I've gotten some great feedback from my last post - specifically regarding the idea of God "changing" in the New Testament. Both commenters agreed that God remained unchanged throughout all time. One of the arguments was that the Israelites misinterpreted God's instructions in the Old Testament. While this is definitely possible, I don't think it clears some of the atrocities committed directly by God. You know, it's offensive to hear about all of the first born children killed in Egypt from our point of view, but think about it from the point of view of the mothers of those children. I know I mentioned this as a quote from the movie in the last post, but think about it...
You're a person who does not love the Hebrew God because that's not how you were raised, and because you did not love him, he is going to kill your first born child. Dead. What would your response to that God be? Would you then love him? Would you think he was a good God?
It would be like an abusive partner beating a spouse because they didn't love them. You can't beat love out of someone.
I think the idea with God changing could be looked at from a different angle. I will admit that its possible that God did not change, but rather the vector to give love to humanity did not exist - and could not exist - prior to Jesus. Our relationship to sin changed. Before Christ, sin was something that we could not avoid and could not wash away. Even some of God's mightiest warriors or most holy and righteous men were susceptible to it, and then susceptible to his wrath. Then with Jesus' sacrifice, God was able to give us the love he's always wanted to give us.
So God did not change. Man did not change. Sin did not change. But the relationship of those three things is what changed.
However, the other thing to think about, and this was mentioned in one of the comments, is that Jesus is the best lens through which we should view God. But again, so many things conflict. Jesus refutes many of the directly spoken words of God that appear in the OT. 'Eye for an eye' becomes 'turn the other cheek', 'Kill everyone who's not you' becomes 'love your neighbor as yourself', 'follow the law or be stoned to death by fellow villagers' becomes 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone'. These are not interpretations of God's word, if the Bible is to be taken as infallible, these are the actual words of God. No room for interpretation or screw ups from people. In fact, we see people getting punished for not following these commands. And all of this occurred before Jesus was killed and sin was defeated. So if we're to believe that Jesus represents the same God as the Old Testament, how then would it be logical to believe that God did not change?
Furthermore, in the book of Acts, it is instructed to Peter that he should extend the message of God's love to everyone, not just Jews. While in the Old Testament, God cared for only the Jews, and gave no grace to the rest of the world. I think we can all admit that was a change. Whether or not it reflects a change in God's character and thinking is debatable, but its still something to think about.
What say you?
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