God the misunderstood
God has got to be the most misunderstood individual in this world. In no case is that more so than in the Old Testament.
This Sunday, I was reading the comics over at my brother-in-law’s grandparent’s house when I came across Doonesbury. In it, a girl makes a comment to her reverend: “Whenever you read from the Old Testament, God is always crabby and snarky to everyone.” In mainstream society, this seems to be the prevalent view: that the god of the Old Testament is arbitrary, cruel, and vindictive.
I’m reading the Isaiah passages in the Book of Mormon right now, and I don’t think anything could be further from the truth.
The Old Testament (especially Isaiah) follows a pattern. First, God reveals to the prophet all of the sins and transgressions that Israel has committed. He goes down, line by line, law by law, covenant by covenant, pointing out exactly where they have violated His trust. Arbitrary? Not at all. God follows the rule of law, even in the Old Testament (especially in the Old Testament).
Second, God explains how He is going to punish them for their wickedness. These passages, while they can be scary, almost always appear with the explicit understanding that if Israel repents, the punishment will be revoked. We can see this in phrases like “for all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.” God is not vindictive, issuing punishments because He enjoys it–the focus is always Israel and the welfare of His covenant people.
Third, God reveals how He will be merciful to the children of Israel and pour blessings upon them. This is where you usually find the prophecies about the Last Days and what’s going to happen in them–not because the end of the world is this scary thing that we should all be dreading, but because it is this awesome, positive thing that we should all be looking forward to.
These positive, hopeful prophecies are everywhere. They occur much more frequently than the prophecies of the destructions upon the wicked. By volume, they probably take up most of the space in the Old Testament (I don’t know for sure, so don’t quote me on that, but if you do know please post a link, because I’d like to see).
So, really, if you think that the god of the Old Testament is cold, cruel, vindictive, arbitrary, snarky, sadistic, or anything like that, you really don’t understand Him at all. He’s every bit as loving and merciful as the god of the New Testament, Jesus Christ–in fact, He is Jesus Christ. Read it and see for yourself. The Old Testament is a wonderful book and I love it.
