The Goodness of God’s Jealousy

“Thus says the LORD of hosts: Consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD."

Haggai 1:7-8

As we prepare for the holiday season, parents are perhaps bracing themselves for what will inevitably be the post-holiday letdown. With Halloween gone, we seem to skip over Thanksgiving, go straight to Christmas, and now, we find it hard to go anywhere where Christmas presents, toys for kids, and the hottest gifts are not popping up before us as the things marketing professionals are telling us we need. Kids feel it and start to want more toys. I can already feel the pressure of the inevitable letdown when they realize their sibling may have gotten something just a little bit more desirable than they did. 

The word jealousy normally carries with it these negative connotations. We tend to think of it on the human level, where we are trying to find our place amongst other humans in the world. When we look at what we have, we tend to think that what others have is better. We are jealous about other people. So when we say God is a jealous God, it takes our brains a moment to move away from human understanding (i.e. I want my neighbor’s house because it is nicer than mine) to the intended divine understanding: “God’s jealousy means that God continually seeks to protect His own honor.”¹ We first see this applied in Scripture in Exodus 20, when Moses is delivering the Ten Commandments from God to His people. In the context of the Second Commandment’s prohibition of idols, God gives a reason, “for I the LORD your God am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:5). So we struggle to ascend beyond our own jealousy of our neighbor, but God’s jealousy emanates from His eternality, His sovereignty, His immutability, His love and passion for His created beings to know Him as He truly is, and His glory displayed amongst the nations. 

The Book of Haggai covers Israel after the people have returned from their exile in Babylon, and have returned to Jerusalem, where they should have rebuilt the temple. The people of Israel were more concerned with building their own homes than with the temple. We see that this largely comes from not a direct opposition to God, but from an apathetic stance to what matters most. In other prophetic literature, wood is used to preach directly against idol making. In Isaiah 44, the wood that God intended for provision and for good was turned around to create lesser, created gods to be worshiped. But here the image of wood, which must be gathered from the hills (Isaiah 44:8), is the object of distraction, which has led Israel’s hearts to apathy. Wood that was meant to be gathered for the building of God’s glory amongst the nations instead was being gathered in the hills for numerous hours for something of far lesser importance. God is jealous for His glory shown by the gathering of His people together for worship, and we are jealous of our neighbor and the houses we are building. 

If you missed our Glory and Goodness Global Mission’s Conference this past weekend, I would encourage you to see how the Lord was glorified in our worship by watching our livestream replay. God’s glory is now no longer in a temple built of wood, but in temples of the Holy Spirit. It is “built” in new groups of people, in new known languages on our Earth, and in new earthly kingdoms all around the world. That is why we celebrated this past weekend, not for our church’s glory, but for the glory of Christ amongst the nations.

Remember our definition of God’s jealousy: His zealous protection of His glory. This jealousy was so strong that He Himself went up to the hills to seek a piece of wood to build His own house. Wood not to build a building, but wood that would be used for a cross. A cross that would not build up, but would tear down our anointed, chosen Savior. God would willingly choose for His jealousy, His protection of His glory, to be ultimately revealed in protecting His chosen people from the punishment they built for themselves. God is jealous, demanding our worship, because of Christ’s work on the cross. That is a thought that should captivate our minds and protect us from apathy, leading us to a renewed purpose as people of God and as a community of God’s people. 

May you see the goodness of God’s jealousy for you, for our church, and for the nations.

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End Notes:
1. Grudem, W. (1994). Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Inter-Varsity, 205.