Goldingay on The “Wrathful” OT God

Scot McKnight is slowly blogging through “Old Testament Theology Volume 2,” by one of my absolute favorite professors from Fuller John Goldingay. You can follow his posts on the book through this search link. Anyways, here’s a noteworthy quote I came across that I love:

“Everyone knows that the OT God is a God of wrath; the NT God a God of love. Oh no they don’t??? (108). Maybe the best section I’ve read in the two volumes of his work. Here are some themes he sketches about God’s love in the OT … and there is discussion for each and I can’t include but one reference for each:

1. Fatherly dedication (Mal 1:6).
2. Parental “carrier??? (Jer 1:5; Isa 44:2, 24; 4;9:5)
3. Motherly compassion (Deut 32:18)
4. Attentiveness (Ps 79:5-9)
5. Mercy (Isa 57:14-21)
6. Healing (Isa 57:14-21 again)
7. Commitment (Ps 62)
8. True faithfulness (Ps 31:5)
9. Passion (Ezek 16:8)
10. Cleansing (Ps 51:2; Ezek 16:63)
11. Carrying (Ps 85:2-3)
12. Getting over (Mic 7:18)
13. Pardon (Jer 36:3)
14. Risk (Gen 22:1, 12)
15. Sadness (Hos 6:4)
16. Letdown (Jer 26:3)
17. Grief (Gen 6:5-6)

Well, alongside this sketch of themes in God’s love, Goldingay has a sketch of God’s hostility: weary skepticism, hiddenness/withdrawal/absence, anger, rage, redress, self-assertion, repudiation, ruthlessness, slayer, warrior, enemy, vintner.

Read more here.