Re: Old vs New Testament God
Murphy (gmurphy@imperium.net)
Thu, 12 Jun 1997 08:09:00 -0400Donald E Degraaf wrote:
............................
> The OT moral law may appear to "set out rules so that we might become
> acceptable to him." However, in my understanding that was not its most
> fundamental purpose. This purpose is stated in Gal 3:24: "So the law
> was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by
> faith." (NIV) ...............................
What Don says here & in the rest of his post is fine. &
certainly God is understood in the OT to be "gracious & merciful, slow
to anger & abounding in steadfast love." But I think many of the
comments on this thread have missed the problem which initiated it - the
fact that some people are turned away from the faith because of the
places in the OT where God is pictured as vindictive & especially
genocidal - the commands to exterminate populations &c.
The apologetic task in that regard is not to rationalize these
accounts, say "they had it coming" &c. It is necessary to interpret
such things in the light of the NT. What does Samuel hacking Agag to
pieces before the Lord in Gilgal have to do with Christ?
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@imperium.net
http://www.imperium.net/~gmurphy