Thank you for the question on worshiping God, “Which God do you worship, God 1.0 (Old Testament) or God 2.0 (New Testament)?”
As I came across this question, I would assume that many Christians would be offended as trolling or is one that ignorant about the Bible. It appears that since one knows about the Old Testament and New Testament that one is not ignorant about the Bible.
Here are my thoughts of the God that I worship:
A. I don’t accept that proposition that Christianity is polytheistic.
The suggestion that the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament is a false dichotomy that one is making. Judaism and Christianity isn’t a polytheistic religion.
The notion that there are two gods would imply that there may be more deities or that there is another deity who made the deities of the Old Testament and the New Testament is heretical in my view.
Thus to ask respondents to choose one or the other is a false dichotomy. To chose one over the other would re-enforce one’s position that Christianity is polytheistic. The choice of God 1 or God 2 is faulty.
The question then becomes this: Do you believe there are two different deities and not one deity or is one questioning the activities of God, but not the personhood of God?
B. I accept the proposition that the God of the Old and New Testament is the same God.
Certainly readers have noted the actions of God in the Old Testament is different from the New Testament. My response is this: Did those readers read the Book of Revelations? If they did, they would see that the actions of God in the Old and New Testament are the same. God judged and condemned the world in the Flood and this same God will judge and condemned the world in the Final Judgment. The God who brought plagues on Egypt is the same God who will bring the Seals, Trumpets, and Bowl Judgments on earth. It is even worse. The reason is the same in both cases: the godlessness of mankind.
C. I accept the proposition that God offers salvation by faith in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament.
Adam to Enoch, Noah, Abraham and the Patriarchs, Moses to King David even to John the Baptist believed God’s promises even as Christians believe God’s promises.
Jesus said this in John 7, “16 Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. 17 Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. 18 Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him” (NIV).
Jesus declares that the words that he speaks is not his own, but from God. It is God who sent him into the world that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
As God saved individuals by faith in the Old Testament so God saves individuals by faith in the New Testament. Abraham believed God’s promise and it was counted unto him as righteousness. Those who believe God’s promise of forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal are also counted as righteousness.
God didn’t wish those individuals to perish so God sent Jonah to Nineveh even as God sent the Apostles to be his witness (Acts 1:8) to the world.
D. I accept the proposition of the plurality of the Godhead, not that there are two or three separate Gods.
As one may already know the word for God is “elohim” which is plural. Thus in Genesis 1:1 the plurality of the God is already implied and that plurality is further revealed in Genesis 2 with YHWH elohim. It is not there are two different deities between Genesis 1–2, but a fuller explanation of the Elohim in the creation of the world.
John 1:1–3 affirms that plurality of the Godhead, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (NIV).
The Apostle John is not teaching there are two separate Gods, but one God. This God is the same in the Old and New Testament.
SUMMARY: Don’t confuse the actions of God with the nature of God. There is only one God.