Christlike Attributes Project

The god of the Old Testament is typically seen as harsh, cruel, vindictive.  The God of the New Testament is typically seen as kind, merciful, forgiving.  The god of both books is Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and forever.  How can these seemingly opposite gods actually be one and the same?  And if they are the same, how do we reconcile the "mean" traits with our definition of being Christlike?

That's what this project is about.  I want to learn more about who Christ really is.  I want to reconcile the two extremes.  To do so, I have decided to go through the standard works and pull out all the attributes of Christ and compare them.  But that task is very overwhelming.  How do you go about categorizing hundreds of different attributes and comparing them?  How can you organize such a task?  By simplifying it, of course.

The more I think about this, the more I realize it isn't necessarily a matter of mean vs. nice.  Rather, it's often a matter of justice vs. mercy.  All of the stories I could think of where God seemed cruel or harsh could be seen as God being just without any mercy.  Perhaps it's an over-simplistic view, but it's a good place to start.  And it's not perfect.  (Please note that below I'm saying Mercy or "Christlike".) And perhaps as I get in deeper with this project, I'll change my tactics.  But for now, after a lot of thought and discussion, this is where I'm going to start.

Because there are so many different viewpoints in this world, I would love for anyone who is willing to help me out here.  Here's how this is going to work.  Every day (hopefully.  Being realistic, I'll probably skip some days.) I am going to read one chapter of scripture and highlight the various attributes of Christ in my scriptures and rank them accordingly:

Blue. Mercy (or, what we typically think of as Christlike)
Red. Just (or what we don't typically think of as Christlike. Doom, gloom, destruction… y'know.)
Green. Other attributes of Christ that don't really fit this scale, but I want to mark anyway.

Unfortunately, putting stories and verses in those categories isn't an exact science.  Which is why I need your help.  I will put up a new post for every chapter and put in my findings and thoughts.  I will leave comments open (though any tasteless, rude or demeaning comments (or just plain spam) will be deleted) to anyone who would like to comment, agree, or disagree with my findings.  I want to hear other people's opinions and views.  What may seem merciful to me may seem just to you.  I want to hear that.  Perhaps I only look at one person in the story and call it just and you look at someone else in the story and call it merciful.  I want that brought to my attention.  When I get to the end of this, I don't want to look back at my conclusions and see Christlike Attributes According to Tianna.  I want to see them through the eyes of many.

So please, feel free to join with me in my quest.  Don't feel like you have to read every chapter with me, but read when you can and comment when you want.  I'd love any input.