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ON.THEOLOGY
Is God a JEALOUS God?
By
Aaron Norwood
A)
God is love. (1 John 4)
B) Love is not jealous. (1 Corinthians 13)
C) Therefore, God is not jealous.
But…"You
shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the
fourth generations of those who hate Me…”
(Exodus 20:5)
How
do we deal with this apparent contradiction? We can simply say that the Hebrew
word “qanna”, which was most often translated “jealous”, is not the same
meaning of our current word, “jealous”. True, the word can be translated as
“zeal”, “envy”, or even “passion”.
However, is there something to the word “jealous” as it relates to
God?
Let’s
answer this question: “is JEALOUSY always bad?”
It
seems that in the scriptures, when “jealousy” refers to humans, it is always
impure, sinful. No matter how
“holy” we are on this Earth, we are never fully “set apart” unto God,
until heaven. We are still sin, and
are still most often “selfish”. To that end, jealousy is sinful because it
is an emotion of desiring ourselves first. Our way. Our pride. Above others, and
above God.
So,
when Paul writes to the Corinthian church “love is not jealous” (1 Cor. 13),
he is writing in context of sinful man (even those already “called to be His
own holy people” 1Cor. 1:2). Paul
uses this letter to correct the Corinthians toward living lives that bring glory
to God (1 Cor. 1:31), not themselves, not their “spirituality” (1 Cor.
3:1-4). So, jealousy, in human, and
especially followers of Jesus, is bad because it is putting our “glory”
above His.
First,
for GOD, jealousy would be selfishness "for God's sake" or for
"God's glory”. For God to be a “HOLY” God, He must be totally “set
apart” from His creation, from sin, from all that is not God.
So, God’s jealousy would be a desire for His glory and His fame.
In Exodus 34:5,6, God comes to Moses by exclaiming three time “I am the
Lord.” God is about His name.
Secondly,
scripture writes that God’s jealousy is for the good of His people. In
the same passage, God follows His declaration of Himself with this: “…the
merciful and gracious God…slow to anger…rich in unfailing love and
faithfulness…forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion…” (Ex. 34:6,7)
And finally, “…
you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a
jealous God…” (Ex. 34:14).
Let
me leave you with one silly example. Pretend you have built a car, which you
have designed to go speeds in excess of 200 mph. You built this thing to fly!
Your desire is that the buyer of the car will run the tires off of it. Bob
purchases the car and proceeds to drive it 35 mph all the time. Everywhere. He
never uses the car as it was intended.
You
would be jealous. Not of the driver, Bobby, but for the car.
You would be jealous that the car was used to it’s full potential, that
it would be run as fast as possible. Your jealousy would be purely (if possible,
humanly speaking) for the car itself.
Now,
take this one step further. What if
you had created the car with a built in “explosion” device that would
activate if the car was not over 100 mph within 20 seconds of acceleration. Your
jealousy would be for the cars fulfilled purpose, but also for the cars
survival, and ultimately, for the survival of the new owner, Bobby. Your passion
would burn so deep that you would try to correct Bobby before this catastrophe
occurred.
Silly,
I know. But God is so jealous/passionate/zealous that we have “life to the
full” (John 10:10) and that we glorify Him (Isaiah 26:8), that He has provided
the way (salvation through the Son, power through the Spirit) for this to
happen. I can’t imagine God being a “God of LOVE” without being a
“God that is JEALOUS”.
Aaron
Norwood is the Lead Pastor at The Bridge in Tempe AZ.
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