Myth-busters: The OT God is different than the NT God

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said,.

�But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Opening Banter and Show Setup

Welcome to No Compromise Radio. Hello, Pastor Steve Cooley. Hi, how are you? Do we know what the etymology of �Cooley� is?

You mean it�s derivation? Yeah, derivation. It�s Irish. It is? Yes, it is. It�s Irish. I didn�t know that. In fact, in one of Tom Clancy�s novels, the Irish Republican Army librarian is named �Cooley.

Okay, well, there you have it. So, yeah, it is definitely Irish, even though, you know, really, it shouldn�t be my last name because my dad was born Ekman, and he was adopted by Mr. Cooley, a man whom he came to despise, even though he liked him at the time.

That�s the first time I ever heard that story, and I�ve known you for probably 20 years. Well, there you go. Twenty years.

Two decades. And you�re not mostly tired of me, anyway, so I guess that�s good.

You know, you don�t really show your age much. I�m looking at you now, and you�ve got tons of hair, not very gray. I guess I could ask you, do you use Grecian formula, but then that would give the listeners some insight.

No, what I did was I got a transfusion from Edwin Seidman.

Edwin, the man that never ages. He still looks like he�s 17. He was the link that brought us together. Yes, he is. Yes, Lancelot Link. Yeah. All right. Here�s what we�re going to do today on No Compromise Radio.

We�re going to continue our Myth Series, but before we do that, two announcements. One, Omaha Bible Church�s pastor, Pastor Pat Abendroth, will be here at Bethlehem Bible Church October 4th, 5th, and 6th.

You can go to the website bbcchurch .org to register for the conference, Behold the Lamb. And so Pastor Pat will be here October 4th, men only that night, Friday night, then three sessions on Saturday about the Lamb of God, Christ Jesus, and then he�ll preach here on Sunday morning.

I bet Pastor Steve Cooley will be here.

Well, yeah, but how do we get a guy like Pat Abendroth? I mean, here�s a guy who�s traveled the world to preach the gospel. He�s even taught in chapel at the Master�s Seminary. Twice. I mean, this is a world-renowned preacher.

How do we land a guy like that?

See, here�s my problem with envy and stuff and jealousy. Pat has taught at the Master�s Seminary Chapel, and I have not. You haven�t? Yeah, I have not. I don�t think I�m going to get an invite anytime soon, but if I did get one, I�d probably send Pat.

I�ve taught at the Master�s well in my dreams.

Yes, but I think you were asked to come teach a class, at least for a portion of a class, maybe a discipleship lab or something like that? Was that EE or DE or something?

Oh, well, I mean, I�ve done all that kind of stuff, but I mean, as far as the seminary, I don�t think so.

You know? All right. Well, maybe because I�m teaching preaching classes at Southern Seminary�s adjunct campus in Boston, maybe they think I�m, you know, with the enemy or something. Oh, yeah.

Well, I�m persona au gratin there at the.

Persona scalloped. What�s the difference between scalloped potatoes and au gratin? Let me call my wife and let�s find out. I always thought they were the same when I was growing up, but again, I grew up in Nebraska, where we have home of the Runza.

We had Runza. My wife makes killer Runzas.

Well, she�s from Iowa, right? Yes. They are delish. So tell me what city your wife�s from again in Iowa?

It doesn�t really count as or, you know, qualify as a city. It barely qualifies as a town. Sigourney. Sigourney, Iowa. I think it�s like population 800 or something.

Was the lady who was the main star of the Alien movie, was she named after that city? No, that�s Sigourney. Oh, but I thought you were speaking New Englandese.

Spelled the same. Sigourney, where the highlight of the town, they have a fountain where at nighttime it flashes different colors.

That is really pretty cool. When I was in the Midwest and worked for Northwestern Bell Telephone Company, and I�d have to go out to the country to work on telephone lines, I would have an address, and here would be the address.

This is way before GPS and way before even some of these places were mapped. Here would be the address. It�d say, �Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Rural Route 1. Okay, I have no idea where to go. Rural Route 2 is close by, but I don�t know where that is either.

When you find Rural Route 1, there�s only one house there, so that�s it. It�s a rural route.

And then announcement number two, Steve, we�ve been on WV &E for four years, but it doesn�t look like we�re going to be on WV &E for five years. So if somebody wanted to listen to No Compromise Radio after we�re no longer on WV &E, starting October 1st-ish of 2013, what are they going to do?

Well, I think they�d have to go to nocompromiseradio .com and listen there.

I think you could go to nocompromiseradio .com. Sign up for the podcast? Podcast, yes. You could go to the iTunes No Compromise site. You could go to, I think, TuneIn Radio or Stitcher Radio. You can get No Compromise Radio.

Stitcheroo. Stitcheroo. Stitcher Radio. Or you can get No Compromise Radio with our new partner, Brandon House, at World View Weekend.

Do we have a No Compromise app?

No, but maybe the money we would have spent on WV &E, we could spend it on an app. Okay. I got an app for that.

Sweet. No Compromise Radio. That would be cool to see on my iPhone.

I�d like that. The other day, I was looking at the World View Radio. They�ve got an iPhone app, and I pulled up the radio shows that they have, Erwin Lutzer and some other men, and Jimmy DeYoung, and Jesse Johnson.

Wow, and you�re on there. And then it said, �Pastor Steve returns. And so, No Compromise Radio, and then the liner notes were, �Pastor Steve was back after a sabbatical, getting ready to talk about such and such.

And so, you are actually listed on the World View Radio, World View Weekend. It�s a big time. Okay. Well, our time is precious. Yes. That�s right. Here�s the myth today, Steve. You don�t even know what I�m going to talk about, but I know you can follow suit very quickly.

There�s a difference between the Old Testament God and the New Testament God. So, today, our myths, Mythbusters, I think it�s probably part, oh, maybe five, that there�s a difference between the Old Testament God and the New Testament God.

Now, are we talking about Old Testament idols, like Baal or Molech or something like that? No, actually. Because they don�t appear very much in the New Testament. I mean, you know.

Well, I actually am using capital G for my notes, but of course, this is the myth. And so, I guess probably what we should do to start this whole deal is, why do people think this way? Is there a reason why people would somehow say, oh, there�s a difference between these two gods?

Steve�s raising his left hand.

I see that hand. Well, I can tell you why, because people think, oh, the God of the Old Testament, he�s all about judgment and wrath, and look at all the nations he condemns, and he�s just talking about rain and fire and all this other stuff.

But the God of the New Testament, he�s love, he�s about acceptance, he�s about tolerance. He�s nothing like the God of the Old Testament. So, you know, it�s obvious that he�s either undergone a personality transplant or he�s completely different.

Oh, you know what? We could call this schizophrenia and Yahweh or something.

Would that sell much? It would, but it makes me edgy and it gets close to, you know, like blasphemy. Yeah, I know.

I know what you mean. Well, double-mindedness is not good in humans, right, James chapter 1? No, so it wouldn�t be good.

So, would it be good in God? No, it would be impossible with God.

The Old Testament Reveals Both Wrath and Grace

Let�s think a little bit about the revelation of God found in the Old Testament to start. Let�s think of illustrations of, let�s start with wrath to start, because that�s kind of the common misconception is wrath of God in the Old Testament, love of God in the New Testament, Jesus is love, you know, Yahweh is wrath.

But it is true that God shows forth his wrath and justice, and I think of two times in particular that it was shown on a massive scale, Steve, the flood and then Sodom and Gomorrah. And so we would have to say that God hates wickedness, he hates sin, wrath is part of his makeup in terms of his constitution, his characteristics, his perfections, right?

Yeah, I have no argument against that, but I mean, we also need to understand in the Old Testament that there�s a lot of grace.

I know, I know. But before we get there, let�s just kind of make sure people realize that when you look at the Old Testament and you think to yourself, every one but eight people drowned, that is, the newborns, they all drowned, the eight-year-old kids, they all drowned, those who couldn�t walk, they all drowned, everybody drowned, the grandpas.

And our tendency to think is maybe that�s a small group of people, you know, that it was, you know, 500 people. Localized flood.

Yeah, you know, small. Steve, when I think of the flood and the, you know, they all deserved it, right? We have to admit that when you sin, you deserve punishment. And of course, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

It wasn�t that Noah was better than everyone else. He too had been affected by the sin of Adam and he too sinned consequently. But when you think of it, just everyone, it�s just such a massive scale when you fly around the world and you see different places and how many people are on the planet, not just, you know, now, but even then, lots of people.

And to think every last one of them.

Well, what it does show us is that God is very serious about sin. He takes it seriously. And you know, even if He�s willing, and we�ll just wander here a little bit into the grace part, even if He�s willing to overlook it or to postpone judgment on it, that doesn�t lessen His anger about it.

For example, you know, we�re talking about Genesis 6, the flood. Well, what if we go back a little ways and we look at how He, when He kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, before He did that, what did He do?

He killed animals and He clothed them. That was very gracious on His part. And He would have been within His rights as their sovereign Creator to just destroy them. He created them and He could just take them out, just like that.

Well, getting back to the grace of God now, since you�re injecting these things, so I get to do it now too. I have permission. Okay, go ahead and feel free. Well, even in the proclamation of the gospel in Genesis 3, verse 15, in this proto-first gospel, the promise of a Redeemer and the promise of Satan to have his head crushed.

You see grace everywhere. How about the grace of God in the nation of Israel? I think of Passover. I think of the Exodus. You can think of God�s mercy in Ruth�s life, in Esther�s life, how God used Esther patiently, lovingly, kindly.

Just how many times did He call Israel to repentance from idolatry? And if you just go to the book of Judges, all the times where they turned and they did what was right in their own eyes and they went right back to idolatry, and time after time after time, He rescues them from whatever travail they�re in.

Think of the captivity and how He brought them back. I mean, even if we were�well, I don�t want to fast forward out of the Old Testament, but time and time again, the grace of God shown to His covenant people, Israel in the Old Testament, is remarkable.

I dare say that no one would have. The patience that God had that He exhibited.

Deuteronomy chapter 7, �It was not because you were more in number, Israel, God said, than any other people, that the Lord set His love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all people. But it is because the Lord, Yahweh, loves you and is keeping the oath that He swore to your fathers.

I mean, think about it. Why does God love Israel? Because He decided to love Israel. And my point is, Deuteronomy 7 talks about the love of God. Steve, tell our listeners today, as we�re looking at the myth of Old Testament God is different than the New Testament God, what is immutability?

If you were going to describe immutability to the listeners, you would say?

It means God cannot change. He�s not capable of changing His character, His nature. Those things do not change. If God, you know, was simply a vengeful, wrathful God in the Old Testament, then that�s what we would get in the New Testament too.

There�s no transformation.

Absolutely. So, when I talk to my children and I�m trying to get them to understand root words, it�s been told to me that if you know a little Latin and a little bit of Greek and maybe a little German, you can figure out the origin of almost every word and the meaning.

Okay. Well, �mute� must have something to do with �change.

Yeah. So, when I first asked my kids, �All right, let�s think about the word immutability, and what�s the root word And so, they said, �Well, not ability, mute. And, you know, so that God doesn�t talk, you know, you have to be silent.

And I thought, �Well, you know what When you don�t talk, you�re unchangeable in your expression. But I said, �Let�s go to the mutant. And I said, �If you would have been younger, you would have really liked it that in North Hollywood, Steve, you were there at my house, my old house on Carpenter Street, that down the street was one of the actors for the teenage mutant� Ninja.

Turtles. Turtles, yes. And so, even like now, the Transformers, right, they mutate and they change. And so, God doesn�t change, His character doesn�t change. And I think I have a verse in James 1 that even discusses there�s no variableness or turning with God.

And so, God doesn�t change. Now, He might show a particular attribute here or there, but He is unchanging. He is simultaneously exercising all of His attributes in an unchanging fashion.

Well, it�s so important to know that, too, because if we understand that God hated sin in the Old Testament, the idea that He would ever change His mind about that, I mean, it gives us some idea of what hell is going to be like.

It gives us some idea of if He thought some things were abominable, then they�re still abominable. I mean, some things do not change. God hasn�t changed His mind.

Steve, just flashed into my mind Hosea and the love of God shown in the book of Hosea. Hosea, go love the prostitute, and this is going to be a picture of my love for Israel, the whore prostitute nation.

So unfaithful, as I said before, going after all these different gods. You know, there would be idols of all the nations surrounding Israel, and depending on which nation was stronger, well, then they would have more influence in Israel.

And people often, for pragmatic reasons, would fall into idolatry because they didn�t really have belief in Yahweh.

Steve, I remember hearing R .C. Sproul once talk about Jonathan Edwards, and Edwards, I like a lot of things that he said. I think he�s kind of wild on a few of things, but I love this part that he�s�Sproul was talking about how Edwards would say that it�s the immutability of God that really the unbeliever, because God�s holy, but maybe there�s a few times where He�s just not as holy, like when we�re sinning.

And so He�s just not holy those times, and He�s just not angry those times, and He�s just not, you know, full of justice those times, but He is immutably holy, and so then you think He�s immutably faithful, He�s immutably omniscient and sees all those things.

How can a Christian embrace what the unbeliever doesn�t like, that is, the immutability of God?

How can, well, because the fact that He doesn�t change means He�s also not going to change His mind. You know, once He sets His affections upon you, then you don�t have to worry about losing His affections.

He�s not fickle. He doesn�t, you know, change with the fashions or with the times or whatever, all the things that we want to do.

He doesn�t do that. You know, Steve, isn�t it amazing when God gives us eyes to see Him through saving faith and we appreciate Christ�s work and God�s great redemption? The things that we really hate as an unbeliever, God doesn�t change.

God is inevitably, always, incessantly, immutably holy. But now we love the holiness of God, and we love it that Jesus stepped in front of us figuratively to take on God�s holy wrath in our place. And I used to hate immutability, and now I love it.

I love it too. And I mean, I used to think that, you know, God was only really angry with the really bad people and I wasn�t that bad. And once you understand that, no, He�s angry with you. It�s because of the things that you�ve done that you don�t think are so bad.

God doesn�t have a sliding scale. He has an absolute scale. And Jesus absolutely obeyed perfectly the law and all the commandments of God.

God Is Compassionate and Gracious in Both Testaments

Well, if you�re listening today, I�d like to ask you this question. I�m going to read you a Bible verse or two. You tell me where it�s from. The Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for a thousand, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin.

That has to be in the New Testament, maybe in the Gospel of John.

Exodus chapter 34. We see, of course, God�s justice and love in the Old Testament, but we see it in the New as well. So let�s fast forward now to the New Testament. Is there any wrath or any justice or any condemnation in the New Testament at all?

Well, I mean, we have the New Testament version of Nadab and Abihu, and their names are Sapphira. What�s the other one? Ananias. Ananias and Sapphira. I had it, and then I was just like, all I could think of was Sapphira.

Yeah, Ananias and Sapphira, who lie to the Holy Spirit, and they get struck dead in Acts 5. So, of course, how about.

Yeah, and I�m thinking about the big one, Steve. What about hell? Well, hell is� Right? Jesus� tongue. I�m thinking about Matthew chapter 24, and we�ve got towards the end days, and people running around saying they found the Christ, and what about the Son of Man coming, and then it says wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather, and the tribulation.

I think the Old Testament teaches love and other things, but I think the New Testament teaches the wrath of God, too.

Absolutely, and there�s no question when we know that Jesus spoke more about hell than he did about heaven, when we can read about hell in Revelation as a future thing that, you know, where the fire doesn�t go out, Jesus talked about it, where the worm doesn�t die, you know, the picture there is of eternity.

And so there�s no doubt that the wrath of God goes on forever and ever and ever, and you say, well, why? Why would God be so angry? It�s because we don�t understand the seriousness of sin. We don�t understand the holiness of God.

We don�t understand that one violation of his holiness, of his commands, is enough to send us to hell forever.

Matthew chapter 25,. �Then he will say to those on his left, �Depart from me, you cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. Those are Christ words in the New Testament. You mean it�s not going to go out?

Well, if eternal doesn�t really mean eternal death, then it doesn�t really mean eternal life. So when you have the verse 46,. �And those or these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

I pretty much think eternal means the same thing for both those words. Like infinite? Today, Mike Abendroth with Steve Cooley. We�re talking about the myth of the Old Testament God versus the New Testament God.

God is one. He doesn�t change. What did Jesus say in Hebrews 13? �I�m the same yesterday in the Old Testament, but not in the New Testament. Yesterday, today, and forever.

You know, here�s an illustration, though, of maybe what people want to say. Look, the Old Testament talks about condemning homosexuality. It talks about condemning the wearing of mixed fabrics. It talks about condemning of shellfish, you know, eating shellfish.

New Testament doesn�t mention any of those things, so they must all be okay. God changed His mind.

Well, I�d say a lot of things. I�d say the New Testament does condemn homosexuality. See Romans chapter 1. It�s quite clear, probably even more than any of the Old Testament verses combined, but That�s just Paul.

Yeah, well, that�s true, inspired by the Spirit. But the Old Testament gives lots of regulations for Israel, not primarily for any other reason than to make Israel holy. What I mean by that is to make them separate, so they�re not like everybody else.

Everybody else, they don�t get circumcised, but if you�re a Jew male, eighth day, you get circumcised. I don�t know why you�re not to eat pork. Maybe there�s a lot of trigonosis back in those days. I�m sure that was a side product, a byproduct.

But it�s because everybody else eats pork. Jews, you don�t eat pork. You�re going to be a peculiar people, an interesting people, a people after my own choosing and you don�t act the way everybody else acts.

And guess how the rest of the world responded to that. They did not like it.

Well, I think that would be actually a good lesson for people to study Israel and how God wanted to make them so peculiar so that we don�t fly in the face of that and now say, �Yeah, but our whole mission is social justice, and we�ve got to get the world to love us.

And I am not saying Israel is a church, but we could learn as a church a lot from Israel and how peculiar they were living underneath the immutably holy God.

Well, that makes me want to just launch about some of the lessons we should have learned from fundamentalism and all these kind of things, but then we�ll just get totally off topic.

I know. So when people struggle with Old Testament God of wrath and New Testament the God of love, in all honesty, the way I think you can be helped through that is to just simply read your Bible and keep reading your Bible.

Read big chunks of your Bible. Take 15, 20, 30 minutes every morning and begin to read through your Bible and you�ll quickly see God show Himself in the life of people as not only a forgiving God, but also a God who by no means leaves the guilty unpunished.

Well, when we see we have pre-incarnate examples of Christ in the Old Testament and then, you know, obviously He�s in the New Testament, what we don�t see is any dramatic. There�s no change. There�s no change in how people get saved.

There�s no change in the judgment awaiting people. There�s no change in the basic structure of things. People want to say that there�s a difference in God because they just want to think that God is somehow nicer, He�s more willing to forgive, and they want to believe that He�s going to overlook whatever their sin is.

That�s what they really want. And who�s to say love is even greater than wrath, but we want to have a God who evolves from a wrathful God into a loving God because we as a society have elevated love over wrath.

Love is the number one quality that we want in God.

I think Brian Ferry said, �Love is the drug you�re looking for.

Love is the drug I�m thinking of, I think is what he said. That�s exactly what he said.

Closing Remarks and Ministry Information

Mike Abendroth and Steve Cooley, NoCompromiseRadio .com. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God�s Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.