If you wish to see God through man's eyes, stay in the Old Testament. Consider that statement for a moment. The implication is this: if I know only the Old Testament, my views of God are decidely limited. He is wonderfully powerful but has the propensity to be cold-hearted, even brutal. These were the conceptions of Old Testament writers. Read Job. "The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. " God is master of the good stuff that happens, and the bad. Sometimes it's God who leads us down the path of destruction.
Jesus shows up and begins to challenge ALL of this. "The THIEF comes to steal, kill and destroy." Have you been the victim? God was not your culprit! The disciples asked to call down fire upon the Samaritans just as Elijah had demonstrated (with God's endorsement, they thought). Jesus stops them cold. "You don't know what spirit you're of!" His entire premise to the masses was that they had God all wrong. First of all, call Him "Father". What? That sounded blasphemous to the core! Yes! And if you have seen me, you've seen the Father! I have not come to judge the world, but to save it! "I am meek and lowly in heart; in me you can find rest."
I dare say, unless we see God through the eyes of Jesus, we have an improper view of who God is. Perhaps this is what Jesus really meant when He said, "No man comes to the Father except through me." Or, it is impossible for mankind to conclude that God is a loving Father unless you see Him revealed properly - through Jesus. This is John's point:
Joh 1:18 ESV No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, HE has made him known.
Jesus - has "unfolded" God before us so that we can see Him for who He really is. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Truth about what? Truth about God Himself. If you wish to see God through the correct lense, use the lense of the Gospels. Does this mean we should not read the Old Testament? Of course not! But we must do so with the understanding that the Old Testament writers had no standard by which to measure God. They looked, they saw, they surmised to the best of their ability and to the extent of their revelation. The true revelation of God did not come until later in and through a man named Jesus.
