Answering the Toughest Questions About God and the Bible by Bruce Bickel & Stan Jantz

Author:Bruce Bickel & Stan Jantz [Bickel, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL067030, REL012000
ISBN: 9781441230652
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2016-10-17T16:00:00+00:00

God the Father and Jesus the Son . . . One and the Same God

The characterization that God in the Old Testament is angry and violent but that Jesus in the New Testament is loving and peaceful fits well with our polarized times. The drastic contrast in this apparent conflict between the Testaments is easily added to the list of other battles in our society. As a culture, we are accustomed to contrasting differences between opposite points of view: liberals vs. conservatives, the religious vs. the humanists, vegans vs. carnivores, and iPhones vs. Androids. Like the other categories on the list, the OT God vs. the NT Jesus disparities are exaggerated by oversimplification, generalization, and a lack of information.

People who have little or no familiarity with the Bible can easily join the debate because the issue has been cast in terms of polar opposites. In the OT God is violent, but in the NT Jesus is tender and kind; in the OT God is wrathful, but in the NT he is forgiving; the OT presents a God of war, but in the NT he’s all about peace; God is mean and Jesus is nice; God is racist, sexist, and patriarchal, but Jesus is tender, kind, and all-inclusive. As a society, we’ve managed to envision God against Jesus in the most crucial heavyweight grudge bout of all time, and you can almost hear the announcer now. . . .

In this corner—weighing A LOT—is the Creator of the universe, the destroyer of sinners, a jealous, hateful, vicious killer—it’s GOD! And in the opposite corner, of average human weight and size, is his opponent—the Redeemer of mankind, the forgiver of all, the sweet pacifist, lover of children, women, and the poor—it’s JESUS!

All that’s left for us to do is to select which combatant we are going to cheer for.

But the entire notion of OT God being opposite of NT Jesus violates the clear teaching of Scripture. One of the most important truths in the Bible involves a word that isn’t even in the Bible: Trinity. Essentially, the Trinity describes the three distinct persons who make up the God of the Bible: God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The concept of the Trinity has plenty of questions surrounding it, so we’ll postpone an in-depth discussion until chapter 9. But the point relevant to Kara’s questions is this: God the Father and Jesus the Son are one and the same, and in all respects they are identical. They don’t have different personalities. There is absolutely no difference between their sensitivities, attitudes, and character . . . not because they are so much alike, but because they are the same God.

During his three-year public ministry, NT Jesus never tried to separate or distinguish himself from OT God. In fact, it was just the opposite. Repeatedly, Jesus emphasized that he and “the Father” were one and the same. Look at these instances from John 10:

In a debate with the Jewish leaders, Jesus referred to himself as the Good Shepherd (v.

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