Viewing God Through the Prism of Culture in the Old and New Testaments

Is our Creator-God the same yesterday and today? The Scripture says so. What, then, accounts for the violent, angry God we find in the OT, and the loving, relational God in the NT? My view is that perhaps what changes down through the Old and New Testament timeline is not God but the way in which He is seen through the prism of various cultural, historical events and eras.

Let’s start with the time of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and entry into the Promised Land. A dominant view of God during this time period is one who is violent, genocidal, angry/wrathful, and dictatorial. This view of God extends back even to include the events surrounding the flood. So the question is whether God is, in fact, violent, genocidal, or wrathful?

Answering those questions depends on how God is viewed from within any particular era of history, which means that the inspiration of Scripture, what we know about God, would have to be partly shaped by culture. For instance, the Hebrews were like any other tribe of their time as they came out of captivity in Egypt. They were itinerant desert-dwellers who were developing into a nation and needed a geography in which to locate. So like all the other warring tribal nations who located in the mid-Mediterranean area, the Hebrews fought to acquire land. No apologies, no asking permission. The Hebrews were at war with their neighbors for many years because all the neighboring tribes were war-like, no different from them—part of the cultural milieu at that time.

If the Hebrews lived in a warring culture and their view of God was from within their culture, then their God would have to insure and bless their victories. That makes sense, because if the Israelites’ God was God Most High, then God Most High would triumph over the gods (idols) of the neighboring countries to bring the Israelites victory. Yahweh would have to be seen as a conquering, ultimate Power compared to all the other gods.

Of course, this raises the question whether God actually ordered the killing of all the people in the book of Joshua or if the Israelites assumed God would want them to kill everyone in order to justify their taking over a country that was not theirs in the first place.

The difficulty is when we encounter verses like Ex. 34.6: “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.’” How does this verse square with the view of a violent, genocidal God? Did this verse apply only to the Israelites and not to all people at that time?

Here are a couple of concepts that might explain all this. First, inspiration of Scripture may include both truths — about God and a cultural view (the latter which would change over time). So while it is true that the Lord is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (a truth that is unchanging down through the ages), the Israelites still needed God to be a triumphant God who endorsed their battles and guaranteed their victories.

Second, a theme that runs throughout the Bible that is little talked about is the reality of the battle being fought in the “heavenlies.” Most High God is the Creator of all lesser gods (Elohim). According to Deuteronomy, at some time in the past God put the Elohim in charge of geographical areas and nations on Earth. But some/many rebelled against God and followed Satan. God had to put these rebellious entities in their place by raising up His own nation of Israel, making them a showcase, and conquering the nations that were loyal to rebellious Principalities and Powers. So while Israel made war against its neighbors, it afforded God Most High to fight His own battle against the Powers, kind of a “two birds with one stone” kind of thing.

What this allows us to understand is that while history was being written by humans within the timeframe and perspective of their culture, God was doing a work outside the culture. This is an important key throughout all of biblical history. Viewed from inside Israelite/Joshua-to-captivity history and culture, God is violent. God had to be violent as viewed within a culture that needed to conquer lands and peoples. Viewed outside culture, God is not violent at all but loving, slow to anger, etc., but He allows events to occur that shape His larger, spiritual perspective. Obviously, this is not a tidy, black-and-white explanation. Sorry about that. It actually implicates God indirectly for not stopping the killing of a great number of people.

Also during the Mosaic-Joshua-1st Temple time frame, we see sacrifices as the shedding of blood introduced. Does Most High God need blood shed? Is He that small a God? No. In Exodus we are told that God sought to talk to His own people but they were afraid. So Moses and the priesthood became necessary intermediaries. And while numerous times the Scriptures say that God did not delight in the Israelites’ sacrifices and wished they didn’t offer them, the sacrifices were continued by the priesthood. So again we see that inside the culture, sacrifices were offered like all the other nations at the time. And yet looking at God outside the culture, God did not delight in the shedding of blood. He wanted relationship, forgiveness, justice, mercy—qualities that described Himself. But if and when the people would rebel, how else would the keepers of the Mosaic law respond on God’s part but to tie anger and wrath (retribution) to sin and the need for sacrifice (that never fixed anything)?

Again, am I reading too much into Scripture? Did God really want blood shed to forgive sin? Can’t God forgive sin without blood being shed? Yes, of course. The shedding of blood was for the people to feel relieved. It didn’t require faith to believe in God’s forgiveness to see an animal slaughtered and think that its blood was acceptable to God. If you think so, go kill your family pet and see how far that gets you with atonement—nowhere.

What we gather from this is that while the nation of Israel had a personal, special relationship with Yahweh, what they “heard” as the voice of God was filtered through their culture.

As we move forward in our timeline, eventually the Israelites were taken into captivity and the focus of their culture changed dramatically. The Israelite leaders had to explain from within their culture how God would’ve allowed them to be taken into captivity. And, secondarily, where the Israelites would go from there to not repeat the same mistakes that brought them under Babylonian rule.

Inside the culture, things like sin, ineffective sacrifices, idol worship, and corrupt, unfaithful leadership were used to explain how the Israelites had got so far off track. The solution was that God was going to allow them to rebuild the Temple (the second Temple). But this time things were going to be different. The priesthood coupled with the newly birthed Pharisaic theocratic party would ensure that the people followed the law to the letter. And so the religious leadership engaged on a radically conservative, legalistic attempt to obey God to the letter and force everyone to do the same. Sacrifice was still required even though several times God continued to say He hated it, and God was still seen as wrathful. How else do you enforce the law, and an ever-growing minutia of the law, then by the fear of wrath and punishment? And yet outside of the culture, God was described by the prophet Joel as “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster (Joel 2. 13; Ps 103. 8; 145. 8; Neh. 9. 17).

Are we beginning to see that God is always mixed up in how a culture views Him? That’s because it is impossible for humans to see anything unless we see it through the lens of culture. Ever wonder why God is always depicted as a male and not a female in biblical history? What would the Israelite’s history been like if God were a woman? Obviously a whole different cultural interpretation.

What is your culture? How does your culture view God? Not just your culture at large but your Christian culture, or your faith-perspective culture?

Now, at this point in Hebrew-Jewish history, we had sacrifice and law mixed together. But the law was growing rampant, tedious, and overbearing. There was all kinds of virtue-signalling going on by the time Jesus arrived. And there was the threat of being excommunicated by the religious leaders of the day for not following their minutiae, which struck fear in the hearts of the people. “We’re the only show in town and if you don’t like our theology, you are out. And “out” means you can’t buy anything from the market or get your water from our well!”

When Jesus arrived, the focus shifted again. While He would be the ultimate sacrifice for sin, the emphasis was placed on relationship. Jesus was obedient to accomplish His Father’s will. Jesus’ Father became our Father. As Jesus “only does what He sees the Father is doing,” we were to do the same. 

Actually, the focus had always been on relationship. There is some thought, however, that God never wanted to install the sacrificial system, that this was Aaron’s doing because the people could not stand God speaking to them in person. The people operated within a culture that demanded, like the other tribes around them, blood sacrifices, which they preferred to a direct encounter with God. Remember, also, how God intended to be the Israelites’ king but they wanted a human king instead? They wanted their culture to be like their neighbors’ cultures, and the same with their sacrifices. This was culture speaking loud and clear.

When Jesus was asked to summarize the entire Jewish law, He didn’t mention keeping the sacrifices or the Pharisaic requirements of the law. He said to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. He also said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, thereby diminishing the power of the law and sacrifices to be used as a control over the people and an interference with a relationship with God.

Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice. But more importantly He opened the door to Spirit, life and abundance. He called people to use their spiritual senses in order to track with this new dispensation of God’s grace and outpouring of the Spirit as He did during His ministry. We, His followers, were to continue doing what Jesus said and did during His life, to listen to the Spirit who would lead us into a deeper relationship with our Father (or Mother—the OT reveals that some of God’s character is feminine). But now and in this new dispensation, Jesus’ Spirit was going to be poured out which would bring truth, worship, freedom from sin and slavery, new life, etc.

So again, inside the culture there was the continuation of sacrifice and law. Yet outside the culture and expressed more so by Jesus during His ministry, the God who was gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love was moving in this new revelation.  Actually the desire on God’s part for relationship was an old revelation but the Hebrew-Jewish culture of sacrifice and law had to be slowly stripped away from this truth.

In the next part of the timeline, after Jesus, the apostles carried the message of Christ forward, but what was the message? That was the critical piece the Jerusalem Council had to decide in Acts 15. What was going to be the “good news” that was preached to the Gentiles who had less of an orientation to animal sacrifice and law?

The difficulty for the apostles and early believers was that all of them were steeped in the Hebrew-Jewish culture of sacrifice and Mosaic law. For some, it was impossible for the message about the “Jewish Messiah” to be preached without the Mosaic law, possibly even the need for new Gentile believers to be circumcised. You see, it’s hard when you are submersed in a culture to put the culture aside and see life differently. That’s the trouble Peter got himself into when he went to Galatia, ate with the Gentiles, then returned to pick up the view of the need for Gentiles to follow Jewish law. Paul called him on it.

Paul was the one who got it, even though from time to time you can see Paul’s Pharisaic roots show. He sought to free the gospel from the constraints of sacrifice and law. The farther along you get in the timeline of Paul’s writings, the less you hear about sacrifice and the more you hear about being “in Christ,” sanctification, living the life of Christ, growth into God’s love and life, and living the eternal life we are called to. His teaching was still based on Jesus being the ultimate sacrifice. But there is less mention of God’s wrath and more about becoming the people of God we were destined to be from the beginning.

In a way, God has always been the same. But what changed over time was the cultural lens through which God was viewed. Maybe that’s one of the Holy Spirit’s job, to keep refocusing our lens so that our culture doesn’t dominate or cloud our eyes of faith and understanding of God.

Steve Bull, Transforming Lives