The God of Jesus, the God of the Old Testament

a reply to: godlover25

"You know exactly why you posted those verses, out of context, with no explanation, in an attempt to make God look bad"

Come on now Christianity does not exactly help matters what with all the holy crusades carried out in the name of God. What about the Vatican's non intervention regarding the holocaust? Then we have the Spanish inquisition. Never mind what was done to the poor Cathars!

Give God a bad name! Genocidal religious maniac at worst, absentee parent that owes Humanity rather a lot of backdated child support at best!

Churches do my box in also, they always want our money! Why does God need money if he/she/it is so omnipotent?

@ op... This thread simply proves that christians still argue over who God is. Some christians say the ot God is God,. Other christians claim God of ot isnt God. Why?

a reply to: sk0rpi0n
Because the second group have not fully absorbed what the New Testament is saying, and this thread is reminding them.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Because the second group have not fully absorbed what the New Testament is saying, and this thread is reminding them.

I would reverse what you just said.
I think that once you understand the New Testament, then you see a pulling away from the old version of what God was, to where it is happy to say that Jesus, despite being a man in one respect, was the superior, and deserving of whatever adulation was given to the former image.

There is still a "real" God, just as there was always a real God all along, no matter what the "official" version was that was handed out by the religious leaders.

a reply to: jmdewey60
I rest my case on what Jesus thought about the matter, as outlined in the OP.

a reply to: DISRAELI

I rest my case on what Jesus thought about the matter, as outlined in the OP.

I think I refuted all the points of the OP without sufficient response in defense of them.

a reply to: jmdewey60
My apologies. I hadn't noticed.

The next post is a condensation of the argument in the OP, for the sake of convenience of quotation.

The God of Jesus was the God of the Old Testament, the same God that his hearers had always been worshipping.
This continuity can be demonstrated from the words of Jesus himself.

He quotes the actions of the Old Testament God as the actions of his own God

(examples given)

He quotes the words of the Old Testament God as the words of his own God

(examples given)

He quotes the prophecies of the Old Testament God as the prophecies of his own God

(examples given)

He accepts the laws of the Old Testament God as the laws of his own God

(examples given)

He identifies the Jews as the children of God

(examples given)

The Jews themselves don’t understand him as offering a different God

Every time he uses the word “God”, he fails to say that he means a different one

(many examples given)

The obvious conclusion is that there’s no need for him to be making any distinction, because he’s talking about the same God that his people have always known.

The message of Jesus to the Jews is never, at any time, “I’m offering you a better God than the one you’ve been worshipping”.
The message is always “We worship the same God, but I understand what he wants better than you do.”
He believes himself to be part of that single continuous history of the relation between God and his people.

Full argument found at;
God of Jesus, God of the Old Testament

a reply to: DISRAELI

Who is the God of the dead then...

IF you don't mind me asking?

originally posted by: DISRAELI
The God of Jesus was the God of the Old Testament, the same God that his hearers had always been worshipping.

Jesus is God incarnate. SOME of the Old Testament is from God. But a heck of a lot of it isn't. Jesus 'personality' (if you can call it that) doesn't match most of the 'God of the Old Testament'.

Jesus - Love and Mercy and Forgiveness.
OT 'god' - Jealousy and Vengeance and Murder and Rape.

Big difference. How can you miss that difference.

a reply to: FlyersFan

Its easy to miss when you're taught something your whole life, which is the case for most Christians...

Anyone who knows the stories from the books of the OT, can compare the words of Jesus and its completely obvious...

In fact EVEN my GF can see the obvious issues, but she doesn't try to explain it... she just overlooks it and submits that its Gods word

The following in this post is a condensation of my arguments against the claims of the OP, for the sake of convenience for people who may not have noticed my earlier posts.

He quotes the actions of the Old Testament God as the actions of his own God

He quotes the words of the Old Testament God as the words of his own God

Those are things self evident.
The world exists so someone made it.
Men and women exist, so it was made that way.
Those would be true of any religion.

Jesus was a Jew, so he quotes the Jewish scripture.

That is not so clear (that the person Moses was dealing with was the same person responsible for the world's creation), so I think Jesus avoids getting into that.

I have to think that this was why the Son of God was a Jew in the first place, because they had that (commandment to love your neighbor) in the Law.
Here were people who had the right idea, if you were someone like Jesus who could highlight the good parts.
In comparison, you had the Roman Imperial cult that said basically it is their own private city gods who tell them to loot and plunder their neighbors.

He quotes the prophecies of the Old Testament God as the prophecies of his own God

He does not clearly identify the Old Testament god.
My personal belief goes along with the New Testament where it says that the old covenant was administered by angels.
I think that when Jesus meets the devil in the wilderness, it is an allusion to Moses meeting the angel in the burning bush claiming that he was the sole representative of God.
Jesus was replacing that angel, so did not "remove his sandals" in his presence.

Jesus was making an argument (on the resurrection) and using a quote from the book of Exodus (on the “god of Abraham”) to illustrate the point. He could have made the exact same claim without the quote but he was dealing with people who only accepted the literal interpretation of the scripture.
He quotes from it but does not verify the veracity of it, but goes on to make his own independent claim about who and what he thinks God is.

He is quoting the Prophets in both cases (“I desire mercy and not sacrifice” and “My house shall be called a house of prayer…but you have made it a den of robbers”).
Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that they do not know what they worship.
They had practically the same Torah as the Jews, but did not accept the Prophets, so to Jesus, they had it backwards.

Jesus was not like a Pharisee who studied scripture to figure out theories, he knew these things, and did not come to that knowledge through deduction.

He accepts the laws of the Old Testament God as the laws of his own God

This (tells the healed leper to “offer for cleansing what God commanded”) emphasizes the nature of the ruler-ship over the temple, that these people were excluded because of medical conditions that were looked on as being the result of sinfulness on the part of the afflicted.

(He complains that the Pharisees neglect the commandment ) Just to show their hypocrisy.

He was requested specifically to give an analysis (which are the most important of the commandments) of that Law.
He brings out things that are fundamental to a law by a just God.

He identifies the Jews as the children of God

I think what he is saying is that the metaphorical keys are being taken out of their hands.
They were too busy excluding people rather than opening it up for more people.

Jesus says that this is "the kingdom", meaning Israel.
But, the "kingdom" of what?
Keep in mind that Jesus' gospel was proclaiming the kingdom that was at hand.
That was the kingdom of God.

The Jews themselves don’t understand him as offering a different God

Jesus told the teachers of the law and the high priests, in the temple that they did not know God.

Every time he uses the word “God”, he fails to say that he means a different one

He is also in gentile Galilee speaking in Greek, saying, "Theos", and fails to mention that he isn't talking about Zeus.

originally posted by: FlyersFan
Jesus is God incarnate. SOME of the Old Testament is from God. But a heck of a lot of it isn't.

I spent the whole of the "God's Law" series of threads making a very similar distinction in connection with the laws of the Pentateuch. I suggested that they had a mixed origin, partly from God and partly from man.
The distinction was made on the authority of Jesus himself, when he claimed that "they shall be one flesh" came from God, but "you can get rid of your wives" came from human "hardness of heart".
I thought the same principle could be applied to the rest of the laws as well. We could look for the difference between God's contribution and the human contribution.

Now anyone who follows Jesus has to accept that his God was the God of the Old Testament, because Jesus himself identifies them.
That is the point of the OP, to show in detail how Jesus identifies his God as the same God that Israel have always been worshipping, at every stage in his conversation.
We can't get past that. If Jesus says they are the same God, then they are the same God. That has to be the starting-point.

In fact they do have a lot in common.
For example, you would take "You shall love your neighbour as yourself" as a central feature of the New Testament, but that command is directly quoted from the laws of the Old Testament.

But what about the "mixed" nature of the Old Testament?
We both agree that the Old Testament has a "mixed" origin. You yourself admit that at least some of the Old Testamet comes from God.
So what to say about the part that doesn't?
Your approach is to attribute this to "the god of the Old Testament".
I suggest that a better approach, on the analogy of the way we can treat the laws, is to identify those aspects which don't come from God as "the human contribution".
Then the aspects which do come from God can be assigned to the Old Testament God who can be identified with the God of Jesus.
I believe that a follower of Jesus needs to identify the two, because Jesus himself identifies the two.

a reply to: DISRAELI

I will reiterate since you won't answer brother... God is NOT the god of the dead, referring to the so called god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob... HE is the God of the living, whom they did not know until Jesus came to show him

Matthew 22
31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,

32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

33 And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine.


Luke 20
37 Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

38 For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.


Mark 12
26 And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?

27 He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.

a reply to: Akragon


You have completely missed the point of the logic Jesus was using in that argument.
Let me spell it out in more detail.

Stage 1; God is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Stage2; But God is the God of the living, not of the dead.
Stage3; Therefore Abraham, Isaac and Jacob must be among the living, not among the dead.

The whole passage is an argument demonstrating the truth of the resurrection of the dead.
It DEPENDS UPON the opening statememt that God IS the God of the Patriarachs.
I did not respond at once because the question seemed like a trivial off-topic quibble.
It simply did not occur to me that you wouild be trying to twist the statement "God is the God of Abraham" into meaning the exact opposite of what it says.

a reply to: DISRAELI

I disagree with your analysis of this statement...

Clearly Jesus is saying there is a "god" of the dead, which is also confirmed by Paul...

There IS a god of this world... Jesus is saying specifically that this god they worshipped in the past is NOT his God...

Further more God is a spirit, and must be worshipped In spirit, not in the flesh as these people in the past have done by giving blood sacrifices to this blood thirsty tyrant... according to Jesus the sacrifice must come from within, not from flesh, or the sacrifice there of...

He defines it completely... God is not their God... NOT the God of the Pharisee's

And NOT the one from the OT...

a reply to: Akragon
I recommend actually reading the passage and trying to understand what it means.
A policy of skimming through the text picking up likely-sounding sentences does not produce effective arguments.

The passage begins with a query about the resurrection.
It ends with Jesus triumphantly declaring that he has demonstrated the truth of the resurrection, which the Sadducees were disputing.
Any commentary will tell you that.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Do you think that Jesus was saying that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have been resurrected?

a reply to: windword
He is certainly saying that they are alive.
That is the whole point of the way that he develops the argument.
"God is the God of the living. If he is the God of Abraham, then Abraham must be alive".
Perhaps we should understand resurrection as happening, from the viewpoint of the individual, immediately after death.