What are we to do when the Old and New Testaments "appear" to LITERALLY clash in meaning?
Here are a few examples.
The New Testament says Satan is the destroyer who wields "the power of death," NOT God. Hebrews 2:14-15.
The Old Testament, by contrast, says God alone holds the power of death. Deuteronomy 32:39; Psalm 90.
Both can't LITERALLY (by the dead letter) be right.
The New Testament says Satan is the afflicter and oppressor of men, not God, never God. Acts 10:38; John 10:10.
The Old Testament says that God alone is the ultimate oppressor and afflicter of men. Deuteronomy 28:15-68; Psalm 90; Job 1:21.
Both can't LITERALLY (by the dead letter) be right.
The New Testament teaches "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all" and that He has no connection to "evil" whatsoever, and to let no man say" otherwise, not even Old Testament men. 1 John 1:5; James 1:13-17.
The Old Testament LITERALLY says God DOES have darkness within Him and that He IS the author and doer of evil. Amos 3:6; Isaiah 45:7.
Both can't LITERALLY (by the dead letter) be right.
The New Testament says that ONLY good and non-harmful gifts come down from the Father of Lights in whom there is no shadow of turning. James 1:16-17; Luke 11:10-13.
The Old Testament LITERALLY says God "delights" to afflict us with "marvelous...plagues,... enemies, ...famines, ...destructions...and many other curses." God happily sends these oppressions directly our way straight from His wrathful hand until we are "utterly destroyed." Deuteronomy 28:15-68; Psalm 91.
Both can't LITERALLY (by the dead letter) be right.
I could go on and on. The issue here is that the Old Testament had an undifferentiated view of God. They wrongly believed, due to their developmental limitations, that Satan was God's "angry voice," His "left hand of wrath," His "obedient servant angel" who was merely carrying out God's express commands to tempt, punish and eventually kill all men.
But the above view is not at all consistent with New Testament teaching regarding Satan (regardless of whether we consider the devil a dark angel OR a dark dynamic working within the corporate psyche of humanity).
Satan is NOT fulfilling God's will, but OPPOSING it on every level. New Testament Scripture proclaims Satan a cosmic rebel, the accuser of the brethren, the tempter, a liar, a murderer from the beginning, the destroyer, a thief, a devouring lion, the god of this world, and the prince of the power of the air. Jesus came to destroy Satan's works, not implement them (1 John 3:8). Jesus came to fully differentiate His Father's nature from Satan's nature. He came to cull away and forever sever all Satanic attributes which had been wrongly attributed to His Abba's character by the OT saints.
The early church fathers recognized these sometimes conflicting ideologies between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The fathers certainly encouraged us to not always read OT passages literally. They believed that Scriptures had to be illuminated by the Holy Spirit before their deeper meanings could rightly be understood.
Even though there were on occasion some "literal" misstatements in the OT due to their developmental limitations from not being indwelt by the New Covenant Pentecostal Spirit, what they wrote was nonetheless of great value. But, their writings just had to be excavated, elevated and renovated to comport with the "better" understanding of the New Testament revelation.
Here is the perfect example. God confessed in Isaiah 13:3-18, in the first person no less, to wrathfully causing: a nation of women to be raped, a nation of infants to be executed by smashing them all to pieces against rocks, a nation of children to be mercilessly impaled with arrows, and, finally, a nation of men to be executed by the sword.
To claim that Jesus (or His beloved Abba) were rapists would, of course, be blasphemy.
And yet, and yet, and yet----- Isaiah 13:3-18 says (quoting God in the first person) that God's 'burning wrath' DOES do all this pillaging, raping, and killing.
So what's the point? Merely this. If you won't accept the 'rape confession' as coming from the lips of Jesus, then don't dare accept any OTHER Old Testament quote as coming directly from Jesus' lips IF it portrays His Father as being a plague-sending, famine-bringing, fire-flinging, bone-crushing, child-drowning, throat-slitting, homicidal, genocidal, and infanticidal God.
However, if you ARE a strict Biblical literalist, then you must believe that God's 'burning wrath' 'hunts' us down and directly CAUSES:
--women to be raped,
--infants to be dashed to pieces against the rocks,
--children to be impaled by arrows
--houses to be looted
'I MYSELF...SUMMONED MY WARRIORS ...to EXECUTE MY ANGER....The LORD of hosts IS MUSTERING AN ARMY FOR BATTLE. They come from a distant land...the LORD AND THE WEAPONS OF HIS INDIGNATION, to DESTROY THE WHOLE EARTH. Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; it will come like DESTRUCTION FROM THE ALMIGHTY!....See, the DAY OF THE LORD COMES, CRUEL, WITH WRATH AND FIERCE ANGER, to make the earth a desolation, and to DESTROY ITS SINNERS from it....I WILL PUNISH THE WORLD for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity.... I will make mortals more rare than fine gold....Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at THE WRATH OF THE LORD of hosts in the day of his fierce anger. Like a hunted gazelle, or like sheep with no one to gather them, all will turn to their own people, and all will flee to their own lands. Whoever is found will be THRUST THROUGH, and whoever is caught will fall by the SWORD. Their INFANTS will be DASHED TO PIECES before their eyes; their HOUSES will be PLUNDERED, and their WIVES RAVISHED. See, I AM STIRRING UP the Medes AGAINST them, who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold. Their BOWS will SLAUGHTER the YOUNG men; they will have NO MERCY on the FRUIT of the WOMB; their eyes WILL NOT PITY CHILDREN.' Isaiah 13:3-18.
The above statement literally claims to be the Lord talking in first person, so we can't say anybody else is exaggerating or misstating His character. Nor can we cop out by saying that God was just this way on this one occasion because the Lord 'changes not.' (Malachi 3:6). Either this 'baby bashing brutality' and 'man-smashing malice' and 'woman-raping evil' is in His nature now and forever-- or it isn't-- it's that simple.
Will literalists own this passage and just declare that God's burning wrath makes Him a child-killing, rape-committing, man-impaling killer? Or, will they continue to hide behind silly euphemisms that these brutal acts are just part of God's 'mysterious ways,' His 'higher ways,' His 'justice and holiness' being dispensed?
Do we really want to go here, to this dark corner of primitive savagery? I think not.
Instead, let's choose a better hermeneutic. Let's choose Jesus as our hermeneutic. His flawless nature is written in all our consciences, waiting to be consulted and catalyzed into love.
Don't let literalism kill your conscience. Those who loosen their 'death-grip' on Scripture will surely find their 'life-grip' on the Spirit of love and light."
Had enough yet? There are MANY, MANY, examples. So, what is the reason for these misstatements about God's character?
All the violence, plagues, killings, oppressions, curses, afflictions, destructions and damning which the Old Testament says comes from GOD must NOW be re-evaluated with New Testament light. We must look at the particular Old Testament passage which is attributing "evil" to GOD and ask if it is referring to THE GOD OF THIS WORLD or is it referring to THE GOD OF OUR LORD JESUS.
The problem was that the Old Testament had an “undifferentiated" view of God. They lumped Satan into their image of Yahweh. They simply did not differentiate God from the Devil in any meaningful way.
The result? A bipolar God who is up and down, good and evil, hateful and loving, cruel and gentle, vengeful and forgiving, murderous and peaceful.
The Old Testament certainly has many accurate and priceless versions of the wondrous acts of the true Yahweh, THE GOD OF OUR LORD JESUS. The Old Testament frequently reflects the riches of Jesus' love, virtue, blessing, mercy, miracles and generosity.
But, not always. Too often, because they are largely clueless about Satan's identity, the Old Testament mars and deforms the image of God by attributing the works of Satan to God.
Jesus came to heal and reveal. He came to heal our image of a wrathful and hateful God by revealing His Father-God to be ALL love and ALL light.
Jesus came to teach us how to differentiate the works of the true God from the works of Satan.
Jesus IS that dynamic differentiation.
Satan, as the FALLEN GOD (or dark cosmic sickness) afflicting this WORLD, operates in all forms of stealing, killing and destroying.
God, on the other hand, as fully revealed by the RISEN CHRIST of the RISEN FATHER, operates only in forms of life --- the giving of it, the protection of it, the blessing of it! John 10:10.
If it’s not good it’s not God.
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