The Jealousy Of God

“Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?” – Proverbs 27:4

“And I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring upon you the blood of wrath and jealousy.” – Ezekiel 16:38

Ezekiel 16 tells the wrenching story of God’s jealousy. Jerusalem is depicted as a woman, one who started as an unwanted child, of foreign parentage, discarded after birth with not even the cord cut, unwashed and unswaddled, wallowing in blood on the ground. “I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’” (verse 6). God made her flourish, then as she grew to be a woman, God covered her nakedness and made a covenant vow with her: “and you became mine” (verse 8). Again, he washed off her blood. He covers her nakedness and adorns her with jewelry. But the woman betrays him. She is unfaithful with passersby, even paying them for it. She makes the clothes, jewelry, and food she was given into idols. She burns their children as an offering to other gods.

This is the reality of what happens when we turn from loving God to other idols in our life, when our loves become disordered. We are the woman in this story, incurring not just detached wrath but personal jealousy. Jealousy is a word for lovers. But that is how it is between us and God, and change in how we handle sin and idolatry in our lives does not happen until we understand that on a deep level. The answer to temptation is not self-control but relationship. The law, what I “should” do, has no power to actually change my behavior. But realizing what my sin does to a God who loves me does. The degree to which I can fight temptation or see change is the degree to which I realize my place in this story, and cultivate my relationship with my lover-God.

The truly wrenching thing is realizing that all of God’s wrath, the consequences of his jealousy, fall upon Jesus. God says, because you rejected me when I washed your blood and covered your nakedness, you will now be stripped naked and made bloody in judgment. And that is exactly what happened to Jesus. People were gathered against him on every side as his nakedness was uncovered (verse 37). He shed the blood of God’s wrath (verse 38). There was a crowd there as he was cut with a sword (verse 40). “So will I satisfy my wrath on you, and my jealousy will depart from you”—and indeed, because of Jesus, it has. God looked upon Jesus in his blood and said again, “Live!” and that is why we can too.