"If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. There is no God behind His back." – Brian Zahnd

For many Christians, there’s a deep, unspoken tension when it comes to God’s nature.

We believe Jesus is the perfect revelation of God—loving, merciful, healing, and forgiving. Yet, when we read the Old Testament, we see a different picture: a God who seems to command violence, bring judgment, and even use evil for His purposes.

We don’t want to believe that God has two different personalities, but it feels unscriptural to say otherwise. After all, aren’t those stories in the Bible? Didn’t God say those things?

This struggle can leave us feeling confused, hesitant, or even afraid to fully embrace the radical goodness we see in Jesus.

For most people, they know deep down in their Spirit that God is exactly who Jesus revealed Him to be, but it's their soul that wrestles with reconciling it—and it can be especially hard to navigate when much of it is wrapped in Christian language.

You're not alone.

But what if this tension isn’t meant to lead us into doubt—but into a deeper understanding?

Most people who wrestle with this issue end up in one of three camps:

1. They accept a contradictory view of God—Jesus is loving, but God the Father has a dark side. Maybe Jesus is the “nice” part of God, while the Father is the one who enforces justice, judgment, and wrath.

This belief aligns more with Allah, the god of Islam, more than Abba, the God revealed in Jesus—read more here.

2. They explain away Jesus—Maybe Jesus was only showing one side of God, and there’s another, harsher side that He just didn’t reveal during His earthly ministry, but He will when He returns.

"He came as a Lamb but will return as a Lion", some say, as if Jesus is switching modes.

But He's not. This is discussed here.

3. They ignore or twist Scripture—They avoid reading those difficult stories or contradictory passages, or they try to reinterpret them in ways that feel forced, making Jesus fit their theology instead of letting Jesus build their theology.

Because of this, many Christians have unknowingly embraced Pagan Dualism and Pantheism as a concequence—read more here.

None of these approaches fully settle the tension.

They either compromise who Jesus is, create a God who contradicts Himself, or dismiss large parts of Scripture—often to protect their current theology.

But what if there’s a different way to look at this—one that actually brings clarity, confidence, and peace?

"The Bible is not a flat book. Jesus is the Word of God. The scriptures point to Him, but He is the ultimate revelation." – Greg Boyd

Scripture tells us that Jesus is the exact representation of God’s nature (Hebrews 1:3). He isn’t just one aspect of God—He is God in the fullest and clearest way we’ve ever seen.

That means if we see something in the Old Testament that doesn’t align with Jesus, we shouldn’t assume that Jesus is incomplete—we should consider that their understanding of God might have been incomplete.

This idea isn’t new. Even in Jesus’ time, people had wrong ideas about God that He had to correct.

Jesus Often Had to Correct Their View of God

• In Matthew 5:21-44, Jesus repeatedly said, “You have heard it said... but I say to you…”, correcting their understanding of God’s ways.

• In Luke 9:54-56, when His disciples wanted to call down fire from heaven (just like Elijah did in the Old Testament), Jesus rebuked them and said, “You do not know what spirit you are of.”

• In John 10:10, Jesus made a clear distinction: “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that you may have life.” If something steals, kills, or destroys, it is not God’s doing.

So rather than assuming, “Well, the Old Testament shows God using evil, so I have to accept that,” we could ask:

“Were they misunderstanding or misrepresenting Him?”

This doesn’t mean we throw out the Old Testament. It simply means we read it through the lens of Jesus, not the other way around.

1. The Census & the "Anger of the Lord"

One of the clearest examples of the Old Testament misunderstanding God's actions is the story of King David taking a census of Israel.

• In 2 Samuel 24:1, it says, "The anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He incited David to take a census."

• But in 1 Chronicles 21:1, telling the same story, it says, "Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census."

So, who incited David—the Lord or Satan?

The later writer of Chronicles corrected the misunderstanding in Samuel, revealing that it was actually Satan, not God, who incited David. This shows that early Jewish writers sometimes attributed events to God that were actually the work of the enemy.

Further reading: The Bible Contradicts Itself—And You Better Not Fall For It

2. Job: "The Lord Gives and Takes Away"

• In Job 1:21, Job famously says, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

• Many take this as proof that God directly causes suffering.

• But the actual text shows that it was Satan, not God, who brought the disasters upon Job (Job 1:12).

At the end of the book, God rebukes Job and his friends for speaking wrongly about Him (Job 42:7). So while Job was faithful in his suffering, his statement about God taking away was not accurate.

Further reading: Job Was Wrong—So Why Do We Still Believe It?

3. The Bronze Serpent: Did God Send the Snakes?

• The Israelites grumbled in the wilderness, and the text says, “Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them.” (Numbers 21:6)

• Yet in Deuteronomy 8:15, Moses clarifies that the wilderness was already full of fiery serpents—they were always there, and the Israelites' rebellion exposed them to danger.

• Jesus reinterpreted this story in John 3:14-15, showing that it wasn’t about God's punishment—it was a foreshadowing of Christ’s salvation.

4. Elijah & Fire from Heaven vs. Jesus' Rebuke (Luke 9:54-56)

• In 2 Kings 1:10, Elijah called down fire from heaven to consume his enemies, and the people assumed this was a righteous act of God.

• But when Jesus' disciples wanted to do the same, He rebuked them: “You do not know what spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.”

Jesus made it clear: Elijah’s action was not a reflection of God’s true heart.

Further reading: Did God Send The LA Fires?

"In the past, God spoke through the prophets in many ways, but in these last days, He has spoken to us through His Son… the exact representation of His being." – Hebrews 1:1-3

Jesus didn’t just come to save us from sin—He came to clear up our misconceptions about God. If we ever feel torn between the Old Testament portrayal of God and what we see in Jesus, we can settle it with this truth:

God has always been exactly like Jesus—we just haven’t always known it.

Jesus is not the kinder, softer side of God. He is the full revelation of God. There is no hidden darkness in the Father. There is no contradiction between them.

"God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all." – 1 John 1:5

This shifts everything. Instead of trying to reconcile two seemingly different versions of God, we get to trust that in Jesus, we see God fully, clearly, and beautifully.

“Some people read their Bibles in Hebrew, some in Greek; I like to read mine in the Holy Ghost.” — Smith Wigglesworth

Imagine looking at an old photograph of a friend, taken in dim lighting. You can barely recognize them, and some of their features look distorted.

But then you meet them in person, in perfect light, and see their face clearly. Would you trust the blurry photo over the real person standing in front of you?

The Old Testament is a shadow (Hebrews 10:1). Jesus is the full light (John 8:12).

When we read the Bible, we don’t start with the shadows and try to force Jesus into them—we start with Jesus and allow Him to illuminate everything else.

Much of the division and denominationalism within Christianity can be traced back to one root issue: interpreting Scripture apart from the person of Jesus.

But Jesus made it clear—He is the key to understanding all of Scripture.

“You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life, but the Scriptures point to Me. Yet you refuse to come to Me to receive life” (John 5:39–40).

When we approach the Bible without Jesus at the center, we end up with interpretations that may be sincere, but ultimately miss the heart of God.

True understanding begins not with information, but with union—with Jesus Himself, the Living Word through whom all Scripture finds its meaning.

"Christ is the image of the invisible God." – Colossians 1:15

God has always been like Jesus. We just haven’t always seen it.

But He is restoring us to a perfect, spotless Bride who sees Him in the same light—only and fully good.

Related reading:

• How To Read The Bible With & Through Jesus

• Why Jesus Must Be the Foundation of Our Theology

• Does God Create Evil? Answering Isaiah 45:7

• Christians See God More Like Allah Than Abba

• The Bible Contradicts Itself—And You Better Not Fall For It

• "God Allowed It" – The Phrase That's Twisting God's Goodness