Category: Understanding God’s Jealousy

Posted on

Idolatry, Betrayal, and Divine Jealousy

Idolatry is not merely the stumbling of an immature son; it is the betrayal of a spouse.

idolatry betrayal divine jealousy

In the previous post we saw that Israel began worshiping a golden calf at the very time that God was enacting his covenant with them through Moses on the top of Mount Sinai.

At the top of the mountain, God reported the adultery to Moses. With the fury of a husband betrayed on his wedding night, God announced, “I have seen these people, and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation” (Exo. 32:9–10).

God was ready to start over. Although he would fulfill his promise to Abraham by using his descendant Moses to begin a new Israel, he had lost patience with that faithless generation.

This was so because in the context of worship a different metaphor describes the relationship. In the context of worship, God was not like a father training his young son; rather, on the basis of the covenant just sealed in the covenant meal, this was a marriage. Idolatry is not merely the stumbling of an immature son; it is the betrayal of a spouse. Idolatry is adultery, the one thing a marriage should not abide.

What sex is to marriage, worship is to a relationship with God. Therefore idolatry could break the covenant.

Posted on

In Bed with Another God

Israel’s worship of the golden calf reveals the disposition of every human heart

golden calf

Exodus 20:18–20 says that after God spoke the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, the people were terrified and said they could not bear to hear more. So Moses climbed the mountain again to meet further with the Lord.

The first thing God said to Moses again concerned idolatry: “You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven. You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold” (Exo. 20:22–24, ESV). Just in case someone had missed the point, God repeated what was most important to him.

Worship took center stage in what followed. After God elaborated on the Ten Commandments (Exo. 21–23), he called Israel’s elders to worship him in a covenant-making meal (24:1). After that, Moses again ascended the mountain for his famous 40-day meeting with the Lord, which focused on God’s instructions for Israel’s worship, which involved detailed plans to create a tabernacle and to consecrate a priesthood qualified to mediate for the people (Exo. 25–31). Worship was the pure consummation of marriage between God and Israel.

Wasting no time in finding an idol

Meanwhile at the foot of Mount Sinai, Israel was making eyes at another god. Impatient with Moses, the leaders beckoned Aaron, “Come, make us gods who will go before us” (Exo. 32:1), and he complied. From their jewelry he molded a golden calf. Aroused, the leaders proclaimed, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” They offered sacrifices to the calf and celebrated an idolatrous festival.

God’s betrothed people were in bed with another god. Their betrayal could not be more appalling. This was Israel’s defining moment, and it was a disaster. They had bombed the test of exclusive worship.

This story reveals how quickly the fallen human heart turns to other gods. The Golden Calf is not just a sad story of Israel’s gross idolatry; it is the story of you and me and every human’s readiness to move God from his rightful place in one’s heart and replace him with some other ultimate devotion: work, money, romance, sex, family, friends, homeland, hobbies, sports, power, comfort, politics, the stock market, gambling, pornography—any created thing. God is rightly jealous that we should love him more than any such thing.

Jesus commanded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” (Matthew 22:37–38)

Posted on

What Marriage Teaches about Worship

God’s jealousy makes perfect sense

God's jealousy

I never knew my grandfathers. My paternal grandfather died before I was born, and my maternal grandfather was a mystery figure. He was alive, but we never saw him, never conversed on the phone, never talked about him, never hung photos of him on the wall. He did not reside with my grandmother, who lived an hour away. My parents did not divulge where he lived or why he did not live with my grandmother, and I did not ask. At some point I learned my grandparents had been divorced.

Actually I did see my grandfather once when I was around 10. He came to our home along with others from my mother’s family. I watched him with curiosity but did not speak with him. He was there with a woman who was not identified. I did not learn why my grandparents divorced until I was around 30. My grandfather did well enough in business that he and my grandmother employed a housekeeper. She was the unidentified woman at the family get-together when I was 10. My grandparents divorced because—well, you guessed it.

What a marriage must not tolerate

A husband and wife forbear many things in each other: irritating habits, stubborn flaws, and countless offenses. In love they overlook them. Their marriage vows require that they forbear all wrongs. All wrongs except one. What marriage should not abide is adultery. Romance and marriage are exclusive. Sexual relations are exclusive. If not, the end is near.

What sexual relations are to marriage, worship is to our relationship with God. He requires that we reserve worship exclusively for him, and he is right in doing so, for he alone is worthy.

Ten Commandments

At Mount Sinai God gave the Ten Commandments to the nation he had graciously delivered out of Egypt. The first two of those commands put first things first:

“You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God.” (Exo. 20:3–5)

Early in his relationship with Israel God clearly stated his nature. The message was blunt. I am a jealous God. Worship me exclusively. Do not even think about betraying me.

And God says the same to us. We live in a world of tests and temptations. Will we faithfully honor God above everything he created? In upcoming posts of this series we will examine how Israel, Abraham, and Jesus faced this test in different ways. And thereby we will learn how we can avoid spiritual adultery.