Straft God volgens het Nieuwe Testament op een andere manier dan in het Oude Testament? Een anti-marcionitisch pleidooi

Samenvatting

Marcion (second century AD) argued that the Old Testament does not contain a revelation of the true God with the dramatic result that he disqualified the Old Testament from inclusion in his canon. Even though the main stream of Christianity labeled the Marcionist approach to the Old Testament to be heretical, the same approach appears to recur throughout the centuries. One of the allegedly disturbing images of God in the Old Testament portrays God as one who seems to unjustifiably exterminate entire human populations (e.g., the flood narrative and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah). Such a caricature of God, which suggests that God is a graceless mass murderer, should be corrected, however. If the relevant data in the New Testament are compared with the true image of God in the Old Testament, there appears to be a substantial continuity between the two parts of the Bible. A significant characteristic of the New Testament is its emphasis on the eschatological nature of God’s judgment. Thomas Schreiner has rightly pointed out the above continuity by stating that the kingdom of God and his Christ will come through judgment.