What is the difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament? Of course that is a trick question because there is no difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New. The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Israel IS God the Holy Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit.
The New Testament introduces us to Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God with us and to the Holy Spirit, God living inside us. And as God is revealed to be so close to us we gain a familiarity with God which would be impossible in the Old Testament. Because if there is one difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament it would be this. God is the Old Testament was much, much, much, much bigger!
Deuteronomy chapters 10 and 11 make this point most powerfully.
Knowing God in Christ we can sometimes bring God down to our own level in our thinking. Until we reflect on the God of the Old Testament.
The GLORY of God
We can briefly see the glory of God in the face of Christ in the story of the Transfiguration. Compare that with the glory of God in the Old Testament. So great, so awesome, so holy, that no human being could look on the face of God and live.
10:44 The LORD wrote on these tablets what he had written before, the Ten Commandments he had proclaimed to you on the mountain, out of the fire, on the day of the assembly.
on the mountain, out of the fire – glory of God!
Exodus 19: 16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. 17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, 19 and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.20 The LORD descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up 21 and the LORD said to him, “Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the LORD and many of them perish.
The overwhelming awe-inspiring glory of God! Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.
God the Creator
10:14 To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it
Creation is very big: 10^79 atoms – ten million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion atoms – and God made every one of them! And whatever the Heisenberg uncertainty principle may think, God knows where every single one of those atoms is and exactly what each of them is doing right now. And God knows where every single one of those atoms has ever been for 13 billion years and more!
God is the Creator and Sustainer of the whole Universe. Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.
God of gods and Lord of Lords
10:17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome,
Somehow the short title “The Lord Jesus Christ” does not do justice to just how great Jesus is. God of gods. Lord of Lords. King of Kings. Mighty and awesome – that is our God!
Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.
God of Justice and compassion
10:17 the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. 19
The God of justice and compassion. Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.
God’s Mighty acts of Salvation
21 He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.
We know that Jesus has accomplished forgiveness and salvation for the whole church – millions upon millions of believers in every place and every age. But on the surface, in some ways the scale of the story of Easter may appear small to us. Just one man dying on a cross. Just one man risen from the dead. Compare that with the drama of the Exodus. The ten plagues on Egypt. The parting of the Red Sea so that millions could pass across.
11:2 Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm; 3 the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country; 4 what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the LORD brought lasting ruin on them.
God’s mighty acts of salvation. Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.
God’s miraculous provision
– and then His miraculous provision for all those Israelites through forty years in the wilderness.
11:5 It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the desert until you arrived at this place,
The Feeding of the 5000 and changing water into wine were amazing miracles. But in terms of scale even they were somehow less impressive than God’s miraculous provision of manna and quail and water in the desert for millions of people for all of 40 years!
All God’s mighty acts of salvation! Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.
Now let’s think for a moment about Economics of scale
As Christians we tend to think of salvation as a personal thing. We think of the salvation of individuals. In the Old Testament the focus moves at the Exodus from the preservation of the family of the descendants of Abraham to the salvation of the whole nation of Israel.
10: 22 Your forefathers who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.
One family of seventy people have become as numerous as stars in the sky! Between 2 and 3 MILLION people escaped from Egypt in the Exodus!
We can easily forget how big the church is. Only the book of Revelation gives us a glimpse of the sheer magnitude of God’s purposes in Christ!
Revelation 5:11 Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. 12 In a loud voice they sang:
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honour and glory and praise!”
13 Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honour and glory and power,
for ever and ever!” 14 The four living creatures said, “Amen”, and the elders fell down and worshipped.
The overwhelming scale of salvation! Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.
And finally consider all the Blessings of salvation
11:8 Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 9 and so that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your forefathers to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. 11 But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. 12 It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.
The promised land was so full of Physical Blessings. And there would be no need to cultivate or labour/ Everything was handed to the Israelites almost literally “on a plate.” But that is only a picture for us as Christians of all the blessings God has poured out to us in Christ!
EPHESIANS 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
The Glory of God: God the Creator: God of gods and Lord of Lords: God of justice and compassion. Remember His Mighty acts of salvation and the Economics of Scale. So many Blessings of salvation! The God of the Old Testament IS the God of the New Testament and we should never forget it!! Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
