Jesus Saved Us From the God of the Old Testament

When I hear that statement, I scream in reply, “Heresy!” To say that Jesus saved us from the God of the Old Testament is complete heresy, for Jesus said “A house divided against itself can not stand.” Saying that Jesus saved us is correct, but to save us from what is the question that needs to be asked of this statement. Jesus is apart of the Holy Trinity; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus can not save us from the God of the Old Testament because he is as much the God of the Old Testament as God the Father. Besides the fact that it divides the House of God, it says that God can change and to say that God changes really says that God can make mistakes. Now to argue about other parts of the Bible that look like God changes His mind is for another time and many people have already made the arguments to prove that God does. So for now I am going to leave that out of this, but I may revisit this another time to show in my own words the unchanging nature of God. But to answer the question simply, through out the whole Bible, Jesus and God the Father both are referred to numerous times as “The Rock” which tells of his unchanging nature. The statement doesn’t understand the God of the Old Testament. The God of the Old Testament is a God of justice and mercy. It is easily seen in the first story written down, the story of creation. God created the perfect world in the Garden of Eden and in the center of that Garden he put the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. From the beginning you can clearly see that God didn’t want perfect zombies to follow Him, he wanted real people who chose Him. So he gave them the choice from the beginning to follow Him or follow evil desires. That is not a god of wrath, but a loving God of mercy. But the story does not stop there, after the fall of man God called out to them in the garden, not that He didn’t know but He again wanted them to choose Him. Mercy. After they talked he placed a curse on man on the earth. Now the people who would say the statement above would stand up and say, “see!” but the story does not stop at the curse, God goes on to give them a promise. “So the Lord said to the serpent… I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your hear, and you will strike at his heal.” (Genesis 3:14a, 15) God didn’t want the sin, that now entered into the world through the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to put a wall between Himself and His creation that He loved so much so he gave them the promise of Jesus. The God of the Old Testament is not a God of wrath and hatred, but of mercy and justice. He was just because he put the curse on them, for a God of justice can not let evil go unpunished. All sin has consequences and to deny that would be ignorance. Even science knows that with every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and this is not only for the physical motion but also for all aspects of life and social interactions. Thus as a just God, he placed the punishment, in this case the curse, upon the people that committed the wrong. But He is a God of Mercy and provided a second chance to his creation. In the passage quoted above we have the promise of a Savior who would save them from their sin. The serpent is the devil and his seed is the evil that now entered into the world, but God promised that the seed of Eve would crush the head of the serpent. From the woman’s seed came Jesus, which the Bible makes clear through the genealogies, and when Jesus came he took the punishment of all sin. He crushed the head of sin with his death on the cross by being the perfect sacrifice to cover all sin. And even though the devil struck the heel of Jesus, Jesus crushed the devil and all his power. Justice and Mercy are the characteristics of the God of the Old Testament as shown in the first story of our human history. Jesus did not save us from the God of the Old Testament, the God of the Old Testament sent his only Son to save his people from their own choices and sin. I will only leave the argument with this one example, for it is enough to prove the point I am making but it is only the first example and the best example of God’s justice and mercy. Easily I can go on and tell you about Abraham, Moses, and countless others told about in the Bible and how God shows his characteristics of love, mercy, and justice to his fallen and rather unloving children, but for now this is enough.