God of the Old Testament and his love for people
With sadness I listen to sentences in which so-called believers claim that God in the Old Testament is evil, murders, lacks love and that only Jesus Christ changed the face of God. This is a false view and anyone who believes in it has been deceived by Satan. Most often such statements are made by those who have not read the Old Testament, and how can you make such statements about someone you do not know at all. God gave us the Scriptures so that through them we would know Him better. Before you start vilifying God, read the Old Testament first, and you will see plenty of texts in which God is praised, loved and just, which many forget.
Love does not cause justice to reach us. Righteousness in the negative sense reaches us only slightly, because the penalty for sin is death. Those who receive salvation will receive eternal life through the grace of Jesus Christ.
To say that Jesus Christ changed God's attitude is also wrong insofar as there are verses in the Bible that may indicate that it was Jesus who led the Israelites in the desert.
It is also illogical to say that God the Father is evil and the Son Jesus is good. Even if you skip the Old Testament and read only the New, you will come across plenty of texts in which God and the Son are put on equal footing, such as these:
John 10.30 "I and my Father are one."
John 14.7-11 "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake."
God in the Old Testament is the same as in the New
Would Jesus, being good, compare himself with the evil Father? This would be a contradiction in terms. By considering the Creator as unmerciful as Christ, we put our Christian faith on a par with ignorance or even lack of faith. Such faith is empty, you do not love God then, but your idol that you have created in your mind. You cannot truly love God while recognizing that he does not love people.
There are chapters in the Old Testament where we read that God punishes people, sends the Israelites to kill the wicked, which pales in comparison to the love shown by Jesus at first glance. How can one love people while issuing a command to kill them?
This is an answer for a separate topic, here I will only give a brief answer. God is our Father, and we are disobedient children. We are constantly sinning and not doing the right thing, including those who think they are very good people, which already shows their pride. God, seeing our sins, punishes us, but with the idea that it will work out for good. Just as, for example, a parent forbids a child to watch TV or go out in the yard, so does God bring us up. He doesn't show himself to us directly, but acts through various situations that we think are not always appropriate. Children think the same way, which of them at any given time will admit that it was right that they got punished? They will change their minds when they grow up, and likewise we, when we see what God has done for us after death, will acknowledge Him. Does a loving parent punish his children in order to stick up for them, or does he do it for their sake, because he knows it will pay off in the future?
God also does the right thing, yet with knowledge and reason we can't even compare with Him. Trust God that His ways of upbringing are right, and just because you don't agree with them doesn't mean you are right. Not every punishment, or some bad event, comes from God. A lot of it is a consequence of our decisions, environment and even strangers who were not guided by love. What kind of society we live in depends on people, if we create such then that's the world we live in, and let's not blame everything bad on God.
Parents change the way they raise their children as they grow. Can't God act similarly? The Old Testament teaches us to love our neighbor (read the topic Love your enemies, bless them that curse you), although we don't see it as clearly as in the New Testament. Both the Old and New Testaments teach love, but in the Old Testament it may seem to us that God is more firm, stricter there. After the coming of Jesus, there are no more distinct prophets, guides or leaders (Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah, Isaiah). Nor is there a Temple with a visible cloud by day and fire by night. Did God change the way we were raised? Maybe so, He certainly changed the fact that His testimony of being in the Temple is no longer visible. Just as the world changes, the way we are raised may change, but let us remember that God's love is unchanging, and God will do everything in His power to draw us to Himself.
God loves, but he is also just
How could a loving God order the killing of entire cities? Here, too, the answer lends itself to a separate topic, so I'll answer briefly. What happens when you introduce 300 demoralized people into a group of 1000 people, sacrificing their own children, having sex with whoever and wherever they want, worshipping demons, etc.? Will these 1000 people be able to live together peacefully in the same area? Unrealistic! Whole nations were perverted, living such a demoralized lifestyle that it would be impossible to convert them. There were, of course, individuals, such as Rachab, whose hearts could be converted, and they did. Anyone who was willing to abandon his despicable life could cross over to the side of the Israelites, among whom there was a sizable group of foreigners.
God allowing the destruction of the city and the murder of the population showed an act of grace for future generations. Those who were murdered did not deserve to live. Don't try to fool yourself that there was another way to improve them morally, if there had been, God would certainly have used it. Many years later He Himself came down to them in the form of Jesus Christ. The situation was repeated, Jesus was killed and Jerusalem was destroyed.
The answer would seem simple if there were not yet newborns among these 300 people, who have no consciousness and could be raised after all. So what about them, where is there room for love?
Not all death is bad, for those who will be saved death is gain, so wrote Paul in Philippians 1.21-23 "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better." Newborns and young children, even though they died quite possibly gained eternal life. How many of them, if they had grown up, would have received salvation? Certainly not many. For more on this topic, see the similar article Why do young children die.
We also often forget that God is just and since we sin, we should get what we deserve. The punishment for sin is death. If God were not guided by love, but only by justice, we would have died long ago. God is holiness, there is no sin in Him, He is impeccable, and we with our sins have no right to be at His side. Only after death, when we are cleansed of our sins, can we receive this honor. What we face is disproportionate to the evil we do. It is enough, for example, to eat meat from an industrial farm, where animals live like in a concentration camp. Do you know how much such an animal suffered before it was killed? The evil to which you have contributed does not fall on you in the strength it could.
The Israelites even when they were taken captive, died of hunger did not say a bad word about God, on the contrary, they cried out that He is just and merciful, and His love knows no bounds. They knew they were suffering because of their foolishness, their rejection of God's shield, read at least the Book of Nehemiah chapter 9 and among others:
6. Thou, even thou, art LORD alone.
9. And didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red sea.
15. And gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and promisedst them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them.
16. But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments.
17. And refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them; but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage.
17. but thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not.
18. Yea, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt, and had wrought great provocations.
19. Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way wherein they should go.
20. Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst.
21. Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness.
25. So they did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in thy great goodness.
26. Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations.
27. And in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours, who saved them out of the hand of their enemies.
28. But after they had rest, they did evil again before thee.
28. Yet when they returned, and cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and many times didst thou deliver them according to thy mercies.
29. And testifiedst against them, that thou mightest bring them again unto thy law: yet they dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, but sinned against thy judgments, (which if a man do, he shall live in them;) and withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear.
30. Yet many years didst thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them by thy spirit in thy prophets: yet would they not give ear.
31. Nevertheless for thy great mercies' sake thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God.
33-34. Howbeit thou art just in all that is brought upon us; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly: Neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers, kept thy law, nor hearkened unto thy commandments and thy testimonies, wherewith thou didst testify against them.
35. For they have not served thee in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness that thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land which thou gavest before them, neither turned they from their wicked works.
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