Articles
God's Name Is Jealous
God's Name Is Jealous
Dave Chamberlin
“----for you shall not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God----“ (Exodus 34:14)
The scriptures speak, on a number of occasions, about the jealousy of God. The ten commandments of Exodus 20 note that He is jealous when anyone leaves Him to worship those things of His creation or the vanity of man’s imagination. The idols of mankind, no matter the time period, are the product of a vivid imagination. God wants, from His creation, a whole-hearted allegiance and anything short of that will provoke God to jealousy.
The minor prophet Hosea wrote of a jealous God when he noted his own unfaithful wife. Hosea’s wife Gomer, in her life of harlotry, was likened to unfaithful Israel who was in the process of leaving her husband (God) for the idols of the nations around about her. This very activity, on the part of Israel, brought shame upon God’s name.
The name of God is to be respected, honored, and revered. There is constant reference to things being done by God’s people in order that the name of God might be honored. In Romans 1:5 the apostle Paul notes concerning Jesus Christ “through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles, for His name’s sake.” The brethren, in the first century, went throughout the world preaching the gospel for the “sake of the Name.” This notation is provided by the apostle John in his third letter when he writes to Gaius (in the seventh verse) about those early missionaries. He notes, “for they went out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles.”
We, today, need to honor the Name. To do any less is to provoke the jealousy of God.
