Has God Changed? (Part 1)
Periodically, someone advances the notion that the God of the Old Testament was stern and vengeful but Jesus and the God of the New Testament are loving, kind, tolerant, and forgiving. The only way that anyone could come to such a conclusion would be to find selected texts to establish the point while ignoring others. Although Kahlil Gibran’s book about Jesus The Son of Man is reviewed on this week’s inside article, this heresy will be dealt with here. The main section of the book that deals with this question covers three pages that allegedly are the thoughts of a Persian philosopher, expressed below.
The ancient God of Israel is harsh and relentless. Israel should have another God; one who is gentle and forgiving, who would look down on them with pity; one who would descend with the rays of the sun and walk on the path of their limitations, rather than sit for ever in the judgment seat to weigh their faults and measure their wrong-doings (31).
What Old Testament has this philosopher been reading? Most Bibles have God delivering His people out of Egyptian bondage—without any loss of life to them. The Scriptures also report the drowning of Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea after the Israelites crossed on dry ground. Their cruel treatment by the Egyptians was now behind them and in their past. God provided daily food in the wilderness in the form of manna. Because they rebelled against Him (were all those kindnesses examples of his harshness?), He let them remain there for forty years while a more faithful generation arose. God gave to them what their parents refused—the Promised Land. They fought battles for it, losing few or none of their soldiers; the land was a gift.
Looking back on those years, a psalmist writes: “For their heart was not steadfast with Him, nor were they faithful in His covenant. But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them. Yes, many a time He turned His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath” (Ps. 78:37-38). Who mistreated whom? God was forgiving and compassionate under the Old Covenant. He was not waiting for them to make a slip; He forgave them time and again great transgressions. How ironic for a man to sit in judgment on Almighty God, as though his own system of dealing with men would be far superior! Furthermore, the “prophet” misunderstands Exodus 20:5. Yes, God would visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations—that is, the children would suffer because of the hatred of their parents toward God. Gibran must have missed the next verse, which states that God shows mercy upon thousands of those who love Him and keep His commandments.