Why does God seem so different in the Old Testament compared to the New Testament?

This is a question a lot of people carry but do not always feel comfortable asking. The God of the Old Testament seems harsh, violent, and demanding; the God of the New Testament seems loving and gracious. Are they the same God?

Yes — absolutely, unequivocally the same God. And once you understand both Testaments properly, the apparent contradiction largely dissolves.

The first thing to recognise is that the Old Testament is full of grace, and the New Testament is full of judgment. People forget this. The God who patiently bore with Israel through centuries of repeated rebellion — delivering them from Egypt, feeding them in the wilderness, restoring them after exile after exile — is a God of extraordinary patience and mercy. Psalm 103:8: "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." That is the Old Testament. And the New Testament contains some of the most severe warnings about judgment anywhere in Scripture — including from Jesus Himself, who spoke more about hell than anyone else in the Bible.

The second thing is context. The violence commanded in the Old Testament — the conquest of Canaan, for example — happened in specific, historically bounded circumstances that are not a template for Christian behaviour. God's judgment on the Canaanites came after centuries of extraordinary wickedness, and God was explicit that Israel was not being favoured because of their own righteousness (Deuteronomy 9:4-5).

The third thing — and this is the most important — is that the Old and New Testaments are two acts of the same story. The law and the sacrificial system were not God's permanent design; they were preparatory, pointing forward to Christ. The God who gave the law at Sinai is the same God who fulfilled it in Christ. The wrath that the Old Testament warned about is the wrath that the cross absorbed. Same God. Same holiness. Same love. One plan.