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TwitterExodus 20:5 – If God is absolutely holy, then how can He be jealous?
QUESTION
God is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5) and one of God’s name is Jealous (Exodus 34:14). However, jealousy is a sin.
If God is absolutely holy, then how can He be jealous?
ANSWER
God is jealous in the good sense of the word. He is jealous for the love and devotion of His people (Exodus 20:5).
Apostle Paul was jealous for the Corinthians with a godly jealousy (2 Corinthians 11:2).
Like any true lover, God is jealous when anything or anything steals the devotion of His beloved.
Human jealousy is often coveting what does not belong to us. However, God’s jealousy is protecting what does belong to Him.
It is not a sin for God to claim allegiance to His creation because He is the Creator.
God knows that it is best for His creation not to make an ultimate commitment to what is less than ultimate. Only an ultimate commitment to what is really Ultimate will ultimately satisfy the human heart and God is jealous to protect this.
BIBLE REFERENCES
Exodus 20:4-6
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
Exodus 34:13-16
13 But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), 15 lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and make sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invites you and you eat of his sacrifice, 16 and you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods and make your sons play the harlot with their gods.
2 Corinthians 11:1-4
1 Oh, that you would bear with me in a little folly—and indeed you do bear with me. 2 For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 4 For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted—you may well put up with it!
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