Is God mean? Understanding God’s actions in the Old Testament

It makes me sad when I see such a misunderstanding of God in the Old Testament. I often see people comparing God in the Old Testament to Jesus in the New Testament as though God was this mean and abusive jerk whom Jesus had to step in to try to calm down. They compare and contrast the two as though they have totally different natures. One mean and one nice. This leads people to either throw out the validity of the Old Testament (which ultimately throws out the validity of the New Testament as well) or to a strained relationship with Father God due to massive misunderstanding of His character.

Jesus In The Old Testament

Don’t forget that Jesus was around in the Old Testament too, and He was in complete unity with His father. He didn’t step in to stop His Dad because He was in agreement with His Dad. Jesus wasn’t sitting back like a rebellious teenager saying, “Please Dad, don’t send the flood! Don’t be mean!” No, Jesus was in on that decision too, and they were both acting in love.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Hebrews 13:8 (NLT)

Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus himself said He only does what the Father does. (John 5:19) When we see Jesus we see the character and nature of the Father too, and if the nature we see is one of love then it was one of love in the Old Testament as well! Our covenant with Him has changed, but His character hasn’t. He doesn’t change. The same character of love we see now has ALWAYS been who He is. You can read more about Christ’s appearances, references, and prophecies in the Old Testament here.

“So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.” -John 5:19 (NLT)

There is so much confusion concerning God’s actions in the Old Testament. Those struggling with the their faith often look at stories like the global flood, or God commanding King’s to wipe out entire people groups, and immediately jump to harsh and biting conclusions about the character of God. The problem with this is they are taking the stories at face-value without doing any digging into the backstories. It is foolish to make a rash judgement of an omnipotent God based on your extremely limited knowledge and understanding without at least taking the time to do some intense research on the topic. It’s foolish to think you are in a position to question the judgments of God period, but to do so without even doing your due diligence to search out the matter is on a whole other level. Don’t just take someone’s word for it. Study the scriptures for yourself. If you do, the Holy Spirit promises to lead you into understanding.

The Nephilim

For instance, did you know that there is a popular theological position that many of the “people” groups that God wiped out with the flood, and those that He ordered Israel to destroy, were not all even really “people” as we understand them? They were not a human race. They were actually a mixed race of humans and fallen angels. The Bible introduces the “Nephilim” in Genesis 6 (and they continue to be mentioned throughout the Old Testament) and speaks of when fallen angels saw the beauty of human women and produced offspring with them. This offspring continued to marry and reproduce with human women. Therefore, Many of these “people” he wiped out were not even human, but instead were a direct result of the fallen angel’s rebellion against God and were an abomination to even exist. These creatures were not human as God had created them.

In fact, we see that these creatures were purely evil just like their fathers. I believe they desired to contaminate the entire human race (thus wiping them out), and were never under any kind of covenant with God. During the times of the flood, humanity’s intertwining and breeding with them was becoming so prevalent that they threatened to fully contaminate the human race to the point that there would be no humans left to bring forth the savior of the world! God sending the flood was a form of protecting the human race from extinction, and a way of ensuring that Jesus could still come to save the world! Unfortunately, many people have never even heard of these things.

Later in the scriptures we see this same problem repeating itself as the giants (the mixed creatures – the most famous being Goliath) were again breeding with human women, and once again God began sending Israel to wipe out these people groups that already had, or were continuing to reproduce this literally in-human offspring. God was not just being hard on people because they were disobeying Him. There was a lot more to the story. God was protecting humanity.

While these theological positions are popular, they are somewhat controversial. So I’m currently researching these ideas to personally be sure that this theology isn’t a misinterpretation of the scriptures, but so far I haven’t found anything that persuades me to believe it’s inaccurate. I plan on compiling everything I find into a book called “Is God Mean? Understanding God’s actions in the Old Testament” that will break down God’s sometimes difficult to understand decisions in detail to help everyone see the loving nature and character that God has always had from the beginning of time! God is NOT mean, and the Bible (even the Old Testament) is full of His loving actions towards you! Don’t buy the cheap, easy, and ignorant lies that the Old Testament is contradictory to the loving character of Jesus!

Living to touch God’s Heart,
Chris Ulery
Divine-Romance.com