who picks His existence as a defining characteristic isn’t likely to undergo a massive personality change in a mere few thousand years.
That’s it, really. That’s all I have to say tonight. Well, I guess I could add that people should read the minor prophets (Hosea is a minor prophet) at least once. They can be a bit repetitive, but, taken as a whole, they paint a good picture of the kind of God that people say they’re serving.
Comments
Keep up the good work ;-) (or should that be good faith, sola fides after all)