Is God Two Faced?

      There’s a group for you (Picture of 1960’s LA Rams linemen) – the defensive line of the Los Angeles Rams from the 1960’s.  From left to right they are Lamar Lundy, Roosevelt Grier, Merlin Olsen and Deacon Jones. 

       The Fearsome Foursome was one of the great defensive lines of all times. They had the ability to bull rush any offensive line.  They would stunt and cause confusion.  They gang tackled, pursued plays and sacked quarterbacks with gusto.  In 1968 the Rams defense set a 14-game NFL record for the fewest yards allowed. 

       They were specialists in applied violence.

       I especially want to focus on the second guy from the left – defensive tackle Rosey Grier.  In his 141 game career he racked up 45 sacks and 2 safeties.  He was terrible to play against. 

       He also sang “It’s All Right to Cry” on a children’s television program.   

       Grier appeared as a death row inmate named Jack Moss in The Thing With Two Heads – “white bigots head onto a soul brother’s body.”  (picture of 60’s ad)

      You gotta love the 60’s.

       The next year he authored Rosey Grier's Needlepoint for Men. 

       Fearsome Foursome and needlepoint.  It almost sounds like two different men.

       God also sounds like two different beings to some readers of the Bible.  In the Old Testament God seems to come across as all eight of the Fearsome Foursome. In the New Testament, God seems to have chilled out a bit – now He’s into needle point and It’s All Right to Cry.

       This contrast was the focus of the questions we are looking at today and this week in our Lenten series.  Here are questions we were asked.

       (read questions)

       Some people say, “The God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath while the God of the New Testament is a God of love.”

       Are these people just seeing things?  Or is there really a difference? 

       Well a very quick scan of the Old Testament reveals 446 mentions of God’s ‘love’ and 100 occurrences of ‘mercy’ as opposed to 135 mentions of ‘hate’ and 173 of ‘wrath’.   That’s 551 love/mercy versus 308 hate/wrath.  So the  percentage of love/wrath in the Old Testament is 64% love to 36% wrath. 

       This is technical stuff so I’ve made a chart.  (Pie Chart)

       Now compare this to the New Testament where the statistic is 291 love/mercy vs. 71 hate/wrath.  The New Testament ratios are 80% love vs. 20 % wrath. 

      So there you have it.  The New Testament picture of God is – very roughly – 44% more loving than the Old Testament one. 

        But that doesn’t mean that we are dealing with two different Gods.  Because as you read the Old and the New Testaments, it becomes evident that God is not different from one testament to another.  God’s wrath and His love are revealed in both testaments.

     Throughout the Old Testament, God is declared to be a “compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”  In Ezekiel 18 God sees His people heading for destruction and cries out, “Why will you die O house of Israel?  I do not delight in the death of anyone who dies.  Turn to me and live.  It’s no different in the New Testament.  Jesus, God made flesh, sees Jerusalem heading for destruction and weeps for the city.  “O Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets, how often have I wanted to gather you to myself as a hen gathers her young.” 

      It’s also the same righteous judgment.

      Throughout the Old Testament we see God’s judgment and wrath poured out on sin.  We see God calling for the total destruction of the people of Canaan – even though He makes it clear to Abraham that He judges no one until they really deserve it.  We see the flood, the plagues of Egypt, Sodom and Gomorrah – the list goes on and on. 

       But it is not a situation where God is uptight in the Old Testament and is now laid back in the New Testament.  In fact, if you want the real big judgment you have to turn to the New Testament to the Book of Revelation.  And even there you find God exhibiting extreme patience and loving-kindness as He gives humankind a chance to repent.

       God by His very nature is unchanging.  That’s what James tells us in our text.  We might see one aspect of His nature revealed in certain passages of Scripture more than other aspects. But God Himself does not change – and He never gets up on the wrong side of the bed and never has an off day.

       Sometimes when I look at scripture I see it as a symphony. 

       First there is a glorious music of creation and then come the heavy notes of people’s sin and God’s righteous judgment – heavy notes counterpointed by the softer but very penetrating notes of mercy – the note that after the fall – after Adam and Eve found it essential to clothe themselves to hide their guilt, how God Himself provided the skins of animals – the very first example in Scripture of the innocent dying for the guilty …the note that even after Cain committed the first murder, God still placed His protective mark upon him. 

       This beautiful counterpoint of mercy grows and swells through Isaiah and Ezekiel until it becomes the dominant theme in the Gospels.  But the counterpoint of righteous judgment never disappears.  Finally, in the Revelation to John, both judgment and mercy reach their apex and we return to the creation theme of Genesis and the song that only the redeemed can sing.

       The great themes of judgment and mercy were compacted by St. Augustine who knew a lot about both.  “Let us not despair,” he wrote, “for one of the thieves crucified with Jesus was saved.  Let us not presume for one of the thieves was lost.”

       As we read and study the Bible, it becomes clear that God is the same in the Old and New Testaments. Even though the Bible is 66 individual books written on two (or possibly three) continents, in three different languages, over a period of approximately 1500 years by more than 40 authors, it remains one unified book from beginning to end.

       In it we see how a loving, merciful, and just God deals with sinful people in all kinds of situations. The Bible is God’s love letter to humankind. God’s love for His creation, especially for humankind, is evident all through Scripture. Throughout the Bible we see God lovingly and mercifully calling people into a special relationship with Himself, not because they deserve it, but because He is gracious and merciful. Yet we also see a holy and righteous God who is the judge of all those who love darkness instead of His light.  We see the doctor who is willing to cut out the cancer that would destroy His good creation.

       I wouldn’t want to go to a doctor who is so gentle and mild that he or she isn’t willing to hurt me.  Sue I want a nice doctor but I also want a doctor who will do what it takes to make me whole – even if it means cutting on me, clobbering me with chemotherapy or zapping me with radiation.  God loves us enough to use the knife.  For evil is a cancer that must be removed. 

      Because of God’s righteous and holy character, all sin—past, present, and future—must be judged. Yet God in His infinite love has provided a payment for sin and a way of reconciliation so that sinful people can have peace with God.

       This is the wonderful truth in verses like 1 John 4:10: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” In the Old Testament, God provided a sacrificial system so partial atonement could be made for sin. However, this sacrificial system was only partial and merely looked forward to the coming of Jesus Christ who would die on the cross to make a complete atonement for sin.  

       It’s the same God.  God is the same yesterday, today and forever. The Old and New Testaments represent different times in history as well as different covenants between God and people.  But they both show the same things – simply in different measure.   

       The Lord’s Supper shows the connection between judgment and grace very clearly.  The Supper reminds us of grace.  The Supper reminds us that we stand before a loving God has forgiven people.  But the table also reminds us that the wrath of God was poured out on His innocent Son for our sake.  The Supper speaks of the new covenant between us and God but it also tells us that the new covenant was created by the shed blood and broken body of God in the flesh.

       Judgment and grace always do together.    

       Roosevelt Grier could break your arm.  He was there in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel the night Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Grier grabbed the gun of the assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, and jammed his finger behind the trigger, breaking Sirhan Sirhan's arm.

      But Roosevelt Grier could also save your life. He later said of what happened next, "I grabbed the man's legs and dragged him onto a table. There was a guy angrily twisting the killer's legs and other angry faces coming towards him, as though they were going to tear him to pieces. I fought them off. I would not allow more violence.”

      So which is he?  The arm breaker or the life-saver?  Is he the Fearsome Foursome Rosey Grier or the Needlepoint for Men Rosey Grier?  Is he the “hunter of running backs” Rosey Grier? Or is he the ordained Christian pastor Rosey Grier who went to minster to O.J. Simpson in jail? 

      He’s the same. 

      Only the situation – the need of the moment -- is different. 

      But the character is the same.  With God, the invitation is also the same.

      The Old Testament story of Noah and the flood is a story of judgment.  But it is in connection with the Ark that we first hear God’s great invitation of mercy.  It is when the Ark is finished that we hear for the first time the voice of God speaking His favorite word – the word with which redemption begins and with which the Bible ends – God’s greatest and favorite word:  “Come!”  

       “Come into the Ark, you and your sons and your wife and your son’s wives with you.”

       “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord, through your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

      “Listen, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters.” 

      “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.

      “Come follow me and I will make you become fishers of people.”

      Finally, at the end of Revelation:  “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.  And let him who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who thirsts come.  And whoever wills, let him or her take the water of life freely.”