How many gods do we have?

We are taught that the essence of religion is how to relate to God and to our neighbor. But, God’s revelation to us may sometimes be confusing. The God of the Old Testament is angry and vengeful. The God of the New Testament is loving and forgiving. This scenario tempts us to wonder whether there are two different gods or God is mutable.

Marcion of Sinope, an early Church theologian, introduced the concept of two gods; a lower and a higher one. The lower god is the creator and is revealed in the Old Testament Scriptures to be wrathful and focused on the law and judgment. Because flesh was created by this god, it is evil. According to Marcion, Jesus did not become flesh, but merely a spiritual entity that appeared in human form.

Marcion taught that the higher god is totally good and devoid of wrath, with a focus on love and peace. Jesus was the son of the higher god who came to introduce that higher god to humankind and save it. He taught that Christianity was in complete discontinuity with Judaism and entirely opposed to the Old Testament.

To support these beliefs, Marcion created his own shortened canon of Scripture. He rejected all of the Old Testament and much of the New, keeping only a redacted version of the Gospel of Luke and 10 of Paul’s letters. He, likewise, edited to remove anything he considered unpalatable.

Marcion’s teachings precipitated more precise formulations of the Christian canon and creed. The Church denounced him as a heretic leading Christians astray with his ideas of separate gods and rejecting the Old Testament. The Church teaches that true and right theology aids in a Christian becoming more Christ-like. We are sanctified through the truth and God’s Word.

God never changes. He is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). The difference between the Old and New Testaments lies not in God’s nature, but in His approach to us. The God of the New Testament reveals Himself as having taken on flesh and lived among us in the person of Jesus Christ. In His justice, He will see that every sin is rightly punished. In His grace, He offers mercy and forgiveness.

This revelation goes a long way to say that the just wrath of God is not contradictory with His mercy and grace. It is always sorrowful wrath.

“I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live … ” (Ezekiel 33:11).

In Christ, God inaugurates the new and eternal covenant that extends beyond Israel to all nations. “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.” (John 3:36)

Our understanding of God must unify, not divide, the Old and the New Testaments. If we contest a contradiction in God, our understanding is distorted. That message is clear: receive God’s love, freely offered; but those who refuse God’s love by refusing to repent of their sins, experience God’s wrath, and justifiably so.

Nowadays, critics of the OT dismiss it as the cultural by-product of primitive people living in a brutal world. The events it records never happened, they claim. God was just allowing the Israelites to express their faith in the violent, warlike categories that made sense to them.

When we try to domesticate God, picking and choosing between his words to build a deity we are comfortable with, we are creating an idol. Some Christians mistakenly believe God’s character somehow changed from wrathful to loving. Others become obsessed with questions about the evil in the world, which can become unhealthy when it threatens faith in God’s goodness. Secularists think stressing God’s mercy means that sins are no longer sins. On the contrary, if there is no divine wrath against sin then Jesus did not die to redeem us from sin.

Erroneous beliefs often tell people what they want to hear and therefore spread quickly. Christians today should watch out for heretical teachings that could lead many astray. Rejecting parts of the Bible is very dangerous. Through spiritual wisdom and maturity, Christians can grow in their appreciation of both the coherent story laid out in the Bible and the unchanging character of God.

Christ’s repeated demands for fidelity to Him, or risk of damnation, are similar to His Father’s. Ancient Israel showed its fidelity to God by obeying the Mosaic Law. The Church, shows her fidelity to God by obeying Jesus Christ. Disobedience brought destruction to Israel, just as disobedience destroys the Church today.