Welcome to answers from an apostolic faith.
In the name of the Father and Son, the Holy Spirit, One God. Amen.
When we look at the New Testament, we see such a loving and caring God; all we have to imagine is the cross. When we look at all His miracles, how He cared and loved and healed the people. We look at his commandments. He says: Be perfect, love, give, forgive. But a quick glimpse at the Old Testament, we find a different God, a God that seem to be very violent, that likes wars. He says in the Old Testament: An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. In other words: If someone hits you once, hit him back once. But in New Testament, He says: Give the other cheek, love your enemies. Is He the same God or is He not the same God?
Let us look at it from the perspective of time. Time is a factor that affects everybody. Anybody under time is affected by time, so I know when I was born, when I was 1, 2, 3 years old; I can see and feel my body changing. But is God under time? No, God created time. God is above time. Imagine a being that is above time. He becomes the Alpha and the Omega; He becomes timeless, unchangeable, everlasting, without beginning and without end. And this is what St. Gregory the Theologian said in his liturgy in the anaphora. He says:
''It is fitting indeed, and right, that we praise You, bless You, serve You, worship You, and glorify You, the one, only, true God, the Lover of mankind, ineffable, invisible, infinite, without beginning, everlasting, timeless, immeasurable, incomprehensible, unchangeable, Creator of all, saviour of everyone.'' (St. Gregory the Theologian)
So is God the same in the Old and the New Testaments? Yes, He is the same. Am I saying that God is love in the Old Testament? Yes, He is. There are many examples and we'll look at them in details one by one in different videos, but for now, let us just look at one: Jonah and the Ninevites.
So the Ninevites were living in sin. God sent Jonah to save them, to lead them to repentance. And after they repented, in chapter 4, Jonah was upset and he's telling God: God, I knew, that's why I fled in the beginning. I know that You are gracious and merciful and slow to anger. So God responded to him and told him: these are 120,000 people, cannot discern from the right hand to the left hand; am I not supposed to save them, Jonah? And God truly saved them. And looking at it even further in Matthew 22, when God was speaking to a lawyer, He said the following:
'' 37 Jesus said to him, ''You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'' 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ''You shall love your neighbour as yourself.'' 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. These commandments are related to love. Love is the foundation of the Old Testament.
So love is the foundation of the Old Testament. So if God does not change, what changed? The only other variable is humanity itself, and again, we'll look at this in details in a different video, but for now, let us look at the example of Samson in Judges 14 and 15. Samson married this Philistine woman, a woman of non-Jewish descent. In their marriage feast that lasted seven days, Samson, in the beginning, told the Philistine, thirty people, he asked them a riddle. And he told them: If you can discover what the answer is, I will give to each one of you a garment and a change of clothes, but if don't, you give me one.
So on the seventh day, they couldn’t figure out the answer, so they told Samson’s wife: Go get the answer from him. And if you don’t get the answer from him, we will burn you and your father’s house. So she did get the answer and they didn’t burn her. And we know that they are serious, because in the next chapter, in chapter 15, they actually burnt her and her father for a different reason. But who does that? Who would burn someone just because they don't wanna lose a piece of garment? Is this humane? Absolutely not! So Humanity in the Old Testament was at a very, very low level and it was growing. So as it was growing, God changed His laws to adapt to the people. We can see this in Matthew 5, in the Sermon of the Mount. God says:
'' 38 You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth.' 39 But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.” (Matthew 5:38-39)
So what God is saying is that, in the Old Testament: I had told you an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth because you guys, in other words, were crazy; you guys were gonna burn people not to lose a change of garment. So I'm telling you: calm down! I'm giving you a commandment to your level. But now, in the New Testament: Come and give the other cheek. I'm gonna give you the Holy Spirit that will enable you to perform these different sets of laws at a much higher level. So it was said to you in the Old Testament, do this and that, but now I say to you, do this and that. God changed the laws because humanity has grown. So humanity is the one that changed, but God did not change.
So what we just did is to give a basic answer for the violence in the Old Testament, but in reality, when we read the Old Testament, we are faced with very, very difficult passages. So
what we decided to do is to create a series on this topic. We'll discuss the flood, the wars, the plagues, Sodom and Gomorrah, so on and so forth. So I invite you to look at this series to deepen your understanding of God and the violence in the Old Testament.
Remember: Know your faith, live your faith, and teach your faith. And glory be to God forever. Amen.