Should
Christians Ignore the Old Testament?
Does
Avoiding the Old Testament Solve the Problems of Christians Explaining God’s
“Ungodly” Behavior?
Troy
J. Edwards
It is…. unwise to
declare that the wrath of God or the love of God is any more or less obvious in
the Old Testament than in the New. Despite popular opinion, the primary
characteristic of God in the Old Testament is love. His love is intense and
unremitting, His love is forever.
Many
Christians are taught to avoid the Old Testament. The reasons for ignoring the
largest portion of our Bibles both vary and intersect. We are told that “we are
no longer under the Old Testament law,” “it is not for the Christian
dispensation,” “only the New Testament is applicable to the Christian,” “God
worked in wrath under the Old but has grace and mercy under the New,” “it is
too difficult to understand,” “Jesus changed everything” and a variety of other
reasons.
Some
of this avoidance is not limited to the books in the section of our Bibles
dividing the Old from the New. Some will minimize the importance of the four
gospels (and some extreme dispensationalists will include the book of Acts in
this list as well). We are told that the gospels are irrelevant because Jesus
had not died and resurrected, thus bringing in the dispensation of grace.
This
issue is not something unique to our generation but has been debated almost
near the time the New Testament had been completed.
For the most part, people have a difficult time loving and worshipping God as
the Old Testament supposedly depicts Him. Rather than making use of the tools
provided to us to resolve the issues about the [alleged] Old Testament picture
of God, many would prefer to simply dismiss it altogether.
Why
concern ourselves with Old Testament statements about God cursing people,
smiting the disobedient Israelites, inflicting sickness, bringing natural
disasters, deceiving and sending lying spirits, hardening hearts and then
punishing the one hardened, and the numerous other horrific acts attributed to
Him when we can just acknowledge its lack of importance for the Christian?
We’ll just keep it around if we need some divine poetry and some fun stories
for Sunday (or Sabbath) school.
However,
do we truly and sincerely believe that if we divorce the Old Testament from the
Bible that this will resolve some of those embarrassing difficulties we have
been led to believe only occur in the Old Testament?
The Old Testament is Inspired by
God
If
we are going to issue the Old Testament a certificate of divorce we probably
need to check with its primary author first. You see, Paul tells us that this
document is “God-breathed:”
All scripture is given by inspiration of God,
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16)
The
word “inspired” in the passage above means “God-breathed”. Some believe that it
is an allusion to when God breathed into Adam’s nostrils and he received the
breath of life (Gen. 2:7). God is the one who formed and gave life to the
Scriptures. Note that Paul said that He did this with all Scripture. This would have to include the Old Testament
writings since they are called Scripture: “And
beginning at Moses and all the prophets,
he expounded unto them in all the
scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).
It
was the Holy Spirit who moved upon men to record the Word of God (1 Pet.
1:20-21). While scholars continue to debate the type of inspiration the Holy
Spirit had over the Bible writers (whether it was mechanical, plenary,
etc.), the fact is, God personally gave us the Bible (the Scriptures) and
refers to it as His Word: “If he called
them gods, unto whom the word of God
came, and the scripture cannot be
broken” (John 10:35). The “Word of God” and “the Scripture” are synonymous
terms. Shouldn’t the author of the book have a say in what part of His book
should be dissected from the rest?
It
is also important to note that Paul stated that all Scripture is profitable. That means that everything
from Moses to the prophets has some benefit for the Christian today. Paul tells
us that the Old Testament was written to us to allow its teachings and
historical events to assist us in our walk of faith (Rom. 4:16-23; 1 Cor. 10:1-11).
Perhaps it is not the wisest thing to rip the OT from our Bibles after all.
God Sending Delusions
From
the above we must conclude that giving the Old Testament (or any other portion
of Scripture) a place of irrelevance is an insult to God since this is His Word.
But even more, to do so would never resolve any of the embarrassing
difficulties anyway. Let’s look at an example:
And
if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my
hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel
(Eze. 14:9)
Here
the Old Testament clearly depicts God as a deceiver. Even worse, God threatens
to destroy the prophet He deceived. Not a very loving picture of God now is it?
The simple solution for many is, “Well, that’s the Old Testament. I am a New
Testament Christian. I am a disciple Jesus, not a disciple of Ezekiel. So I am
only concerned about the New Testament.” That might appear to resolve the issue
and ease the mind until one runs across this little gem right there in their
New Testament:
And
for this cause God shall send them
strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be
damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
(2 Thess. 2:11-12)
As
we can see, the New Testament doesn’t exactly let God off of the hook here.
Hence, chopping the Old Testament from the Bible is not the “great escape” that
some make it out to be. Thankfully there are better ways to deal with these
issues in both testaments. The good news is that the issue of God being a
deceiver is not unresolvable. But trying to down-grade the Old Testament’s
level of importance is not one of the
solutions.
The
best way to resolve this is to remember that there is a permissive idiom in the Hebrew language. Concerning
Ezekiel 14:9 the late Wesleyan scholar, Adam Clarke, wrote, “I have often had
occasion to remark that it is common in
the Hebrew language to state a thing as done by the Lord which he only suffers
or permits to be done.
(Emphasis is mine)
When
we interpret Scripture with Scripture we will see that this permissive idiom is
true. While God often gave His Word using the language, customs, and idioms of
the Israelites, He gave plenty of information in other parts to help the
Western mind understand what is actually being said.
Often
we can find explanations for the causative
language in the context of the passage itself or from other passages. For
example, God tells Jeremiah that He did
not send those prophets that deceive (Jer. 14:15; 23:32; 29:8-9). Actually,
God restrains these lying spirits but when people persist in wanting deception then
God, at some point, allows them to have what they want (Isaiah 30:9-10). When
God releases His restraints then He takes
responsibility for the results even if He is not the direct cause of them.
This
truth is made even clearer in 2 Thessalonians. In the context we see that God
is only said to “send delusion” because He is no longer holding back the deceiver
(2 Thess. 2:6-9). Satan is the one who deceives the whole world (Rev. 12:9) and
God allows him to have his way. In that sense God is said to send delusion.
God Hardening Hearts
Another
example we find in Scripture is how, upon a careless (or theologically bias)
reading of the Old Testament, God hardens people’s hearts and then punishes
them for doing that which the hardening made them do:
And
the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou
do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall
not let the people go. And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the
LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn: And I say unto thee, Let my son go,
that he may serve me: and if thou refuse
to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn
(Exodus 4:21-23)
Now
tell me that this isn’t unfair. Seriously, God uses divine power to harden
Pharaoh’s heart which causes Pharaoh not to let the people go and God in turn
punishes Pharaoh by killing his son for acting on that hardening. It is
difficult to defend this language so the easy escape for numerous Christians is
to claim that this was under the law (for many dispensationalists, anything in
the Old Testament is supposedly under the law, even if the incident happened before the law of Moses came into
effect).
Since,
as they believe, our focus is only on the New Testament because of the finished
work of Christ, then there is no need to concern ourselves with God hardening
people’s hearts. It’s all OT stuff. Yet, those who go through that escape hatch
might crawl to a dead end since the New Testament makes an even stronger
statement about the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart:
For
the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee
up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy,
and whom he will he hardeneth
(Rom. 9:17-18)
As
we can see, the New Testament, using an example from the Old, employs the exact
same language. Therefore, cutting the Old Testament from the Bible is like the
ostrich that hides its head in the sand thinking that it has escaped danger.
The danger is still there. Both testaments claim that God personally hardens
hearts and then punishes the one “divinely” hardened. Again, the only
resolution for this that vindicates God’s character is found,
….in the Scripture
idiom, God is often said to do what he only permits, or does not interpose to
prevent. The means by which Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, were God’s
withdrawing the plagues one after another, when Moses, at the king's entreaty,
interceded for the nation.
If
we truly read our Bibles carefully, we will see this “permission” concerning
Pharaoh taught very clearly. Going back to Exodus 4:21 we read, “And the
LORD said unto Moses ….but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let
the people go.” When we compare this to other Scripture we can see that God
was only predicting Pharaoh’s response to the Lord’s chastisement.
God
told Isaiah to “Make the heart of this
people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes.” God did not
give Isaiah divine power to make people’s hearts hard. God simply told Isaiah
the results that would occur from his prophesying over the people (Isa.
6:8-10). This same truth is taught in other passages (Jer. 1:9-10; Eze.
32:17-18). This exact same truth applies to God’s statement concerning Pharaoh:
But
when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he
hardened his heart, and hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said ….Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh, This
is the finger of God: and Pharaoh’s
heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said (Ex. 8:15, 19; see
also 7:13-14)
In
Exodus 4:21 God only predicted how
Pharaoh would react to Moses demands to let God’s people go free. However,
since God Himself foretold the event He took responsibility for its coming
about. Therefore God does not literally
harden hearts. Yet, one cannot come to this conclusion by ignoring the Old
Testament since the New Testament makes the same claim. The only way to resolve
it is remember the permissive idiomatic language of the Hebrews.
An Angel of the Lord Inflicting
Disease
In
one final example, we have a case where the angel of the Lord is said to
inflict disease on Israel as a punishment for David’s sin of numbering the
people of Israel:
So
the LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the time
appointed: and there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba seventy
thousand men. And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to
destroy it, the LORD repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that
destroyed the people, It is enough: stay now thine hand. And the angel of the
LORD was by the threshingplace of Araunah the Jebusite.
(2 Sam. 24:15-16)
This
is a very difficult one for us Word-Faith people. What do we do when someone
tells us that God sent sickness and He used one of His very own angels to do
it? Certainly we can say, “Ah, that was just Old Testament. We don’t live under
the Old Covenant of law and works. God doesn’t do that kind of stuff anymore.”
As with the previous examples, one will find that this is not as simple a
maneuver as one might be led to believe:
And
upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made
an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a
god, and not of a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because
he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost
(Acts 12:21-23)
Once
again we find that there is no hiding behind, “I am a ‘New Testament only’
Christian” since the New Testament appears to present God as an inflictor of
sickness. The best resolution is once again found in knowledge of the Hebrew
permissive idiom in which God is said to do that which He merely permitted.
Concerning the angel that allegedly inflicted sickness on Israel one writer
notes:
When they make God the
author of the pestilence, it is clear they do not mean to say he is the
immediate cause in so fearful a calamity, from the fact that in other places
they represent God as the author of moral evil, where they certainly do not
mean to say he is the immediate author of such evil. In a somewhat recent
period of their history it cannot be denied that, instead of making God the
author of evil, they attribute it to a malignant spirit of high origin—viz.,
Satan; but still they were aware of the origin of this being, that he was the
creature of God, and acted beneath his superintendence. The difficulty, then,
in regard to their representations arises from this source. God, in a certain
sense, is the author of all things. This is true. But the ancient Hebrews do
not appear to have distinguished with sufficient accuracy that liberty or
permission which is given us, in the course of Divine providence, to do or not
to do, to do good or evil, from the direct and immediate agency of God himself.
The
truth that this writer expresses is seen in Rev. 7 where the angels are
commanded not to hurt the earth:
And
after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth,
holding the four winds of the earth,
that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any
tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the
living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was
given to hurt the earth and the sea, Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have
sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads
(Rev. 7:1-3)
Note
that the angels were holding back the winds of destruction. They were told by a
commanding angel “not to hurt the earth” until a certain task had been
accomplished. Hence, the only way for the angels to “hurt the earth” is to release the winds of destruction that
they held back from destroying it. It is
by removing their protection that they hurt the earth.
This
is the exact same way that the angel of the Lord can be said to bring
pestilence to Israel and to strike Herod with worm disease. In Psalm 91:1-12
the angels protect people from numerous things to include pestilence. God and His angels are only said to be the
cause of sickness and disease in the sense that they leave the sick ones unprotected.
Herod’s and David’s sins caused the angel to remove his protection over them.
Conclusion
Attempting
to teach a loving and kind God by doing away with the Old Testament or
relegating it to an insignificant and unimportant attachment to our New Testament
Bible will never work since many of the same issues in the Old Testament are in
the New. From the Biblical examples given above, we can see that there is no
way to vindicate God’s character apart from recognizing the idiomatic
expressions inherent within the Hebrew language and culture in which God is
said to do that which He merely allows or permits.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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