It may feel like you are entering a different world as you turn the page from the

end of the Old Testament to the beginning of the New Testament. And this is true in
certain respects: 400 years have passed; the Jews are ruled by the Romans rather
than the Persians; there are new classes of persons such as the Pharisees and
Sadducees; some would add at least one other distinction to these: the God of the
Old Testament is distinct from the God of the New Testament. One traditional way of
expressing this belief is to say that the Old Testament God is a god of wrath,
while the New Testament God is a god of love. Although this argument may sound
reasonable on the surface, a closer look at the Bible reveals that it is seriously
erroneous. In the Old Testament, the God who pours out his indignation against sin
is the same God who would bring on those who do not believe in his Son Jesus the
retribution of everlasting punishment. "At the same time, the God described in the
New Testament as loving the world sufficiently to send his Son for their salvation
(John 3:16) is the same God who revealed himself to Moses as "merciful and
compassionate, slow to rage, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,
sustaining steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and
sin. In fact, the New Testament authors consistently claim that the God revealed in
the Old Testament in the same God who is now revealing himself in and through Jesus
Christ. Referring to Jesus as the Word, John writes, “In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with
God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that
was made”. Later in that same chapter John writes, “No one has ever seen God; the
only God, who is at the Father's side, he [i.e., the Word] has made him known”.
John's point is clear: the God of the Old Testament has taken on flesh and lived
among us in the person of Jesus Christ. When Jesus' early disciples began preaching
the good news of his death and resurrection, they repeatedly stressed that through
and by Jesus Christ, the God of the Old Testament had fulfilled his promises. Peter
believes that Jesus was "delivered according to God's definite plan and
foreknowledge," and that "His servant Jesus was glorified by the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers." Paul believes that
the blessings that God offered to Abraham are inherited by those who believe in
Jesus Christ, regardless of their race or gender. He may also go so far as to say
that in Jesus Christ "all the promises of God find their yes". So, rather than
seeing the God of the Old Testament as full of wrath and the God of the New
Testament as full of love, the truth is that God has not changed. Psalm notes that
in contrast to this world, which will pass away, “you are the same, and your years
have no end.” Hebrews applies that very same language to Jesus Christ, who later in
that same letter is described as “the same yesterday and today and forever”. God's
character as revealed in the Old Testament comes into even clearer focus and
expression in the New Testament, because he has taken on flesh in the person of
Jesus Christ.