Okay, here's where I'm coming from regarding the difference between the OT and NT:
Throughout the OT the Lord is continually associated with Satanic or "evil" spirits. In Samuel 16:14-15, it states that "the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. And Saul's servants said to him, 'See now, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you.'"
This does not necessarily mean Satan, as any time he is mentioned it is by name/or otherwise obvious (as in the garden).
2 Samuel 24:1 states: "Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, 'Go, count the people of Israel and Judah." 1 Chronicles offers a similar passage: "Satan stood up against Israel," it says, "and incited David to count the people of Israel." The passages are the same, except that "the wrath of the Lord" has been replaced with "Satan," further associating the two entities.
I need to do some deeper digging into these two passages.
The Book of Job portrays Satan as God's servant, asking the Lord if he can tempt Job to demonstrate that the man doesn't really love Him (Job 1:9-12).
This is way off.
Job 1:6 Now it came to pass on the day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Jehovah, that Satan also came among them.
Job 1:7 And Jehovah said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered Jehovah, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
All it does is show that Satan does not reside in heaven (there are other references to where he was thrown out of heaven along with the other angels who rebelled with him), and was not counted among the "good" angels. He also, as a spirit, apparently still had access to come into heaven.
The general understanding is of him (even then) as an accuser, trying to "drag down" as many with him as possible.
In the NT, Satan takes on a whole new life as the embodiment of evil; an entity separate from God, and anathema to Him.
This is partially because, throughout the NT, the Jewish priests are constantly associated with Satan and evil. The Book of Mark, chapter 10 verses 33-34, says that "The chief priests and scribes [
] will condemn [the Son of Man] to death, and hand him over to the nations, and they shall mock him and spit upon him, flog him and kill him."
In the Book of John, 8:44, Jesus says to the Pharisees, "You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father's desires."
Considering that the Pharisee's placed a higher importance on the "Oral Law" (the Talmud), which in many instances completely contradicts the Torah, this accusation was on point.
Luke 4:1-13 describes Satan's temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, offering him wealth and authority over all the kingdoms of the world. This is clearly meant to identify wealth and success with evil; an idea that would have been considered outrageous by the non-Christian contemporaries of the Gospel writers.
It was not meant to identify wealth with evil. Satan was attempting to get Jesus to sin (by breaking the 1st Commandment), and offering a reward to him for doing so. Which was ridiculous, because Jesus would get all that he was being offered anyway upon his second return.
If Satan had gotten Jesus to sin, his dying on the cross would have been pointless. His goal was to nullify the sacrifice so there was no salvation.
All these NT passages are examples by which Jesus seeks to overturn previously established Jewish social norms, and the Gospel writers perpetuate this by associating the Jewish high priests and Pharisees with Satan and evil (this is also the source for the unfortunate outcome of antisemitism among many Christians throughout history).
As stated earlier, Jesus never advocated breaking Torah. The Pharisees and Sadducees (the religious leaders), placed higher value on teachings that many times contradicted Torah. He was trying to overturn the "norm", to bring Israel back to the original order the Father set down. Roughly half of Jesus' conversations/teachings begin with a scripture reference from the OT. I could quote all these instances but it would take pages.
I'm sorry for the long-winded response, but basically my point is that there is a difference in doctrine between the OT and NT because the idea of sin is different; it's been internalized. Perhaps sin was internal in the OT to the extent that simply by coveting another's wife one was committing sin; but there was no way to punish such a sin, and no hierarchal system could form from it. Therefore, action became important because it was a means by which the Hebrews could punish perpetrators and thus conserve the "balance" (just as God set His wrath against the Hebrews when they were disobedient or sinful).
This is true to a point. Punishment required two or more witnesses, and there are no witnesses to thought. But obviously that didn't make thinking about it ok.
Jesus seeks to overturn the balance, which is why he speaks to the poor in the Sermon on the Mount. In the NT, it is not only sinful to sleep with another man's wife, but it is also sinful to take that man's life and punishment into your own hands. Retribution itself becomes sinful. Furthermore, it is wrong and unnecessary even for God to act vengefully against the Hebrews, because Christ has come to bear the burden of our sins.
There is nowhere where it says it's wrong for God to take vengence against the Hebrews. In fact, at the time of the writing, ten or eleven of the twelve tribes were still scattered, and Jesus prophecied the sacking of Jerusalem by Rome.
Sin is covered that is repented of, not those living in it (the Pharisees for example).
Before Christ's birth, Israel was a sinful nation, and therefore their punishments were logically accounted for as God's wrath. However, after the arrival of Jesus, salvation takes a new turn; he has come to die for the sins of humanity, and he reminds the Jews of their sins in his quoting of Isaiah and the parable of the vineyard. In this way, Christianity recognizes a clear combative action between the forces of good and evil. Opposition is no longer God's wrath upon His chosen people, and Satan is no longer His prosecuting attorney, doing his dirty work; but rather, Satan has become the opposition to the divine plan, symbolizing the efforts made against Jesus. This is further evidenced by the New Testament's influence on interpretation of the Old Testament. In the Book of Genesis, Satan is never mentioned as the tempter who lures Eve in the garden, but it became common knowledge to equate the tempter-serpent with Satan after John of Patmos identified Satan as the "serpent of old."
I don't have any more time at the moment, but I am pretty sure there are references to him in this fashion in the Prophets. Will have to get back to you on that.
But considering that John was shown everything he was by God, I would imagine this basic understanding wouldn't have been withheld, not to mention if he grew up hearing Torah read in the synagogue on a weekly basis (the serpant-Satan connection must have been taught or it would have been addressed as major false doctrine)/got to hear Jesus way more than what's even written, it is probably an accurate assessment.
