Is God of the NT different than God of the OT?

Ringo - The difference you point out between New Testament Christians and Old Testament Hebrews is not present in Scripture but rather in your perception of it...The concept of "walking the walk, not just talking the talk" or however you want to describe it is just as much present in the New Testament as the Old - implicitly throughout and explicitly addressed in James where James tell christians that supposed "faith" without works is no faith at all - indeed it is dead;James 2:18 - "but someone will say, 'you have faith; I have deeds'. Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder. You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?And then, James, a Hebrew, illustrates the point from the Jewish Scriptures (OT) itself when he says: Was not our anscestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, 'Abraham believed God (wishy-washy belief?), and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead".Significant difference? Not at all.
Incredible similarity? Absolutely..

To make things clear here - the Old Testament never refers to the name Jesus in any of its 39 books. That is unless we include Joshua as a mentioning of Jesus. But the Old Testament never says that a person name Jesus is going come along.Likewise the New Testament, as far as I know, never mentions Jesus as being in the Old Testament. However, the New Testament does mention Christ or "the Anointed" as being in the Old Testament.There is something eternal about the Anointed or the Christ. Here are some New Testament references to Christ pertaining to the Old Testament:"And all drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank of a spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ" (1 Cor. 10:4)Here the Apostle Paul is saying that the rock with the water pouring out of it that occured in the wilderness was symbolic of Christ."By faith Moses ... choosing rather to be ill treated with the people of God than to have the temporary enjoyment of sin, considering the reproach of the Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt ..." (See Hebrews 11:24-26)Here the writer alludes to Moses ministry and service to be a kind of foreshadow of the Christ."Neither let us test Christ, as some of them tested [Him] and were destroyed by serpents" (1 Cor. 10:9)Here Paul compares the testing of God and His servant Moses to testing Christ.In this next verse the Apostle Peter refers to "the Spirit of Christ". Though Jesus was not born Peter considers the Spirit of God to be the Spirit of the eternal Anointed - Christ:" ... the prophets ... searching into what 08-20-2022 1:45 PM or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ in them was making clear ... " (See 1 Peter 1:10,11).These are New Testament references to Christ being in the Old Testament. My habit is to refer therefore to Christ being seen or symbolized in the Old Testament. I usually avoid saying "Jesus" is here or there seen in the Old Testament. I find it more appropriate to say that Christ was foreshadowed or Christ was symbolized or that the typology is about Christ in the Old Testament here or there.Not that I think it makes a lot of difference to you. For discussion's sake.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

BINGO! That's the topic. Which is what I implied. It is only "some Christians" who think professing belief is enough.

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The question at hand is whether the God of the NT different than that of the OT; That's the topic; You're perception of God in each Testament is irrelevant - especially when youre perception is clearly unsupported by the texts; Second, what then is your point in bringing up Christians who think that (professed) belief alone is sufficient when the topic is not a minority perception of the text but how the texts themselves actually portray God?

Throughout the Bible in both testaments it is not a matter of what one does but by what strength it is done. In both testaments it is important that one is dependent upon God in trust.Abraham was promised a son. Year after year he and his wife could not produce one. He could not of his natural ability produce the child that God promised. This was a real suffering to him as he grew older and older.Eventually Sarah and he came up with an idea. They would have God's promised child by the slave Hagar. The result was Ishmael was born. God was not pleased with what Abraham and Sarah did. Apparently we have no record of God speaking to Abraham again for 13 years. Ishmael was the product of Abraham's desire to "help" God fulfill His promise. God rejected Ishmael as the promised child.But Ishmael's mother never forgot. I can hear Hagar telling her little boy "Ishmael, you have to always remember that you were the son of the great prophet Abraham. Never forget, you were Abraham's promised son."God did fulfill His promise and the child came through aged couple.This early principle shows that it is not what we do for God in itself. It is with what power we act in. God wants always to co-operate with man in a harmonious blending. This requires man's faith in God's faithfulness. The works that man can do of his own strength independent from God are not the works that can fulfill His eternal purpose.We can produce Ishmael of our own ingenuity. But we can only produce Isaac by faith in God. And there are deeper lessons still. Isaac had to be offered up so that God could prove that He is the God of resurrection.You really have to work hard to regard the Old Testament as having nothing to do with the incarnated, slain, and resurrected Savior Christ.

On the contrary. Perception is everything.I've just been through this with jaywill. Have you read the thread?To use your example, "walk the walk" is the Jewish perception of the Old Testament. It is also the perception that some Christians have of the New Testament. But... some other Christians perceive "talk the talk" in the New Testament - and they claim that the text backs them up. My point is that "the texts themselves" can be perceived to support either view."The texts themselves" portray God in different ways, even if you assert otherwise. There would be no topic if the portrayals were monolithic.The question is: do the different portrayals reflect different realities or different perceptions of reality?

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no i think you have it backwards, you have to work hard to make the torah look like it has anything to do with christ
i mean the stuff about abraham are cultural stories about gods law and interaction with humans, gods promises he makes and fulfilment then you do not understand the jewish view at all, they follow jewish law, because they become one with god and show faith and love by doing so,it is mostly about what people do, at least for a jewish person.
as for the harmonious thing, um no, they follow gods law or get smighted remember onan? he wasn't playing with himself here, he broke a law of god by not producing children for his brother who died.
by the way when you mean power do you mean god or satan? because they really didn't have such a concept this also shows the ot and the nt are nothing alike, god in the ot requires the jews actions reflect devotion to god first by following the law, faith is not seperate from this action - eather you follow the law or you arn't a jew thus not a follower of yahweh, faith alone is alien to all of the religions in the ME in that time including judaism.
i don't know where you get the idea that isaac was an example of god proving hes got the god of resurrection, but its not about that, its about gods power over people and peoples devotion to god and willingness to give up anything to god - its a morality storyi have seen nothing to indicate that the god of the jews is the god of the christians in anything but the christians beliefs, for god to become human and yet be god? bit of blasphmy there and in the case of most jews impossible considering god has no body

No you don't. Not at all.
Millions of Jews manage to do it - and it probably isn't the hardest thing in their lives.Remember, I come from the same Christian background as you do - but I can see the Jewish viewpoint. So can some other Christians on this board.That doesn't mean we agree or disagree with it. It just means we can see it. We can recognize that there is another possible viewpoint.Until you can do that, you are just projecting your Christian bias onto the Old Testament.

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Perception is Not everything; Saying it is so does not make it otherwise; The Bible is a text that says things; Some things may seem ambiguous, others stark...In this case, as I stated previously, the New Testament both implicitly and explicitly addresses
Walking the walk, not just talking the talk; I supported this "perception" with tangible evidence from the text (James), and it is an implicit theme throughout Scripture (more specific evidences can be supplied if needed from other books of the NT)...Other perceptions are just conjecture (not true perceptions at all) until they are equally or more supported by the text itself; This has not been done yet...If you can use evidence to show that the NT supports talking the talk without walking the walk, then we have a debate...otherwise it is irrelevant what some Christians claim today - there is no Scriptural basis for their beliefs...

Once again you miss the point of this topic; What's relevant is not whether million of Jews manage to not see Christ in the Old Testament; What's relevant is whether the OT actually is about Christ - regardless of someone's 'perception' of it...

Even you use the word "seem". Some perceive ambiguity where others perceive stark "truth". There is no such thing as a "true perception". Different people have different perceptions of what the text supports. You seem to be under the impression that I have taken a position here. All I have done so far is try to explain to jaywill - and now you - that your position is not the carved-in-stone position that "the text itself" insists upon. The fact that there are different beliefs based on the same scripture is a given. This topic is not about deciding who is "right". Been over that with jaywill too.The Jews know their own book.
If they don't see Jesus in it, you can't just assert that they are "wrong".

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And yet you still haven't addressed the texts themselves; How can you claim that any position is invalid when you haven't dealt with the texts? I've told you what the NT says in regards to this topic; So far, you have not responded with any textual evidence to the contrary - all you've talked about is "perceptions" and what some people claim; If you truly feel that everything is just "perceptions" then you seem to be leading towards the position that all truth is relative, that you can't know anything for certain; If that's the case, we can have no discussion...As a sidenote, let me make the following point: If in his book, James says that faith without deeds is dead (aka walking the walk), then I am not merely conjecturing or coming up with my own viewpoint; I am understanding the text as it is written - do you disagree? To oppose this viewpoint, you would have to find other NT scripture which refutes it, or claim that my "perception" is off..If you feel that my perception is off, then you must replace my "perception" of the text with a more acceptable one...So far, you have not done that...

I haven't claimed that any position is invalid. You have. I would think it's pretty obvious that any "truth" derived from a book written in a foreign language would be relative to one's understanding of that language. You are understanding a translation of the text - a translation made from a copy of a copy of a translation of a copy....And there are at least two different interpretations of that passage:

1. Those who have faith will automatically produce good works.
2. Those who do good works are demonstrating faith, whether they profess it or not.

So there are already two perceptions. Which is yours?

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Either interpretation of James that you want leads to the same conclusion - faith and works go hand in hand (whether faith neccessarily leads to good works (it does) or doing good works proves your faith (it does) is irrelevant); both are saying the same thing - If true faith neccessarily leads to good works then good works certainly are the proof of your faith; You're saying the same thing either way; either way you're perfectly aligned with the OT position of "walking the walk" as you put it earlier...

Not at all.If "true faith" is believing that Jesus is the Son of God, He was crucified, rose from the dead, etc. then only the good works of "true Christians" are "true good works".But if good works are the proof of true faith, then Gandhi had true faith. Many Jews, Buddhists, atheists, etc. have true faith.Many Jews would agree with that interpretation of James, but many Christians would disagree with it.

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