Exodus 23:1-9 - A Jealous God

Exodus 23:1-9 - Faith

Title: A Jealous God

 

“The jealous God”— doesn't it sound offensive? For we know jealousy, the green-eyed monster, as a vice, one of the most cancerous and soul-destroying vices that there is.”

- J.I. Packer

 

I was dreaming of the past

And my heart was beating fast

I began to lose control

I began to lose control

I didn't mean to hurt you

I'm sorry that I made you cry

Oh no, I didn't want to hurt you

I'm just a jealous guy

- John Lennon

 

“Were we imagining a God, then naturally we should ascribe to him only characteristics which we admired, and jealousy would not enter the picture. Nobody would imagine a jealous God. But we are not making up an idea of God by drawing on our imagination; we are seeking instead to listen to the words of Holy Scripture, in which God himself tells us the truth about himself. For God our Creator, whom we could never have discovered by any exercise of imagination, has revealed himself. He has talked. He has spoken…”

- J.I. Packer

 

“There are two sorts of jealousy among humans, and only one of them is a vice. Vicious jealousy is an expression of the attitude, "I want what you've got, and I hate you because I haven't got it." It is an infantile resentment springing from unmortified covetousness, which expresses itself in envy, malice and meanness of action. It is terribly potent, for it feeds and is fed by pride, the taproot of our fallen nature. There is a mad obsessiveness about jealousy which, if indulged, can tear an otherwise firm character to shreds. "Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?" asks the wise man (Prov 27:4). What is often called sexual jealousy, the lunatic fury of a rejected or supplanted suitor, is of this kind.

But there is another sort of jealousy: zeal to protect a love relationship, or to avenge it when broken. This jealousy also operates in the sphere of sex; there, however, it appears not as the blind reaction of wounded pride but as the fruit of marital affection. As Professor Tasker has written, married persons "who felt no jealousy at the intrusion of a lover or an adulterer into their home would surely be lacking in moral perception; for the exclusiveness of marriage is the essence of marriage" (The Epistle of James, p. 106). This sort of jealousy is a positive virtue, for it shows a grasp of the true meaning of the husband-wife relationship, together with a proper zeal to keep it intact.”

- J.I. Packer

 

“For your Maker is your husband,
the Lord of hosts is his name…” 

(Isaiah 54:5a)

 

“For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. 

(2 Corinthians 11:2)

 

“There is no need to be disturbed by this. Jealousy is a resentment of rivals, and whether it is good or evil depends on whether the rival has any right to be there. Since God is unique, and there is no other, he has the right to ask that we worship him alone.”

- John Stott

 

“A counterfeit god (idol) is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living.”

 —Timothy Keller

 

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 

—Eph. 5:25-32