Doesn't it seem as if there is a lot of violence and wrath in the Old Testament? Surely this cannot be the same God as the one the Apostle John told us is love (1st John 4:8). Many people, including Christians, struggle with this concept. It is nothing new. Marcion, a 2nd Century "Christian" (I use that term lightly here), pushed this very belief. It led him to reject the entire Old Testament and only accept part of the New Testament as Scripture. 

Was Marcion right? Is there a different God of the Old & New Testaments? The answer, if you want to attempt to agree with the Bible, is NO!!! 

Before showing why Marcion is wrong we must ask this question; "Does the New Testament portray God differently than the Old Testament?" The answer to this question is; YES, in a sense. Look at what John 1:14-18 says
                  And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten 
                  from the Father, full of grace and truth...For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. 
                 For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has 
                seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.


Is there a different God? NO. Is God pictured differently? YES. The distinction we see between the God of the Old & New Testament is one of degree not quality. That is, as John 1:14-18 states, we see a clearer or more full picture of God after the Cross, not a different type of God. God's character is unchanging (Hebrews 13:8; Ps 102:27; Mal 3:6). Therefore, even though some claim to see a difference in God's character between the Old & New Testament we affirm there really is not one. The God that Jesus "explains" (Jn 1:18) is the God of Moses

We see a God of love in the Old Testament

• Exodus 34:6, "Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;" 
  
• Deut 5:10, "but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments."

• Psalms 86:5, "For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You."

• Joel 2:13, " And rend your heart and not your garments." Now return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness And relenting of evil." 

We see a God of wrath in the New Testament

• Romans 11:22a, "Behold then the kindness and severity of God"
• Matthew 11:21-24--Jesus condemns the cities who would not repent at His preaching
• John 2:15--Jesus makes a whip and beats people out of the temple
• Matthew 15:4--Jesus agrees with the Old Testament capital punishment system
• Revelation--I would have to cite the whole book. Its full of wrath and destruction.
• 1st Corinthians 11:30--Sickness & Death are due to sin
• Hebrews 11--Attributes acts of violence to "faith" 
• 1st Corinthians 16:22, "If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed. Maranatha."

• Galatians 5:12, "I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves."
  

French scholar René Girard says, "In the OT we never arrive at a conception of the deity that is entirely foreign to violence…Only the texts of the Gospels manage to achieve what the OT leaves incomplete.” Obviously this pseudo-scholar hasn't done his homework; maybe he is just lazy. If someone would point him to my blog he can skip reading the Bible, since obviously he has never done so a day in his life, and he would see from these few examples how his degree is worth about as much as a used handkerchief. 


In conclusion here is what we have found:

1. The Old Testament God has Grace as well as Wrath
   
2. The New Testament has Wrath as well as Grace
   
3. We do not see a different type of God
   
4. We do see God in a more complete picture. His grace is more fully understood by the Cross
   
   

What other examples have you found in Scripture which portray a balanced view of God? 

  In Monday’s blog post I answered the question “What does it mean to be Lost?”. We    affirmed that it was to have offended the absolutely holy God and stand in the    pathway of the wrath of God. This is true regardless of whether you know it or feel    guilty. 

   Now that we have established the first building block we are ready to answer, “What   does it mean to be Saved?”. When a Christian says they are “saved” what does that       entail? We need to continue to examine our 2nd Corinthians 5:21 passage. 

  “He (God) made Him who knew no sin to be sin”. What does it mean that God made     Jesus sin; when, where, & how? To answer that we must first ask, “Who ultimately         crucified Jesus?”

• Satan—He did enter the heart of Judas to betray Jesus
  
• Jews—Peter holds them accountable in Acts 2:23
  
• Romans—It was a Roman cross that held Jesus with Roman nails
  
• Us—Some will say it was our sins that held Jesus on the cross. But this is only true in an indirect sense
  
• God—It was God’s predetermined plan (Acts 2:23), God displayed him publicly (Rom 3:25), Jesus was smitten by God (Isa 53), God sent Jesus as a propitiation (1st John 4:10), and what the Law could not do GOD DID by sending His son (Rom 8:3).
  

When we say God made Jesus sin we don’t mean sin descended on Jesus like a black cloud or that our sin was injected into him with some metaphysical hypodermic needle. The New Testament means that God imputed/accounted/reckoned to Jesus our sin. That is, He chose in His mind to view Jesus that way. Jesus was the world’s sin on the Cross In the Mind of God. God chose in His sovereign mind to see the death of Jesus as an equivalent substitute for our death. 

“That we might become the righteousness of God”. Sin doesn’t exist in us like some sort of tumor. You can’t find it on an MRI or an X-Ray. When the Bible says we are sinners it is talking about a condition that exists in the Mind of God. That is, God views us in contempt of His holiness. 

So when the Bible says we become the righteousness of God it simply means that God, in His mind, chooses to view us as His righteousness. In the same way he imputed or accounted our sins to Jesus so he imputes or accounts Jesus’ righteousness to us. There are a few points that highlight this:

1. 2nd Cor 5:19 identifies reconciliation as “God not reckoning their sins to them”. When we are reconciled to God it means God no longer holds us legally responsibly for our sins. 
   
2. The Greek Word “counting” (NASB) simply means “to speak”. Something is true simply because God has spoken it so. I am absolutely righteous right now, not in and of myself, but in the Mind of God because God has chosen to view me that way. 
   

In conclusion we can state the following:

• If I offend you the offense resides in your mind not in my heart. It doesn’t matter if I feel forgiven or think you were not really offended. You are offended if you view me in contempt by whatever action I commented. 
  
• When God made Jesus sin it only means that He viewed Jesus’ death on the Cross as an equivalent substitute for our death. His wrath was satisfied. 
  
• Becoming the Righteousness of God doesn’t mean we become holy in our character. It means we are reckoned/accounted Holy. This change happens in the Mind of God. He no longer views us condemned (Rom 8:1). 
  

All this happens, as 2nd Cor 5:21 says, “In Him”. So the question is “How do we get In Him”? Stay tuned…

"Just give me Jesus. I don’t need all that theology business.” Maybe you have heard someone say something to this effect. Well brother if you believe in God and have a set of thoughts about who He is then you have theology. The choice isn’t between theology/no theology, the choice is between good theology/bad theology. 

The Church today is dying from bad theology. The Plan of Salvation (How to be saved) has been taken to the temple of Unity and sacrificed on the altar of At All Cost. Unfortunately the church has drank the “tolerance Kool-Aid” from our culture. We believe that Unity trumps obedience to God’s Word. But obedience is still better than sacrifice (1st Sam 15:22).

The reason why there is so much confusion today about “How to be saved” or “What are the things I must do in order to become a Christian” is that we are confused over what it means to be saved. And that issue rests upon what we believe it means to be lost. These two fundamental questions are dealt with in 2nd Corinthians 5:21.

In 2nd Corinthians 5 Paul is defending his Apostolic ministry and glorying in the Apostolic message. When he gets to 5:21 he gives, in my opinion, the most comprehensive statement about the Gospel in the New Testament. 

“He”; he who? He, God, the offended one. The one in whom we have sinned against. He has sent his ambassadors, the apostles, carrying the word of reconciliation (5:19). Now we must answer our first question; “What does it mean to be Lost?”. 

In What’s so amazing about grace? Philip Yancey tells a modern day version of the prodigal son story. It is about a girl who is fed up with her parent’s oversight. She is sick and tired of them condemning the clothes she wears, the music she listens to and the friends she hangs out with. So she runs away from home for the big city. There she is enlisted as a prostitute. At first she makes a lot of money and life seems to be fine. But later she goes broke, is strung out on drugs, beaten, battered and bruised. The girl wants to go home. So she calls home, leaves a message, buys a bus ticket and heads home not knowing how her reception would be. Just like the Biblical story she is welcomed with open arms and has a party thrown for her return. 

Often when we say a person is “Lost” we mean this kind of scenario; their life is in a mess, they’ve hit rock bottom, have a bad conscious, have guilty feelings, and/or an evil heart. But the Bible portrays a different picture. To be “Lost” according to Biblical theology means you have offended the absolutely righteous and holy God and you stand in the pathway of the wrath of God. It does not matter if you feel lost nor does it matter if you even know you are lost. 

Our problem in understanding what it means to be lost stems from our misunderstanding of God’s nature. Fill in the blank; God is ___________________. Did you say love? Why did you say that? I don’t want to read your heart but let me tell you why, I think, our church culture usually answer love. We often picture God through the eyes of man and come away with a comforting view of Him. But is love really his primary attribute? 

Kipling, in his Jungle Book series, wrote a story called The Red Dog. In this story Mowgli hears about this pack of wild dogs (The Red Dog) who are coming through the jungle and will cross paths with Mowgli and his family. In order to find a plan on how to defeat them Mowgli solicits the advice of the wise Kaa. Attempting to devise a plan they begin to ask this question, “What is the King of the Jungle?”. The answer is “the one who turns aside for nobody”. But who is this? In the account Kaa says, “Hathi will not turn aside for the Striped One. Yet Hathi (elephant) and the Striped One (Tiger) together turn aside for the Red Dog, and the Red Dog they say turns aside for nothing.” But then they find one for whom the Red Dog will turn aside, the Bee. Therefore, the Bee is actually the King of the Jungle. 

When the love of God and the holiness of God meet upon the pathway of an unredeemed sinner which one turns aside? The love of God must and does. The Bible declares that God desires for all men to be saved (1st Tim 2:4) yet not all are saved? The reason is that God’s holiness demands punishment but his love desires forgiveness. God could have satisfied His nature by simply allowing us all to go to Hell. If He were forced to love us then love would cease to be love because love, by its very nature, is freely given. 

Therefore, to be lost is not to be abandoned by or left alone by God. It is to be pursued by the wrath of God whether you know it or not. And the wrath of God is undefeated; it will catch you at the Cross or at Judgment. To be lost describes a condition that exists in the mind of God. He views us in contempt of His holiness, demanding satisfaction for He has to. If God did not ultimately punish sin then He would be a coconspirator with it, as guilty of it as those who sin, an unjust God, and unworthy of our worship.  

In my last post we asked the question, “Were the authors of the New Testament (NT) aware that they were writing with divine authority?” The liberal will say “NO”. They contend that the authors of the NT were writing occasional documents. These letters were never intended to have universal application much less carry divine authority. In fact, so they say, it was the later church that imposed upon these letters authority. 

Thus, we looked at some internal Biblical evidence to see what the authors of the NT letters actually claimed. We examined Galatians 1:1 & 1st Thessalonians 2:13. Today we will view two more passages by Paul, namely, 1st Corinthians 14:37-38 & 2nd Thessalonians 3:6, 14.

1st Corinthians 14:37-38 says, "If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that the things which I write to you are the Lord’s commandment. But if anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized.” 

The last part, even in the translation, is very clear. He says what he is writing is the Lord’s commandment. The original Greek is τοu Κυρίου εστιν εντολη. If you don’t know Greek let me break it down from you. 

• εστιν is the verb “to be”. It is in the 3rd person singular, hence the translation “it is”.  The subject of the verb is “the things I (Paul) write”. 
  
• Εντολη is the noun “commandment”. Notice that earlier in the Corinthians letter Paul uses the same phrase to refer, unequivocally, to the authoritative instructions from God (1st Cor 7:19). 
  
• τοu Κυρίου is the noun phrase “the Lord”. It is in the genitive case. In a basic sense the genitive case is your possessive case. We could translate it “The commandment of the Lord”. Most likely in this context it is source, that is, “This is the commandment from the Lord”. Regardless of whether you view it as source or possessive the point is the same. What Paul is writing he is claiming is not his words but the Lord’s. 
  

Also compare Leviticus 27:34, Deuteronomy 4:2, 11:26-28 to see how Paul is using the language of the Old Testament to refer to divine commands. Therefore, there is no question what Paul is claiming here. His letter to the Corinthians is on par with the same authority as if God were speaking to them Himself. It takes professional help to miss this point. 

Next we want to investigate 2nd Thessalonians 3:6, 14. There are three points of consideration. 

1. He uses technical terms that refer to apostolic tradition. These terms are “traditions” (παράδοσις) & “received” (παραλαμβάνω). For references to the former see 1st Cor 11:2; 2nd Thess 2:15, 3:6. For references to the latter see Rom 6:17; 1st Cor 11:23, 15:3-5; Gal 1:9; Phil 4:9; Col 2:6-8; 1st Thess 2:13; 2nd Peter 2:21; Jude 3. Thus, Paul is claiming that what he original taught them is apostolic tradition. 
   
   
2. 2nd Thessalonians becomes a prophetic judgment with a call to church discipline. He states that if someone doesn’t accept what he is writing then the Christians are “not to associate with him”. The word used is συναναμίγνυμι. The only other time this word is used in the NT is in 1st Corinthians 5:9-11 (twice). In that context Paul instructs the church to excommunicate (not associate with) the so called brother who is practicing sin. Therefore, the point is that Paul believes what he is writing to the Thessalonians is of such authority that if someone disregards it they are to be disciplined by the church. Nobody is going to balk if I don’t like a certain commentary but Christians would hold me at a distance if I didn’t accept apostolic testimony. 
   
   
3. The very language he uses directly implies an authoritative status. Note the phrases “we command you”, “if anyone does not obey what is written in this letter”. 
   

In the last two posts we have looked at four Pauline passages (Galatians 1:1; 1st Thessalonians 2:13; 1st Corinthians 14:37-38; & 2nd Thessalonians 3:6, 14). In each passage Paul very directly claims to be writing with a certain type of authority. That type is none other than divine inspiration. In other words he believed that his words were actually the very words of God. Thus, they carried universal application and universal authority. 

Maybe we should start practicing church discipline on those who do not accept the letters of the Apostles!!! What do you think?