God’s jealousy for his own glory is right and good and loving.
God is holy because he delights in and guards his reputation.
We all can relate to this. We know what it is like to care about our reputation, to want a good reputation. And we want to have a good name. We want others to think and speak well of us.
In a perfectly noble sense, this is what it means that God is jealous for the glory of his name. Here are some examples of his coming right out and saying that:
“I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.” (Isaiah 42:8)
“For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.” (Isaiah 48:11)
Jesus prayed, “Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven: ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’” (John 12:28)
God’s concern for God’s glory
Here are other examples showing God’s pursuit or protection of his own glory:
Jesus said, “The true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” (John 4:23)
“God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:28–29)
“When [Judas] had gone out [to betray the Lord], Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once.” (John 13:31–32)
These are just a few examples showing that God’s own glory is of ultimate importance to him. He is not shy about it or apologetic. The Bible everywhere assumes it is right for God to receive and seek glory, and that we owe him worship and thanksgiving. (See also 1 Corinthians 10:31; Ephesians 3:21; Revelation 5:11–14; Romans 1:18–22)
What is right for God, but wrong for us
God’s jealousy for the glory of his name is an aspect of his holiness that is harder for me to understand. But I know it is right; the God of the universe should not be any other way.
It is right because God only does what is right.
It is right because it is right and necessary for God to do and feel things that it is wrong for his creatures to do and feel. God’s role in the universe is utterly different than ours. God’s worth is infinitely greater than ours. Our worth is derived from him; his worth is intrinsic to himself, from himself, independent of anyone or anything.
And it is right because God is love, and love unselfishly seeks the welfare and happiness of others. God’s unselfish love is obvious when you consider the attention he gives to meticulously governing all that exists and continually providing for each of his creatures. “You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.” (Psalm 145:16)
Yet this loving, unselfish God at the same time is jealously devoted to the glory of his own name. Those two seemingly contradictory things are not contradictory according to what God has revealed about himself in the Bible. They are perfectly harmonious. God is both an unselfish, generous lover and a self-centered seeker of glory.
Self-centered
That for me in my human thinking is part of the stumbling block: God is self-centered. When a human is self-centered, it is obnoxious, unloving, immature, and often dangerous to others. But that is because a self-centered, narcissistic human is living in delusion and falsehood, since the world does not actually revolve around him. Everything he has he received, and his life should actually revolve around his Creator, Sustainer, and God and around his family, neighbors, and society.
But for God to be self-centered is completely true and necessary. Everything that exists actually does revolve around him and depend on him. He actually deserves all glory for everything, and so for him to deflect that glory to anything else (such as “Mother Nature,” the idolized Cosmos, the laws of nature, or the American economy or military) or anyone else would be false. Because he deserves glory, because he is worthy of glory, that glory should actually come to him, just as an employee should be paid for her work.
God should not try to prevent or avoid what ought to be his. He should not say, “Aw shucks, it was nothing,” because that would be false and would negate what ought to be. What God does is great and ought to be glorified—indeed it must be glorified. When Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey and received the praises of the people, and the religious leaders objected, he said, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” (Luke 19:40)
To shift anything or anyone away from being God-centered is to kill it, for God is the source of everything. A newborn infant should be mother-centered. A human needs to be food-and-water centered. God knows we must be God-centered for our very existence and for all happiness, and therefore he is loving when he insists on it as the highest good.
Why a great God takes human actions seriously
Here is another thing that can seem to my puny, human perspective to be somewhat unworthy of God: namely, to care what people think about him, especially what his enemies think. Shouldn’t he be above that, secure in himself, impervious to criticism?
No, the Bible presents a starkly different response from God. He is in fact infinitely concerned about what people think and say of him, and how they respond to him. He delights without end in the praise of angels and humans. At the Final Judgment he plans to shut the mouths and bend the knees of every person who has spoken falsely about him. He plans to make his enemies his footstool.
God’s concern for what people think and say of him results not from any insecurity whatever in God but from how seriously he has chosen to take his creation. He takes us seriously because he chose to make us in his image, and his image is infinitely important. His words and actions are important, and he has created us so our words and actions are important.
Moreover, he made a universe of objective morality, where the moral or immoral actions of responsible moral beings like us have objective consequences. This life is not make-believe, not a fantasy, not a board game. We can’t just put away the pieces, fold up the game board, and forget about it.
For example, the disobedient and unbelieving words and actions of Adam and Eve in the Garden changed not just their lives, but the lives of all their descendants, all life and natural forces like weather on earth, and even the nature of the universe. (See Romans 8:19–23).
God became a man
The greatest evidence that God chose to invest infinite significance in the words and actions of humans is the Cross of Jesus. The reason Jesus had to suffer and die for our sins is that God chose to make humans whose words and actions matter. Right and wrong matter. And the glory of God is a matter of right and wrong above all else (Romans 3:23).
The Son of God became a man, continues to be a man, and will forever be a man—fully God and fully human—in a resurrected human body, with a full human nature. One member of the Trinity took upon himself the nature of humanity forever! Clearly God takes human beings seriously. He has invested us with infinite meaning and significance, and therefore our words and actions are significant, and therefore our praise or our profaning words infinitely matter to him.
This therefore is another important aspect of God’s holiness. To say God is holy is to say he delights in and jealously protects the glory of his name, in heaven, in all the created universe, on earth, and in particular among the humans he created in his image and with whom he has united himself forever.
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)