Is the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New?

What the Bible says

Many people suppose that the Old Testament shows a harsh, angry God and the New Testament a loving one. But when you open the Bible, both are found in both. The clearest evidence is the moment when God announces his own name, passing in front of Moses:

The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness,

Exod 34:6

The next verse continues: he forgives, yet "will by no means leave the guilty unpunished" (Exod 34:7). Mercy and justice sit together in one character. The psalmist repeats it:

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion.

Ps 103:8

The prophet Jonah even complains that God's mercy is too large. He knew God would forgive Nineveh: "I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion" (Jonah 4:2). In Hosea, God almost agonises over his faithless people.

How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? … My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!

Hos 11:8

And the New Testament has judgment. In Acts, Ananias lies to the apostles and falls dead (Acts 5:5). Paul writes:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

Rom 1:18

John 3:36 says that the wrath of God remains on those who reject the Son. Revelation pictures a rider on a white horse: "With righteousness He judges and wages war" (Rev 19:11). In fact the person in the New Testament who warns most often about hell is Jesus himself.

The two strands run together in one God. Malachi says, "I, the LORD, do not change" (Mal 3:6), and Jesus says:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.

Matt 5:17

Hebrews opens, "On many past occasions and in many different ways, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets," and now by his Son (Heb 1:1-2). No new God arrived; the same God spoke at last in fullest form. So Jesus says, "Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9).

The church's witness

The church met this question early. In the second century Marcion split the two, setting the strict, just God of the Old Testament against a God of pure love revealed by Jesus, and urged discarding the Old Testament and the parts of the New that resembled it. The church rejected this as heresy, because Jesus himself received the Old Testament as God's word and said it pointed to him. The Nicene Creed confesses the Spirit, who "has spoken through the prophets" The Nicene Creed.

Commenting on the proclamation in Exodus 34, Matthew Henry says: "the holiness and justice of God are part of his goodness and love towards all his creatures" Matthew Henry. Justice does not stand opposite love; it is a part of it. Of the punishment of Ananias he writes: "this punishment was in reality mercy to vast numbers" Matthew Henry.

In the original languages

The "loving devotion" of Exodus 34:6 is chesed (חֶסֶד), a love that holds on faithfully within a covenant. "Compassionate" in the same verse is rachum (רַחוּם), from a root said to be related to the word for a mother's womb, which pictures deep pity that comes from within. From the start, God introduced himself with these words.

In Deuteronomy 20:17, "devote them to complete destruction" renders charam (חָרַם). It comes from the idea of "devoting" something to God and removing it from ordinary use; in war it meant giving things over to God rather than taking spoil. The word does not remove the difficulty, but it shows the command was framed as God's judgment, not private vengeance.

Common objections

"The God of the Old Testament commanded the killing of the Canaanites. Such a God cannot be the Father of Jesus." This is the hardest objection, and it deserves no quick answer. Deuteronomy 20:16-18 commands that in the cities of Canaan "you must not leave alive anything that breathes." Christians read it differently, but all agree that it is no warrant for violence by anyone today. Matthew Henry draws that line himself: "These regulations are not the rules of our conduct, but Christ's law of love" Matthew Henry.

The text itself gives some clues. God told Abraham that his descendants would return only after four hundred years, "for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete" (Gen 15:16). The peoples of the land are described as those who "burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods" (Deut 12:31). Israel is warned that she receives the land not for her own righteousness but "because of their wickedness" (Deut 9:5), and Israel is later driven from it for the same disobedience. And a Canaanite who turned to God, like Rahab (Joshua 2), is saved.

Readings divide here. Some take it as a literal command of divine judgment, holding that God alone has the right to take life. Others see the common language of ancient Near Eastern war reports, which spoke in sweeping terms of total victory. Joshua is said to have left "no survivors" (Josh 10:40), yet Judges says Israel "never drove them out completely" (Judg 1:28). From Origen on, many have also read these wars as pictures of the fight against sin. Some today think the texts show Israel's partial grasp of God's will, corrected in Christ; others reply that this does not respect Scripture's authority. No reading removes every difficulty. These texts remain hard, and to feel that is no fault. What Christians hold fast is that this God is the same God who gave his own Son on the cross.

"Jesus corrected the Old Testament. The New replaced the Old." Jesus said, "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor' and 'Hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies" (Matt 5:43-44). Yet "hate your enemy" is not an Old Testament command. Some psalms speak hard words about enemies (Ps 139:21-22), but the law says to return an enemy's stray ox (Exod 23:4-5), Proverbs says to feed a hungry enemy (Prov 25:21), and Leviticus 19:18 says, "love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus corrected what people had made of the law, and deepened its meaning. But he also said Moses' law made allowance for the people's condition. On divorce he says, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of your hardness of heart" (Matt 19:8). This is what is often called progressive revelation: God is the same, but the way he makes himself known reaches completion in stages.

"The New Testament God is said to be love, yet speaks of eternal hell. That is harsher." There is something in this, because the New Testament speaks of judgment more plainly. Jesus said, "Fear the One who, after you have been killed, has authority to throw you into hell" (Luke 12:5). Christians have understood the nature of hell differently (eternal punishment, final destruction, or a hope that all will at last be saved), as taken up in Are heaven and hell real? In the New Testament as in the Old, the warning of judgment comes with an invitation to be saved. Peter says God is "not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Pet 3:9), and Ezekiel speaks with the same heart (Ezek 33:11).

Going further

If the God of both Testaments is one, we cannot shrink him to suit our taste. The God of the Bible is holy and forgives, just and gives himself away. Christians believe the place where these meet is the cross.

Ask yourself: is my picture of God drawn from the whole Bible, or from the parts I chose? If I see the Father through Jesus, how would I read the Old Testament again?

To read further, see Who is God? and How should we read the Bible?.