Hey Josh:

I hope I can reply meaningfully to your comments.

Let me start with the thesis that God Himself never changes.  Nor does His Word.  Nor do His commandments.  He cannot lie.  He exists outside of time.  He is ever faithful.  He is omniscient.  He is omnipresent.  Hopefully, nobody would disagree with these tenets.

The OT narratives depict - primarily - the relationship between God and His chosen people, the descendents of Abraham, the Israelites.  The people YHWH had a covenant with.  God loved and was faithful to the Israelites, but they - as humans so do - were not faithful to God, YHWH, the Lord.  I cannot pretend to know why God during those times chose to administer his relationship with the Israelites in the manner that He did, meaning, namely, that He waxed between enabling His covenantally-connected people to overcome incredible odds vs. their enemies in horrific battles, while yet at other times in the narrative(s) lifting His hand allowing enemies of the Israelites to prevail when they were disobedient.  If this sounds like an over-simplified depiction of the relationship between God and the Israelites then please permit me this indulgence for the sake of brevity.

But in spite of this administrative manner, God was clearly:  Always faithful; Never lied; Never broke His covenantal Word or “obligations.”  He loved the Israelites.  

The unmistakable manner in which God and the Israelites related to each other in the OT narrative was basically as a stern father would relate to his children.  I stipulate here and now that God was jealous of His people, demanding obedience and clearly not in any way – in the OT narrative – obligated to protect or remain faithful to the remainder of humanity existing at the time.  Call the relationship “tough love,” without risking being irreverent.  

God’s creation – meaning humans – has free will.  I’m going to suppose that God, existing outside of time, knew at some point early on (in our timeframe) that the “tough love” approach would not work – was too difficult - for His creation to ever come to the place of honoring and worshipping Him as He intended with Adam in the Garden.  The hundreds of years prior to Jesus were a very bleak period of history for mankind.  Then, enter the brilliant plan of salvation and grace and love that was Jesus.

The NT proposition, exegetically speaking, was of a new covenant.  No more “tough love.”  I won’t explain the obvious since everybody reading this knows what the “new covenant” is and the NT narrative.  But I will simply state one more time that the essence of Jesus’ message was The Kingdom of God; that it had come, that the Holy Spirit (the enabler) would empower those who became “citizens” of the Kingdom, and that repentance and righteousness were imperative to enter the Kingdom, and that peace and joy were the benefits of “living” – abiding - in the Kingdom.  

So, the narrative is clearly different in the NT.  The Kingdom message is clearly not the OT “tough love” approach that God offers – since Jesus arrival - for His people to come into a place of rightstanding with God.  No animal sacrifices (Jesus was the eternal sacrificial lamb)…  no killing and wiping out your enemies (love your enemy[ies])…  

I simply don’t see the tension between how God chose to administer his relationship with his people after the Garden and before Jesus, and after Jesus.  The new covenant is a perfection of the old covenant.  The door is open for everybody.  

Entering and remaining a citizen of the Kingdom of God here on earth is not easy and is guaranteed (by Jesus himself) to be fraught with great trials and difficulties.  Free will is an unruly gift.  People – more than ever – who are not citizens of the Kingdom are dangerous, motivated by hate, and are to varying degrees myopic or completely blind to the Kingdom and its requirements and rewards.  

I believe that the purpose of the OT writings is to portray God as ever faithful to those he has covenant with.  Today, those are the citizens of His Kingdom.  They depict a jealous and mighty Lord who performs incredible miracles for His people, to the exclusion of those who He is not in covenant with.  He is a loving, albeit “tough loving” God.  

The NT – Jesus – brings the dawn of a new relationship with YHWH.  Becoming and remaining a citizen of the Kingdom of God is not easy, yet the fact that it has become open to EVERYBODY and that the dispensation of LOVE is so central (but ONLY after repentance and righteousness) is certainly – I think – more inspiring to most of humanity.  And a hallmark – as you point out – is that the violence of genocidal war and destruction is buried…  but not lost altogether.

What do I mean by that last statement?  I mean that countries – peoples – and specifically Israel, will engage in battles for survival in the future against people who are not of the Kingdom and also – as Revelation depicts – there will be massive war and destruction in the future that ultimately heralds in the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven to earth.  Many will perish, I imagine, including those who are citizens of the Kingdom of God.  

The Bible is what it is:  A bi-testamentary book that serves the purpose of inspiring and instructing us in the ways of righteousness before our God.  Sometimes, I think that people think too much about the plain messages and truth of the Bible, to what end I don’t know.  This would seem like one of those instances.  The Bible surely contains many mysteries, but one of them isn’t, I believe, the notional dichotomy between the God of the OT and the God of the NT.  YHWH, the Lord, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are unchangeable and their promises are eternal as are their personalities.