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Why is Jesus Nicer Than the God of the Old Testament?

It’s not unusual for people to like the God of the New Testament much more than the God of the Old Testament. They do seem very different! The God of the Old Testament goes around handing out laws and punishments, and the God of the New Testament gives love and mercy. It’s easy to see the difference.

While Christians believe God inspires the whole Bible, they don’t believe that every part of the Bible equally reveals what God is like. If the Old Testament had fully and perfectly revealed what God is like, there would have been no need for God to send his Son, Jesus, into the world. There would also have been no need for Jesus to call people to follow him or establish the whole Christian movement.

For this reason, the Old Testament is not the fullest and clearest revelation of what God is like. We find in the Bible that God has revealed himself progressively throughout history.

In the first books of the Bible, God deals with a very primitive bunch of people, and he deals with them within the paradigms of their culture and times in terms they understand. They’re like children.

Let’s use the analogy of a child who builds a tower with building blocks in preschool. Fifteen years later, she might be at university studying civil engineering, but you would never have tried to give the preschooler the mathematical formulas required to build skyscrapers. The same principle applies.

After Jesus had come into the world, the New Testament taught us that he is the fulness of God’s revelation to humanity. He was God in human flesh. The book of Hebrews says God revealed himself to the world in many ways, but the best revelation of all is through his Son, Jesus.

If you want to know what God is like, you don’t start with the Old Testament; you start with the New Testament. Study the life and teachings of Jesus. Watch him suffer and die in love for the world.

You don’t interpret the New Testament by reading the Old Testament. Instead, followers of Jesus interpret the Old Testament through the lens of the New. When you do that, it changes everything.

It doesn’t mean you suddenly have a God who doesn’t care about sin and judgment. Not at all. Jesus himself has some hard things to say to those who harm others and refuse to love.

However, when you understand what God is like through Jesus, all the different parts of the Bible will fall into their proper place. You will understand the truth of what the Bible says in 1 John 4:8 and 16: “God is love.”

– Eliezer Gonzalez