Did you notice the differences between the old covenant and the New Covenant was are under now???
YES, God does love all people under the New Covenant because Jesus went to the Cross for ALL people meaning ALL people have opportunity for salvation... and sadly many will reject the Lord because of so many claiming to be "christians" are hypocrites who say one thing and do another
YES when Jesus returns He will execute wrath upon those that do not obey the gospel (
2 Thessalonians 1:8) which includes those that were Christians but backslid and turned away from walking with the Lord going back to living after the pleasures of this life (being carnal minded walking after the flesh).
NO we are not the Lord... Jesus instructs us to love our enemies to do good to them that curse us and these are the marching orders for real Christians. Those that have the Spirit of the Lord do not wish evil upon those attacking them.
The scriptures must harmonize. The God of the Old Testament is the Jesus of the New.
If you study how the written word came to be as the New Testament that may help you to realize we are not reading Jesus when we are told to love our enemies, allow thieves to rob us and give them even more than what they want to take from us. (Thou shalt not steal). Notice there's no commandment in the OT to love your enemies?
"Those that have the Spirit of the Lord do not wish evil upon those attacking them."
The Holy Spirit,God/Jesus, sends people to Hell for eternity for doing evil.
God drowned all life on Earth except for those he predestined for Salvation in the Ark.
He burned all inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah alive except for those he predestined for Salvation from the flames.
God ordered the Hebrews into war against others.
Commanded the slaughter of all living things no matter what they were. Including babies. And ordered babies be cut from their mother's womb.
Herod is reviled for his order to slaughter babies when he sought to kill the prophecied Messiah.
And yet God killed the first born of every Egyptian house in his campaign to force Pharaoh to let his people go.
And this occurred after God insured Pharaoh could not obey that command ever.
Because,as God told Moses, God hardened Pharaohs heart so he could not let God's people go.
Yes, Pharaohs heart was hard before that. Had he been left alone, Pharaoh could have relented after witnessing any number of plagues that beset himself and his people. But God insured the hardening would not soften.
Because all the plagues God sent were direct challenges to the elemental domains of the pantheon of gods and goddesses of the Egyptian faith.
Jesus said the Pharisees were of their father the Devil.
All of that , God's and Jesus examples and therefore teachings by example, and more is documented in both Old and New Testaments.
When we are made first in the image and likeness of God,and are Christ like, being indwelt by his Holy Spirit and Sealed in his Redemption plan, thinking we have to live and refrain from harsh criticism,as example, of the man who raped and dismembers an eight year old,is not able to be sustained by the example God gave of his behaviors toward Sinners and others he thought worthy of his wrath.
The scriptures must harmonize in both Old and New.
However, when Roman government influence was behind those who in councils over many decades compiled the New Testament, loving ones enemies,doing good to those who hate or harm you, giving even more to those who would rob you,and honoring the Emperor,would then make sense.
If the Roman army seeks to make conquest of a town to which missionaries of the good news first converted the towns folk, it would be easier to achieve success if those Christians thought their eternity depended on loving those enemies,and giving them their town and freedom,and then obeying the Emperor behind it all.
In the conquests of Pagan Europe and even the Americas, priests accompanied the armies. Those not killed in the war were converted,or killed.
Jesus said,you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.
Many Christians believe in the Bible. Some even make an idol of it.
We're to believe in God.God is The Word.
The Bible is said ,by man, to be the inspired words of God. Yet,for centuries it has been changed and rewritten. And now there are great numbers of versions.
When God,The Word,does not change. And is the same,forever.
Truth is, The Word of God is God.
"
In the beginning was the word..."
And Jesus is,was,the Word made flesh who dwelt among us.
The New Testament tells of the culmination of the Messiah prophecy in the Old.
The Bible contains God's Spirit and communication to us. We have to discern where those truths are in the text.
However,man with their motives interjected their part too.
When God will send that aforementioned rapist murderer of a child to Hell for eternity, God isn't going to tell the Elect of God who are indwelt by his spirit to love that rapist murderer of an innocent.
God sends him to Hell. But,we are to love him?
This is also a good time to address the ideology that insists,contrary to what God actually says, that we can freely choose to be Saved.
If that aforementioned child murderer and rapist chooses to believe in Jesus/Omniscient Sovereign God while serving on death row,he goes to Heaven? To live for eternity with that innocent child he destroyed on Earth?
And we're to think the Lambs Book of Eternal Life containing the names of God's Elect,written before the foundation of the world,would contain that rapist murderers name? Because God predestined him for his grace?
After what God/Jesus tells us he hates in Proverbs 6:16-19?
I think what causes conflict and division in the church,the whole of the Faithful, is in our trying to reconcile what are actually God's words and leading within ourselves by his Holy Spirit,and those interpolations of men who wrote their political agenda into the Bible so to let it be marveled at as not their work,but God's instruction.
Discernment,is the key.
There is no thing Sovereign God cannot know. Or,see coming. Especially when man has an ego.
The Romans wanted to conquer the world for all time.
What better way to accomplish this than to establish a church, send out armies and priests to conquer and convert,and then compile a text that assures all who hear it read to them,as was the case in that early Roman church(s), this is all God's will?
Which is why the Pagan Romans kept many of their practices,though with a new Christian veneer, when they reformed their Paganism into that global political vehicle of war,conquest and conversion.
The Romans Catholic (universal) Church.
Complete with idols,a goddess,(the mother of God and co-redemptrix), a Caesar (Pope) and a Senate (college of cardinals) and gold! Money!
Today,there's a "donation" box on the prayer altar where people light candles. And pray for those in Purgatory, which Jesus never spoke of, or for other reasons,so to "voluntarily" pay for the candles.
Need a special pass for healing,etc...? It's customary to make a donation for that.
April 2025:
https://www.americamagazine.org/fai...rms-donations-special-mass-intentions-250393/
And a historic Church agenda for success. Convert or die.
1 John 4:1
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Protestant Reformation caused the slaughter of many too. Crusades. Mass murders in God's name.
Denominationalism today divides the church,the whole body of the faithful Elect of God.
Ours is to be an intimate personal relationship with God who's within us. We are a temple of the Holy.
Find God's leading in scripture. Discern what is not in harmony with his teaching,message,in history.i.e the Old Testament. And always listen,pray/pay attention to his voice from within you.
Upon this rock,that was Jesus not Peter,I shall build my church, i.e the whole of God's Elect called to Jesus. And the gates of Hell ,(what comes out of them from Hell)shall not prevail against it.(Us)
Follow The Word. And you shall find peace.