In Defense of a Jealous God
by Richard Blackford
Several times, the Bible states that God is a jealous God. One of those is in the Ten Commandments: “Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image……Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God…” (Exodus 20:4-5). That conjures a kneejerk reaction as something bad, for jealousy is a vice rather than a virtue (Galatians 5:20). We’re even told God’s name is “Jealous” (Exodus 34:14). We’re also told that “Love is not jealous” (I Corinthians 13:4). How can all this be?
Oprah states, “I was in my 20s, and I remember sitting in a church…the minister was preaching about…how the Lord thy God was a jealous God and the Lord thy God would condemn us for whatever, and I remember I had a spiritual! And I was in my late 20s, and I suddenly thought, ‘How can this God who is all loving and all-powerful, why would God be jealous of me?’” [Finding Your Spiritual Path Webcast Transcript, January 14, 2009 www.oprah.com/spirit]. This moment caused her to turn from her childhood faith in the God of the Bible to a New Age faith in which there are many paths, not one, as the Bible teaches (Matthew 7:13-14).
- Why would God be jealous of idols? “…For we know that an idol is nothing…” (I Corinthians 8:4). An idol is powerless and is absolutely no threat to the person of God.
- The misunderstanding is that God is not jealous of us. He is jealous for us. Since an idol cannot save us, when we turn to an idol, we turn away from the only one who can save us. The idol is not a threat to God but to us. God loves us and doesn’t want us to be lost, so He is jealous on our behalf. So, while envy is always used in a bad sense, jealousy can be either good or bad, depending on context. We should be thankful and rejoice at the jealousy of God. He is looking out for us.
Not all idols are made of wood, stone, or gold (think “golden calf”). They can get more sophisticated and more deceptive. Samuel said that stubbornness is like idolatry (I Samuel 15:23). Do you know anybody who is stubborn? When stubbornness stands in our way of serving God, we put ourselves first. It can become “self worship.” Paul said “covetousness is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5).
Covetousness is an insatiable desire for worldly gain - to find fulfillment, meaning, and purpose in things instead of in God. We are not to covet the things of others. Again, covetousness is self-centered and amounts to self-worship.
We cannot afford to misunderstand why God is a jealous God. We should be very grateful that God is jealous for us, not of us.