Bible Truth Foundations
Part 1 of 3: New Life in Christ
Please begin by answering this question honestly in your own words.
When you read the Old Testament, does God seem the same to you as the God you see in Jesus? If there seems to be a difference, where do you think it comes from?
John 14:9 (NKJV)
Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?"
Jesus is not describing a resemblance. He is making an identity claim. Hold that thought as you read the teaching.
The central idea of this lesson
Jesus is the clearest and fullest picture of who God is. If you want to know God's nature, look at how Jesus treated people. That is not a departure from the Father's character; it is its most precise expression.
Many people come to the Bible and encounter what feels like a jarring contrast. In parts of the Old Testament, God appears severe, demanding and at times ferocious in His response to human sin. In the New Testament, particularly in Jesus, He appears gentle, restorative and slow to condemn. The temptation is to conclude that God changed, or that the two Testaments describe different deities. Neither is true. The character of God has never changed. What changed was the method of relating to humanity at a particular stage of history, and understanding why requires understanding the purpose of the Old Testament law.
Note
Think of how parents raise small children. With a very young child, you cannot explain the reasons behind a rule: why it is dangerous to run into traffic, why they cannot eat whatever they want, why they must treat others with kindness. The child is not yet capable of processing the reasoning. So you give simple rules and enforce them with clear consequences. That does not mean you love the child less or that harshness is your fundamental nature; it means you are meeting the child where they are developmentally. This is the framework the source material behind this lesson uses to explain why the Old Testament often looks the way it does. God was not being harsh for its own sake; He was meeting humanity at a particular stage of its capacity.
The Old Testament law is often misread as the thing God wanted people to keep in order to earn His acceptance. That is not its stated purpose. The New Testament is explicit about what the law was for:
Romans 7:7 (NKJV)
What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, "You shall not covet."
The law was not a ladder to climb toward God's acceptance; it was a mirror that showed humanity what it was actually like. When you look in a mirror and see a dirty face, the mirror has done its job. You do not wash the mirror; you wash your face. The law diagnosed the problem with precision so that the remedy, when it came in Christ, would be understood as necessary.
Galatians 3:24 (NKJV)
Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
Paul calls the law a "tutor" or schoolmaster: a temporary guardian whose role was to bring a person to the point of readiness for something greater. Once you reach the teacher, the tutor steps back. The law pointed to Christ; it was never the destination itself.
Going Deeper
Romans 5:13 (NKJV) contains a striking statement about the period before the law was given: "For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law." The word "imputed" is a bookkeeping term: to charge something to someone's account. Before the Ten Commandments were given through Moses, sin existed but was not being formally charged against people's accounts in the same way. This does not mean sin was harmless; it means God's response to it was operating differently. He was not maintaining distance from sinful humanity; He was continuing to pursue relationship with it. Genesis 4 records God speaking directly to Cain and Abel after the fall of their parents, conducting conversations in an audible voice that neither of them found alarming. They were accustomed to it. God had not withdrawn.
The common assumption is that once sin entered through Adam and Eve, God retreated from humanity behind a barrier of holiness that could not be crossed until Christ. Genesis 4 challenges that assumption directly. After the events of Genesis 3, God is still in active conversation with Adam's children:
Genesis 4:6–7 (NKJV)
So the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it."
This exchange happened before any formal covenant or law had been given, and it shows God reasoning with a man, warning him, caring about what he was about to do. When Cain then killed his brother and God asked "Where is Abel your brother?" (Genesis 4:9, NKJV), Cain's response was the lie of someone so accustomed to God's voice that he had lost proper reverence for it. He was not cowering in terror at an approach from a distant, inaccessible deity. He was talking back. That familiarity only makes sense if God had been present and approachable in the ordinary course of life.
Caution
It is important not to swing from one error to another here. Saying that God continued to fellowship with humanity after sin does not mean He condoned sin or treated it as harmless. The consequences that followed disobedience in the Old Testament were real and sometimes severe. The point is that severity of consequence is not the same as withdrawal of relationship. A parent who disciplines a child they love is not demonstrating that love has ended; they are demonstrating that they care about what the child becomes. The disciplinary framework of the Old Testament was an expression of God's care, not a contradiction of it.
The definitive answer to the question "what is God actually like?" is given in the person of Jesus Christ. John's Gospel establishes this from its opening verses. By the time John 3:34 is reached, the point is already clear:
John 3:34 (NKJV)
For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure.
The Spirit being given without measure to Jesus means His expression of God's character was not partial, filtered or incomplete. He was not showing one aspect of God while other aspects remained hidden. What you see in Jesus is the full thing. That is why His answer to Philip in John 14:9 is so decisive: "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." This is not modesty about the question; it is the answer. If you want to know what God is like toward someone who has failed, look at how Jesus treated the woman in John 8. If you want to know what God is like toward someone who is sick, look at how Jesus healed. If you want to know whether God is interested in ordinary people, look at whose dinner table Jesus chose to sit at.
Going Deeper
Colossians 1:15 (NKJV) states: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation." The word translated "image" is the Greek eikon, from which we get the English word "icon." An icon is not a rough approximation; it is an exact visible representation of something. Paul is saying that in Jesus, the invisible God has become precisely visible. Hebrews 1:3 (NKJV) adds: "who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person." The phrase "express image" translates charaktēr, the Greek word for an engraving tool or the exact impression it stamps: the image that perfectly matches the die that produced it. The New Testament writers are not using vague language about resemblance. They are making the strongest possible claim: in Jesus, what God is like became exactly and completely visible.
Because Jesus is the fullest expression of God's character, reading the Gospels is not merely a historical exercise. It is a direct window into the nature of the God you are in relationship with today. Every time Jesus reached toward someone the religious establishment had written off, that is God's disposition toward the overlooked. Every time Jesus restored a person others expected to be condemned, that is God's instinct toward failure. The nature you observe in the Gospels is not a temporary display put on for the purpose of the Incarnation; it is the eternal character of God made visible in time.
Practical Tip
Choose one of the healing or restoration accounts in the Gospels this week: perhaps the ten lepers in Luke 17:11-19, or blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52, or the paralysed man at the pool in John 5:1-9. Read it slowly and ask two questions: first, who initiated the encounter; second, what did Jesus require of the person before He helped them. Bring your findings to your group. The pattern you find across these accounts is not incidental; it is a portrait of God's character in action.
Work through these on your own before your group meets. Type your answers directly into the table below. Your answers are saved automatically in your browser.
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| Question | My Answer | Group Discussion Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Read Romans 7:7. Paul says "I would not have known sin except through the law." What does this tell you about the law's purpose? Was the law meant to be the way to earn God's acceptance? | ||
| Read Galatians 3:24. Paul calls the law a "tutor." What is the difference between a tutor and a destination? How does this reframe the relationship between the Old Testament and the New? | ||
| Read Genesis 4:6-9. God was still talking with Cain after the fall of Adam and Eve. What does this tell you about whether sin caused God to withdraw from humanity? | ||
| Read John 14:9. Jesus says "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." In your own words, what is He claiming? What does that mean for how we understand God's character? | ||
| Think of one account in the Gospels where Jesus healed or restored someone. Who initiated the encounter? What did Jesus require before He helped them? What does that tell you about God's nature? |
These questions are designed for open conversation at any level of experience. There are no trick questions and no single correct answer.
Understanding God's nature is not a purely intellectual exercise. How you see God shapes how you pray, how you treat others and how you respond when life is hard. Consider where these truths need to take root.
| Context | How I Apply This |
|---|---|
| Reading the Old Testament | When you encounter a difficult passage in the Old Testament where God's response seems severe, hold it alongside John 14:9 and ask: what is the purpose of this, given what I know God's character to be from Jesus? The law was a tutor pointing toward Christ; the severity was proportional to the stage of the journey, not an expression of God's ultimate nature. Let Jesus be the interpretive key for every other part of Scripture. |
| In how you pray | Before you pray this week, spend a moment recalling a specific account of Jesus healing or restoring someone in the Gospels. Bring that picture into your mind as you begin. You are not approaching a judge who requires a carefully worded case. You are approaching the God whose character was expressed in that account. Let the image shape the posture of your prayer. |
| In conversations about God | When someone expresses a view of God as harsh, distant or impossible to please, ask them which picture of God they are working from. Many people's view of God was formed by religious experience, cultural assumption or selective reading of the Old Testament rather than by looking at Jesus directly. Pointing to John 14:9 and asking "what does Jesus show you about the Father's character?" is often more productive than a theological argument. |
Tap each card to reveal the answer.
What did Jesus say to Philip about seeing the Father?
John 14:9
"He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?"
John 14:9 (NKJV). Jesus is not a resemblance of the Father; He is His precise expression.
What was the purpose of the Old Testament law?
Romans 7:7; Galatians 3:24
To reveal sin (Romans 7:7) and act as a tutor to bring people to Christ (Galatians 3:24). A mirror, not a ladder. It diagnosed the problem; it was never the remedy itself.
What does "sin is not imputed" mean in Romans 5:13?
Romans 5:13
"For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law."
Imputed means charged to your account. Before the law, sin was not being formally charged; God was still in relationship with humanity.
How does Colossians 1:15 describe Jesus in relation to God?
Colossians 1:15
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation."
Colossians 1:15 (NKJV). Not a partial image; the invisible God made exactly and completely visible.
Did God withdraw from humanity after the fall of Adam and Eve?
Genesis 4:6–9
No. Genesis 4 shows God still in direct conversation with Cain and Abel, reasoning, warning, and engaging. The withdrawal after sin was on the human side; God continued to pursue.
What word does Paul use for the law's role in Galatians 3:24, and what does it mean?
Galatians 3:24
"Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith."
Galatians 3:24 (NKJV). Tutor: a temporary guardian pointing toward the destination, not the destination itself.