How can we reconcile God's love with the violent passages of the Old Testament?
In short: Not by denying the texts, and not by presenting God as violent in our own image. Orthodoxy reads the Old Testament through Christ: God works pedagogically in a brutal world, and the fullness of His face is revealed on the Cross, where He bears the world's violence instead of turning it back against us.
The Orthodox nuance
The Old Testament is not a comfortable book. It shows humanity in its real state: blood, war, idolatry, revenge, hardness of heart. God enters this history not as into an ideal textbook, but as into a hospital full of wounds. That is why revelation has a pedagogy: God speaks to people where they are in order to lead them further.
Christ is the key. He does not contradict the God of the Old Testament; He reveals Him fully. 'You have heard that it was said... but I say to you' does not mean that God changed His mind, but that man is now called to the maturity of the Kingdom: love of enemies, forgiveness, the Cross.
The Fathers did not read these texts only as political history. They also read them spiritually: Israel's wars become icons of the battle against the passions. Thus the Church keeps Scripture without turning ancient violence into a Christian program.
Sources
- Hebrews 1:1-2
- Matthew 5:21-48
- Luke 9:54-56
- John 18:36
- Saint Maximus the Confessor (spiritual reading of Scripture)