4. Is God the Father, in the Old Testament exacting and rigid in contrast to the merciful and loving God of the New Testament?

Exodus 34:6, 7 paints a changeless picture of God the Father: “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation.”JTL9 2.9

Though God is welcoming and forgiving to those who take a step toward Him in repentance, those who reject His mercy will reap punishment for their unforsaken sins. Thus, we find many expressions of the Father’s love in the Old Testament, as well as descriptions of the results of persistent rebellion in the New Testament.JTL9 3.1