Michael Youssef - Why Does God Seem So Different in the Old Testament VS the New Testament?
God is unchanging, and God is not different from the old and the new. In fact, God revealed himself fully in Jesus Christ so that those people in the Old Testament who misunderstood God can be corrected. But the Word of God in the Old Testament is very clear, God saves by grace and by faith in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.
The Bible said that it was by faith that Abraham was saved, by faith. He didn't have Ten Commandments. He didn't have all the laws of Moses. It was 400 years before Moses. And so, it always has been, always will be by grace through faith in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Take somebody in the Old Testament, kept all of these laws, even the details of the laws that were not in Bible, but the Rabbis have created. But then, his heart is not right with God. That person is not saved in the Old Testament.
Take somebody in the New Testament, maybe goes to church every time the door is open, but his life has not been transformed by the power of God's Holy Spirit and surrendered his life to Jesus Christ. That will not save him. Only by faith and grace that God will save, has saved in the Old Testament that way. He saves in the New Testament the same way.
We have the same God. Our God is unchanging. He fully revealed himself in Jesus to say, "Any misunderstanding you guys may have had about me, now I'm correcting it, now I want you to look at Jesus. This is how you", as Jesus said, "He who has seen me, seen the Father". And that's why Jesus is the full revelation of God. No one before him and no one after him can ever claim that.