To some people, the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are totally incompatible and not the same God. The ancient Gnostics explained this by stating God of the Old Testament not as the true Father of us and Jesus Christ (who the God of the New Testament was), but as the demiurge, an egomaniac of a deity who loves to dominate his creation and crush them if they look at him the wrong way, below the true Father from the fullness of the Light, where Jesus Christ originated.
Although a contemporary Gnostic Christian that I am, I don't subscribe to the ancient Gnostic myth of creation or the ancient Gnostic view of the God of the Old Testament, but know that Yahweh of the Old Testament is the same Yahweh of the New Testament, the same loving Father that Jesus Christ lovingly portrays in the gospels. However, I can also reconcile a God of the Old Testament who destroys cities and slays children and women, condones slavery and murder, views women as chattels of men and property to be controlled, and slays His own people for gathering wood on the Sabbath, with the God of the New Testament, the epitome of love, compassion, truth and forgiveness.
On the surface, as the ancient Gnostics saw, the God of Old and God of New are two disparate deities with almost nothing in common. However, I also view the Old Testament as being written in the times it was, in the culture it was, by the persecuted Jewish people looking for a warrior God (which is ultimately the reason they rejected the pacifist and loving Saviour of Jesus Christ – he was no warrior, did not condone sexism, murder, rape, pillaging), which is why the God of the Old Testament, although the same God as the New, seems so different. I also can see the times have changed, societies have changed, cultures have changed, and although God is unchanging in eternity, the human view of Him changes with these items, which is why we know God as the loving, compassionate and forgiving Father as we do today.
How do you reconcile such disparate views of God of the Old and New Testaments?
2007-07-31
11:08:59
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12 answers
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asked by
Christine S
3
in
Religion & Spirituality