About Jesus Steve Sweetman
God Doesn’t Change – His Dealings With Man Does
There’s another point to make concerning how we view the Old Testament and that is, God doesn’t change. God in His essence, who He is, how He thinks and feels remains constant. I say this because some argue that if God doesn’t change, then how He deals with mankind from Old Testament times to New Testament times doesn’t change either. I believe this is a faulty premise to build an argument on.
At the risk of being branded a dispensationalist, I do believe that there are different ages in human history in relation to how God relates to us. Though God does not change, how He deals with mankind does change from age to age.
Here’s three verses taken from the Law of Moses to illustrate my point.
Lev.. 20:27 says; "a man or a woman who is a medium or a spiritualist among you must be put to death".
Ex. 22:18 says, "do not allow a sorceress to live".
Duet. 13:5 says, "that prophet or dreamer must be put to death because he preached rebellion…"
These and other Old Testament laws show how God wanted Israel to deal with the sinner in those days. So why don’t we kill the sinner among us today? It’s not that we pick and choose what laws to obey, even though some try. God’s plan is to deal with the sinner differently in this age. He’s not overlooking the sinner’s sin. He’s recording every last sin on His heavenly hard drive, allowing us time to repent and escape the penalty of death these laws require. "Heavenly hard drive" is modern terminology for Rev. 20:12.
Once this age of grace is over, He’ll deal with unrepentant sinners differently still by sentencing them to eternal death, meaning, always in the process of dying but never being able to die. So even though God doesn’t change, can you see how He deals with us does change from age to age? This is one more point to consider when interpreting Old Testament passages.