God of Love?

I was having a conversation with someone recently about how to reconcile the God of the Old Testament with the God of the New Testament. 

In the Old Testament we read God commanded King Saul through the Prophet Samuel to "attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." (1 Samuel 15:3-NIV®)

In the New Testament we read, "love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked." (Luke 6:35-NIV®)

It seems that throughout the Old Testament we see a God of justice, in the New Testament we see of God of grace. Are the two one and the same God? How are the two one and the same God?

Especially when you consider Hebrews 13:8-NIV®, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."

It is perplexing. It has been the cause for many to reject the message of Jesus and the gospel. The Internet is full of posts about the "vindictive" God.

To me, however, it all comes down to one thing. How did people who knew Jesus and God respond to him when in his presence?

Obviously people become close to Jesus while he was here on earth. Of those, it was John who we would consider to have been the closest to Jesus. John was with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. John was with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Yet when John saw the resurrected Jesus in all his glory: "I fell at his feet as though dead." (Revelation 1:17-NIV®)

John knew Jesus, was closest to him at the major points of his earthly ministry, and wrote in one of his epistles, "...God is love." (I John 4:8-NIV®)

Yet his response to the risen Savior in the throne room of heaven was to fall down as if dead.

What of Moses? Moses is an Old Testament man who spent time with God on the Mountain of God. Yet when Moses asked to see God's face, God said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." (Exodus 33:20-NIV®)

How does looking at John and Moses help us reconcile God? It shows me that 1) God is Holy and as such cannot be seen by sinful men and 2) God is love.

As much as God is holy, that is also as much as He is love.

It is a mystery that we simply have to accept. Yes, the Holy God of the Old Testament demonstrated His holiness by methods unholy humans do not understand.

But the Loving God of the New Testament did the same. He sent His only son to pay the price we could never pay. "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." (2 Corinthians 5:21-NIV®)

God is the ultimate enigma wrapped in mystery to loosely quote Winston Churchill.

And maybe that is where faith needs to step in. Maybe it is through faithfully accepting that God is holy AND God is love, we are able to accept His love despite our fear in the face of His holiness.