How Do We Reconcile the Old Testament God with the New Testament God?

 We learn from the New Testament that God is love, and love keeps no records of wrongs. Why then did God in the Old Testament command the children of Israel to commit pillage, stoning and genocide, among other atrocities? Could it be that the people living during that time did not know God as He really is, and were projecting their own fallen imagination on what they thought as God, and as a result, God was portrayed as petty, vindictive and schizophrenic? After all, human beings felt alienated from God ever since Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I believe that is the reason Jesus came on earth - to reveal the truth that God is always with us, and He has always loved us unconditionally.

According to this website: http://www.streamsoflight.com/ego.html
" The shadow self is what sabotages our relationships, jobs, it denies our spirit, keeps us from realizing our destiny and dreams. It is what we sweep under the rug. It gets buried and repressed into our deep unconscious self. ..... Other people mirror back our hidden emotions and feelings."

http://psikoloji.fisek.com.tr/jung/shadow.htm
"It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting not just of little weaknesses- and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism."

So in view of understanding the human psyche, here are my thoughts on 2 Kings 10:18-27 about the killings of worshippers of another faith:

The old testament prophets and kings didn't really hear God correctly - more likely they heard the voice of the conscience/Satan/dark side of their humanity.

They see God in their own darkened image. The old testament God - the one that was judgmental and vindictive - was simply a mirror of their shadow self.

We know that Jesus is God and He came to show people what God is truly like. So if God = Jesus, therefore God doesn't destroy lives, but saves and heals.

Therefore, any command the prophets or kings thought they heard regarding killing the enemies or outsiders or unbelievers or worshippers of another faith, is not from God.

The Bible may have recorded those events, but it doesn't mean God was behind those killings or God supports them.

Jesus said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." All the old testament folks had never seen the Father. They saw mostly a mirror image of their duality manifesting in terms of good and evil, light and dark, but not a unified image of God who doesn't dwell in duality but in unity - in tune with Himself.

Hence Jesus came to renew people's minds, so that our thoughts flow in tune with God's thoughts once more. This is the rhythm I believe Rob Bell was referring to in his video "Rhythm".

When people begin to see themselves as whole and complete, made in God's image, they recover their true identity, and they become integrated in every way. "By Him (Jesus), all things are held together (or are integrated)."

The old testament folks dwell in duality, and out of their disintegrated and distorted image of God and of themselves, they ended up doing cruel things, like genocide, etc, all in the name of "God".

Jesus rebuked James and John for wanting to call the fire of heaven to consume the Samaritans, saying that "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. The Son of Man did not come to destroy but to save man's lives.". I believe it's because Elijah did not have the same spirit of grace as Jesus has. Elijah was heeding the voice of his seared conscience (sin-consciousness and self-righteousness), not the voice of God the Father.

The children of Israel thought they had to fight and kill in order to possess a physical promised land. Jesus came to show them the true rest - cease striving and know I am God (we are gods).

What happened in AD70 is not the vengeance or punishment in the physical sense from God - it was the suffering and torment in the conscience of those who were under the old covenant of law mindset, thinking that God is Someone who judges and condemns. It was the voice of their fallen mindset accusing them, and thinking that the attack of the Roman army on Jerusalem was caused by God, when actually it was their mirror image of the schizophrenic God that they had mistakenly believed in, because they refused to believe the good news that Jesus is their true identity.