A Changing God for Changing Times?
By Lillian Howard
Every generation of humanity likes to think itself different. Unique. We like to think we’ve made better decisions than our forefathers. We like to think we’ve found a new, better standard for what is “right.” Times are changing, aren’t they? So, shouldn’t we?
Time itself marches ever forward, but as for humanity, Solomon says, “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? It hath been already of old time, which was before us.” Ecclesiastes 1:9-10
Nothing is new. People have done both great and terrible things before, and someday they’ll do them again. Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and people have alternately clung to these principles viciously or flip-flopped for all they’re worth.
“Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil. That put darkness for light and light for darkness. That put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” Isaiah 5:20
People flip-flopped right and wrong in Isaiah’s time. They did it in Jesus’ time. They do it in our time. And when they do so, they so often try to flip-flop God as well. God must change, the say; the church must change, because those are out-dated, and we know better now.
Humanity has thought they knew better than God before. They’ve never been right.
“And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day.” Deuteronomy 6:24
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
God’s ways are always better, and unlike the ways of man, they do not change. Look with me at the God of the Old Testament - the God of the New Testament - the God of today - the God of all ages. To look at one, is to look at all. “I am the LORD; I change not.” Malachi 3:6
And yet, people today believe that He does change, that He must change. They attempt to redefine Him as their morals shift. Fortunately, God is not a man. He does not change with the seasons, nor with culture. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
The God of the Old Testament
People today don’t like the God of the Old Testament. They call Him cruel, which, fortunately for us, is not true.
He is gracious, merciful, and forgiving.
Mercy is when God does not give us what we do deserve (Psalm 103:10-12). Grace is when He does give us what we do not deserve. And forgiveness is the beautiful result. When God describes Himself before Moses in Exodus 34, these three things feature prominently.
Jeremiah says, in Lamentations 3:21-25, that the mercy of God spared Jerusalem from being completely destroyed. His mercy spared Ninevah, and her runaway prophet Jonah. His mercy spared Israel countless times, especially in the book of Judges. And it would have spared Sodom, had even ten righteous souls been found (Genesis 18:32).
But there were not ten righteous souls, and as merciful as God is, that is not His only attribute.
He is holy, and expects to be obeyed.
Being merciful does not make God a pushover. Jehovah is holy. He is separate from sin - He cannot touch it. And if it touches us, we cannot come before Him (Isaiah 59:1-2). He has made this clear to us - and thus, expects us to act like He is holy. Nowhere is this more clear than in Leviticus 10.
Nadab and Abihu, priests, sons of Aaron, were killed by fire from heaven - because they changed the offering they brought before God. They burned incense He had not commanded - they brought sin into His temple - and so were destroyed.
Leviticus 10:3 says “Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace.” Verse 10 follows with, “And that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between clean and unclean.”
God is holy. He expects us to treat Him as holy by obeying Him. The consequences for doing otherwise are severe.
2. The God of the New Testament
Jehovah has not changed.
The God presented in the New Testament is the same God that is portrayed in the Old Testament. He is just as merciful, just as gracious. Ephesians 2:4-5 reads, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)”.
And Romans 5:6-8 reads, “For when we were yet without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
The forgiveness God offers us in the New Testament is baffling; it is breathtaking. But that doesn’t mean He is any less holy. No - sin is still as abominable to Jehovah as it has always been. Read Acts 5:1-11. Ananias and Sapphira were Christians - priests of the New Covenant (1 Peter 2:9). Much like Nadab and Abihu, they brought an offering to the Lord. But unlike Aaron’s sons, it was not Ananias and Sapphira’s gift that was unacceptable. It was their words, their hearts, their intentions. They lied to the all-knowing God of Heaven. And they were killed for it.
3. The God of Today
In the approximately six-thousand years that the earth has been in existence, mankind has been fickle, foolish, and immoral. But the Lord Jehovah never changes. He is the same today as He has always been, and He expects the same from us today that he expected from Christians two-thousand years ago. Perhaps it can be said most succinctly that He expects us to be like Him.
“Be ye holy, for I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:16