Two Gods?

You sometimes hear people talk about "the God of the Old Testament" who they see as an angry God, and "the God of the New Testament" who they see as being full of compassion. Quite apart from the un-Christian idea that there is a different God in each part of the Bible, or even that God might change over time, I'm not sure that these people have been reading the Bible fairly.

I'm reading a book by John Goldingay, and one of the chapters addresses this very question of God's nature. He begins by saying,

"The Bible portrays God as having both a soft side and a tough side. The soft, positive, generous, creative, life-giving, merciful, faithful side of God expresses itself in creating the world, having mercy on it despite humanity's rebelliousness, and acting to restore it to what it was designed to be. The tough, angry, negative side expresses itself in killing people for falsifying their pledges, pouring bowls of wrath over them, and sending them to hell." (John Goldingay, Key Questions about Christian Faith: Old Testament answers, page 12.)

He goes on to say that he has deliberately taken examples of what he calls God's "soft side" from the Old Testament, and examples of the "tough side" from the New Testament. Many people don't even realise that hell isn't talked about at all in the Old Testament. Goldingay goes on to say that he doesn't think that God's soft side and His tough side balance each other out. God's nature is overall merciful, generous and loving, and just occasionally his tough side has to break through.

As I work on Old Testament translation, I am struck again and again by God's amazing patience. His people Israel just keep forgetting all His goodness towards them, and rebel against Him time and time again. And yes, He may get angry and punish them, but always with the intention of bringing them back to Him.

This is summed up by two verses I came across when I was working on Psalm 78 this morning:

"Their hearts were not loyal to him,

they were not faithful to his covenant.

Yet he was merciful;

he forgave their iniquities

and did not destroy them." (Psalm 78:37,38 NIV)

It reminds me of something Paul says in one of his letters to Timothy:

"Here is a trustworthy saying:

If we died with him,

we will also live with him;

if we endure,

we will also reign with him.

If we disown him,

he will also disown us;

if we are faithless,

he will remain faithful,

for he cannot disown himself." (2 Tim. 2:11-13)

I feel very strongly that we need to stop repeating what other people say about God, however sure they may be about it, and however right it might sound to us, and get back to reading God's word in depth and in breadth, so that we might discover who He really is.