Is it Moses versus Jesus? To know God correctly, we must learn everything the Bible teaches about Jesus from cover to cover, not just what Jesus says and does in his public ministry prior to his arrest and crucifixion.

Before we proceed any further in the New Testament showing that holy means good, I want to take this post to answer one enormously important question: Why does the God of Moses and Mount Sinai seem so different from Jesus?

This question is all-important for us who want to know and understand God, for Jesus said to a disciple, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Therefore, we must be able to reconcile Jesus in the New Testament and God as revealed in the Old Testament.

To understand what appear to be differences in the meaning of God’s holiness, we must grasp God’s purposes.

God’s purposes at Mount Sinai

With Moses at Mount Sinai, also called Mount Horeb, (see Exodus chapters 19–40), one stated purpose of God was to teach his people to fear him. Deuteronomy 4:10 says, “On the day that you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, the LORD said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’”

God succeeded at this purpose, at least superficially. Moses recalled later, “As soon as you heard the voice out of the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes, and your elders. And you said, ‘Behold, the LORD our God has shown us his glory and greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire. This day we have seen God speak with man and man still live. Now therefore why should we die? For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of the LORD our God any more, we shall die’” (Deuteronomy 5:23–25).

The people were so afraid they asked Moses to talk to God and later tell them what God said. Terrified, they wanted to leave God’s overwhelming presence.

God’s purposes in Jesus

But inspiring fear was not God’s highest purpose in the three years of Jesus’ earthly ministry.

Rather, in the three years of Jesus’ public ministry, God’s purpose was to give a greater revelation of his mercy, forgiveness, kindness, grace, love, compassion, gentleness, humility (God also revealed all these qualities abundantly in the Old Testament). John 1:16–18 says, “From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”

During his life on earth Jesus revealed God perfectly, but he did not reveal everything about God. For example, during his earthly ministry, Jesus came to save the world not to judge the world (John 3:16–17); nevertheless, a time is coming when he will judge the world (John 5:21–30). So, during his three years of public ministry prior to the Cross, Jesus revealed little of the wrath of God in his actions (though he spoke of it). Little of the visual majesty and awesomeness of God. Little of the separation of God from sinners. And little of judgment (though he spoke constantly of it).

God’s purpose on Mount Calvary

God’s most important purpose in the earthly life of Jesus was for Jesus to become a man and atone for our sins through his death on the cross. This purpose required that Jesus come in human weakness—a human weakness that could be rejected, mocked, spit upon, beaten, whipped, and nailed to a cross. You could not do that to God as revealed on Mount Sinai.

So, God’s purposes at Mount Sinai overlapped with Mount Calvary, but also had stark differences. That’s why God’s holy goodness revealed at Mount Sinai seems different from his holy goodness revealed in the earthly ministry of Jesus—until Jesus was arrested and the suffering began. The suffering and crucifixion of Jesus bring us back to the revelation of God at Mount Sinai, for Jesus is not suffering as the unfortunate victim of impersonal fate or human injustice, but rather as the object of God’s personal wrath against people who have broken his law. Once again Calvary reveals God’s holiness as separation, righteousness, and occasionally judgment—but thankfully, Calvary also reveals God’s holiness as love, reconciliation, mercy, and forgiveness, because God pours out his wrath on Jesus so that he does not have to do so on us. Holy love and holy justice meet at the Cross.

The unchanging God

God’s character and holiness do not change between the Old Covenant and the New, not at all. “I the LORD do not change” (Malachi 3:6). The God of Mount Sinai is the God of Mount Calvary—and the God of Mount Zion, our eternal home. He reveals more and more of himself as the Scriptures unfold from Old Testament to New. Taken cover to cover, Jesus is the complete revelation of God.

Therefore, as we consider Jesus, we must take into account all that Jesus says and does in the Bible, not isolated words and deeds, and not just the three years of public ministry prior to the Cross. The last Book of the Bible—Revelation—reveals more of Jesus. The New Testament epistles and the Old Testament reveal more of Jesus, the Holy One who is perfectly good. That complete picture is the perfect revelation of the Father, the Holy One who is perfectly good.

Before I finish this series on God’s holiness we will look at how his wrath and judgments are a necessary part of what it means to be perfectly good.