Good Cop Bad Cop: Bristly God vs. Affable Jesus

A young adult once told me that she loved to pray to Jesus, but she had not yet been able to pray to God. I asked her what she meant, and she verbalized what many are afraid to say: “Jesus is nice, but God scares me a little bit.” At first I thought her theology of Jesus was off. Clearly she did not realize that Jesus is God. But that wasn’t it. She realized that the Bible taught that Jesus is God. She just didn’t like the Old Testament (OT) version of God.

Now, you may be shaking your head at this new Christian’s sense of it. But the reality is, many people have felt this tension. How can Jesus be so affable while the God of the OT seems irascible?

This perception of God has actually become quite popular. But I don’t think that it takes a full view of God, nor a full view of what the Bible reveals about him. It starts with two wrong assumptions:

1. Even though we may understand that Jesus is God, we often think of him as something lesser than God. But Jesus declares that “I and the Father are one” (Jn. 10:30). He says that anyone who has seen him has seen the Father. (Jn. 14:9) The Bible teaches that God was pleased to have “all his fullness dwell in [Jesus]” (Col 1:10). If Jesus is God, then it makes no sense to think of the OT God as crabby, and the NT God as friendly.
2. We often feel that in the OT God was severe and in the NT God is full of grace. But the Bible teaches that God “is the same yesterday, today and forever.” (Heb. 13:8) God doesn’t change. He is constant. So to think that he went through a metamorphosis from the OT to the NT is not optional. Both grace and justice are revealed in God in the OT and the NT.

The importance of all of this is that in the Gospels we see God up close and personal in Jesus. We get a closer look. We get to know God better! The one that sometimes seems fearsome and all-powerful is also gracious and loving. The reverse is also true. The Jesus we may view as affable is also severe and full of justice. He is the one described in the future as a “rider on a white horse…a conqueror bent on conquest” (Rev. 6:2)!

So as you meditate on Jesus, try to realize the fullness of who he is. And when you read the OT, see the arrows that point toward him. This fuller understanding of God will inform your reading of the Scriptures and shape your beliefs on everything.