Why does God say He's a jealous God? I understand jealousy is a sin, and that He doesn't want us to put anything or anyone before or above Him. However He is almighty, above all, and jealousy shouldn't even be a factor. I'm a new Christian (5 years saved) and admittedly don't have all the answers that elder Christian people do, however this question has always puzzled me.
I found a short article that might help. There’s more to the topic you raised then is covered in here but I thought this article might serve as starting point.
Why is God a jealous God?
jealous God
Question: "Why is God a jealous God?"
Answer: It is important to understand how the word “jealous” is used. Its use in Exodus 20:5 to describe God is different from how it is used to describe the sin of jealousy (Galatians 5:20). When we use the word “jealous,” we use it in the sense of being envious of someone who has something we do not have. A person might be jealous or envious of another person because he or she has a nice car or home (possessions). Or a person might be jealous or envious of another person because of some ability or skill that other person has (such as athletic ability). Another example would be that one person might be jealous or envious of another because of his or her beauty.
In Exodus 20:5, it is not that God is jealous or envious because someone has something He wants or needs. Exodus 20:4-5 says, “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God...” Notice that God is jealous when someone gives to another something that rightly belongs to Him.
In these verses, God is speaking of people making idols and bowing down and worshiping those idols instead of giving God the worship that belongs to Him alone. God is possessive of the worship and service that belong to Him. It is a sin (as God points out in this commandment) to worship or serve anything other than God. It is a sin when we desire, or we are envious, or we are jealous of someone because he has something that we do not have. It is a different use of the word “jealous” when God says He is jealous. What He is jealous of belongs to Him; worship and service belong to Him alone, and are to be given to Him alone.
Perhaps a practical example will help us understand the difference. If a husband sees another man flirting with his wife, he is right to be jealous, for only he has the right to flirt with his wife. This type of jealousy is not sinful. Rather, it is entirely appropriate. Being jealous for something that God declares to belong to you is good and appropriate. Jealousy is a sin when it is a desire for something that does not belong to you. Worship, praise, honor, and adoration belong to God alone, for only He is truly worthy of it. Therefore, God is rightly jealous when worship, praise, honor, or adoration is given to idols. This is precisely the jealousy the apostle Paul described in 2 Corinthians 11:2, “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy...”
Recommended Resources: Knowing God by J.I. Packer
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The above article is from, Got Questions? site. The following has some additional insights.
This site is generally helpful, kinda depends on the competence of each individual contributor
Question: "What is godly jealousy?"
Answer: In 2 Corinthians 11:2, Paul writes, “I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him.” We normally think of jealousy as being a negative trait or even a sin, akin to envy (see Galatians 5:20). Yet jealousy can also be a godly trait.
Sinful jealousy has at its root covetousness (Mark 7:22; James 4:2). To covet is to strongly desire something belonging to someone else. Covetousness is a dissatisfaction with what God has given us and an obsessive fascination with what He has given someone else. When we covet something belonging to another, we cannot love that person as we should because we see him or her as competition. Lust is also a form of covetousness (Colossians 3:5).
However, there are times when jealousy is appropriate. God is described as being provoked to jealousy over idolatry (Exodus 20:4–5). God is jealous when someone takes something that rightly belongs to Him and keeps it for himself or gives it to another. God alone deserves our worship and praise (Jeremiah 10:6–7). When we give worship to false gods, we commit a grave injustice, and God’s righteous jealousy is provoked (2 Kings 22:17; Psalm 78:58).
When Paul speaks of godly jealousy, he means the kind of jealousy that God has. The Corinthians had a propensity to embrace heresy and false teachers. They had encountered Jesus in powerful ways. He had filled them with the Holy Spirit and granted them supernatural gifts (1 Corinthians 1:7), yet they still tended toward gullibility and unfaithfulness. Verses 3 and 4 explain their problem in this regard: “But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough.”
In 2 Corinthians 11:2 Paul compares his jealousy over the Corinthian church with that of a bridegroom toward his beloved. A bride has promised her heart to her husband alone, and, should she prove unfaithful, he would experience godly jealousy. Paul had an ardent love for the Corinthian church he founded. But the Corinthians’ ongoing tendency toward error grieved him, and he feared they were being spiritually seduced by smooth-talking false teachers. Paul rebuked, counseled, encouraged, and corrected them in his letters, one of which has been lost to us (see 1 Corinthians 5:9). And when he received word that they were again entertaining false teachers (2 Corinthians 11:5, 13–15), he was filled with God’s own jealousy for them.
We can discern the difference between ungodly, selfish jealousy and godly jealousy when we identify the desired outcome. With selfish, sinful jealousy, we are the beneficiaries of our covetous thoughts. We are the recipients of imagined admiration, wealth, or blessing. But with godly jealousy God is the recipient of our desire. We are jealous for the will of God in a situation. We are jealous for Him to be glorified. Godly jealousy wakes us up at night to intercede for a lost loved one. Godly jealousy motivates us to confront a sinning brother or sister when we don’t want to, in order to save them from the enemy (James 5:20). Godly jealousy created difficulties and sorrows for Paul because he refused to stop speaking the truth, even when his hearers did not want to listen (2 Corinthians 5:14). Godly jealousy is love in action (1 Corinthians 13:4–7).
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God the Father is very jealous when you worship idols or any other person then the Father and His Son Jesus or if you teach any other gospel besides His New Covenant in Jesus Christ!
***IN AD 788 THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH DECREED THAT THE WORSHIP OF THE CROSS, STATUES, IMAGES AND RELICS WERE AUTHORIZED**
** MANY POPES LIKE JOHN PAUL II HAVE KNELT, BOWED DOWN AND WORSHIPED BEFORE STATUES OF MARY WHO THEY NOW SAY IS CO-MEDIATOR AND CO-REDEEMER WITH JESUS**
**THE SATANIC ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH DECLARED THAT MARY IS OUR **CO-MEDIATOR** AND **CO-REDEEMER**!!
"The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)
"To such extent did Mary suffer and almost die with her suffering and dying Son; to such extent did she surrender her maternal rights over her Son for man's salvation... that we may rightly say she redeemed the human race together with Christ." (Benedict XV}
"In fact, by being assumed into heaven Mary has not laid aside the office of salvation but by the manifold intercession she continues to obtain for us the grace of eternal salvation." (John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia, 1980, quoting Lumen Gentium)
**BUT WHAT DOES GOD'S WORD SAY**??
Hebrews 9:15: **CHRIST IS THE MEDIATOR** of the New Covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance--now that He has died as a ransom to set them free for sins committed under the first covenant!
I Timothy 2:5 There is **ONE MEDIATOR** between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus who gave Himself as a ransom for all people!!
Exodus 20:3-5: The Sovereign Lord says, "You shall have no other gods before Ne. You shall not make for yourself in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God am a jealous God!!"
Deuteronomy 4:15,16,19: The Sovereign Lord says, "Watch yourselves very carefully so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an **IDOL**, an image of any shape, formed **LIKE A MAN OR A WOMAN**... And do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping!!"
Psalm 115:3-8: Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him. But their **IDOLS** are silver and gold made by human hands. They have mouths but cannot speak, eyes but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so all who trust in them!!
Revelation 9:20: The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping **IDOLS** of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood--idols that cannot see or hear or walk!!
Acts 4:11,12: Jesus is the stone you builders rejected, which has become the Cornerstone. Salvation is found in **NO ONE ELSE**, for there **NO OTHER NAME** given to mankind by which we must be saved!!
Deuteronomy 27:15: "Cursed is anyone who makes an **IDOL**--a thing detestable to the Lord!"
Jeremiah 4:1: "If you, Israel will return to Me," declares the Lord. "And put your detestable **IDOLS** out of My sight!"
Jeremiah 7:30: The people of Judah have done evil in My eyes, declares the Lord. They have set up their detestable **IDOLS** in the house that bears My name and have defiled it!"
Isaiah 44:6,9-11: This is what the Lord says... "All who make **IDOLS** are nothing, all the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame, Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit nothing? People who do that will be put to shame!"
I Corinthians 6:9-10: Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor **IDOLATERS** nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were, But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ!!
I Peter 4:2-4: Do not live the rest of your earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do--living in debauchery, lust, orgies, carousing and **DETESTABLE IDOLATRY**!!
I Thessalonians 1:9,10: They tell how you turned to God from **IDOLS** to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven!!
2 Corinthians 6:16: What agreement is their between the temple of God and **IDOLS**? For we are the temple of the Living God! As God has said, "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people!!"
2 Timothy 3:15,16: 4:1,2: You have known the **HOLY SCRIPTURES**,which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. **ALL SCRIPTURE IS GOD-BREATHED** and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, I give you this charge: **PREACH THE WORD**!! {**WHICH IS THE ENTIRE NEW COVENANT AND NEW TESTAMENT**!!}
**DOES GOD'S WORD SAY THAT *ADDING** OR **TAKING WORDS** AWAY FROM GOD'S WORD IS AN UNPARDONABLE SIN**??
Deuteronomy 4:2: The Lord said, "Do not **ADD** to what I command you and do not **SUBTRACT** from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you!!"
Deuteronomy 12:32: The Lord said, "See that you do all I
command you, do not **ADD** to it or **TAKE AWAY** from it!!"
Revelation 22:16,18,19: "I, Jesus. have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the Churches.... I warn everyone who hears the **WORDS OF THE PROPHECY OF THIS BOOK**: If anyone **ADDS** {Like the RC popes} anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this Book {Including **ETERNAL HELL**} And if anyone **TAKES WORDS AWAY** {Like the RC popes} from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the Tree of Life and in the Holy City {The New Jerusalem}, which are described in this book."
I Peter 1:18,19: For you know that it was not with perishable things like silver and gold that you were **REEDEEMED** from the empty way of life handed down to you by your ancestors, but with the **PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST**, a lamb without blemish or defect!!
To augment the previous answers, our God is a jealous God because he is protective of those who've received adoption as children in his Son. The Father seeks our worship in spirit and truth; faithful worship being our posture of honoring God through obedience and acknowledgment of his sovereignty. If we turn to the worship of worthless idols we do not remain in God's love and our soul is in imperilment. He made the way for us to walk in, so it's only right that he would be jealously protective of those who could be led astray.
God is our creator, sustainer, and salvation, thus worship belongs to him alone, and he is right to be jealous of it. A man's jealousy is fueled by envy; a desire to have something belonging to someone else, but as all things already belong to God, it's not difficult to grasp that God's jealousy is something altogether different and just.
I’m striving for that kind of clarity but it seems I must write several practice drafts first!! Otherwise my literary “faux pas” will be documented forever, like too many of my posts here.
