Psalm 25

I have a lot of different friends who hold a lot of different views about God. I’m grateful for this; it means that I have the opportunity to hear different perspectives on spirituality and regularly have my own preconceived notions challenged and questioned. But I have recently noticed a trend of thought in some of these friends (and in some Christian circles) that concerns me: The idea that the Old Testament has a skewed view of God.

I hear different variations on this theme. Some say the Bible writers wrote false things about God because they were only writing what they believed was true. Others say that the God of the Old Testament is altogether different than the God of the New Testament—that Jesus (the “nice” one) actually came to save us from the other God (the “harsh” one). Regardless of which view is taken, the general consensus is that the God of the Old Testament just doesn’t line up with the picture of God as revealed in Jesus.

Ironically, however, Jesus Himself doesn’t leave room for that conclusion:

“You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (Jn 5:39-40)

“He said to them, ‘How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Lk 24:25-27)

Here’s a shocker: When Jesus read the Old Testament, He saw God. He saw the beautiful God He revealed to the rest of us—the God of grace, mercy, and love. He saw that in all those stories we think are so awful—the Flood, the stoning of Achan, Uzzah and the ark, the Egyptian plagues, the death of Nadab and Abihu. He read those Scriptures and saw love.

Otherwise, how could He say that those Scriptures testified about Him?

If you have a hard time reconciling the “God of the Old Testament” with what you see in the life of Christ, I would like to challenge you to take another look. In this psalm, David said, “All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful.” (vs 10) I believe that applies to the Old Testament as well as the New. Jesus certainly seemed to think so.

If Jesus could read the Old Testament and find love, I think it’s worthwhile for us to not give up so easily on it, attempting to dismiss it as somebody’s misunderstandings about God. Yes, it may be easy to misunderstand the picture of God as presented in the Old Testament, but that doesn’t mean it’s skewed. It just means it’s easy to misunderstand.

Jesus made it much easier for us to understand God’s character, but He didn’t do it in isolation from the Old Testament. Instead, His own words testify to the fact that all of God’s ways are loving—even the ones that don’t look so loving to us. Perhaps we ought to follow His example. Perhaps we ought not try to make the Old Testament fit our definition of love, but try to see the love Jesus found there. In so doing, maybe we will discover a new and better definition of love.

God is love. He has always been love. He was just as much love in the Old Testament as He is in the New. And His ways are loving. All of them.