What is godly jealousy?

Jealousy is cruel as the grave. How pitilessly cruel is the grave. It swallows up the young, the loved, the fairest, and the brightest. It knows no pity, and so jealousy would deal without pity against all that would come between the Bridegroom and His bride. Christ must be supreme: "He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of Me," and therefore the Lord can say, "If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife and children, and sister, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." To "hate" has the sound of cruelty, but it is the cruelty of jealous love that brooks no rival. Almost universally men speak of jealousy in an evil sense, Scripture hardly ever so. It speaks even of a "godly jealousy." The Apostle can say of believers, "I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy" for, says he, "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ" (2 Cor. 11:2). His love to Christ, and his love to the saints made him jealous lest anyone, or anything, should come between them and Christ. He had no pity for any who, by false doctrines, would beguile the saints from Christ. If an apostle or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel let him be accursed. This was the cruelty of jealous love.

Love strong as death, and jealousy cruel as the grave are found together. One is the outcome of the other. Love and jealousy may be found in measure in all men. But it is only love strong as death that calls forth jealousy cruel as the grave.

Verse 2. "For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy," etc. What, then, had provoked him to this self-display? He was jealous, but not in the spirit of a natural emulation. His zeal was not upon his own account or for his own repute, but theirs. It is as a friend of the Bridegroom that he speaks, and his zeal is the jealousy of God. We may notice, before further examining this remarkable language, that here, as in the epistle to the Ephesians, the doctrine of the bride is postponed, in the apostle's exposition of God's mysteries, to that of the body. The latter, which concerns principally the absoluteness of divine grace and power, as the fulfilment in creative wisdom of the good pleasure of God's will, stands naturally first in the order of exposition; while the former, which touches the elective love of Christ, speaks rather with a hortative bearing and effect to those who, by their calling, are not in Christ only, but of and for Him also. Position is our abiding security; relationship is both the ground of affection and the source of responsibility.

Paul's language here is wonderfully bold, but entirely consistent with his earlier description of his office. As an ambassador of Christ he represented Christ, and as God's effectual messenger of grace he had betrothed the church at Corinth to the Lord, having gathered from her lips a virgin confession of His saving name; and his desire was to present her, in the first and unchilled love of her espousals, to the true Bridegroom on the corning day. True gospel stewardship presents to Christ what Christ will Himself present in glory to Himself, and by Himself to the Father with exceeding joy. It will be observed that the apostle is not here speaking of individual saints, but of the collective assembly of the saved at Corinth. They had received God's gospel in the love of it, and Christ crucified had been their glory and their comeliness, until, by a subtle intermingling of his sophistries with truth, the adversary had prevailed for a season to turn that glory into shame. But God's gifts and calling are without repentance, and He had begun in them a work which He would surely end to His own praise. As the Preserver as well as Saviour of His own, he ministers His grace according to their actual necessities. "Warning and teaching" are the Spirit's means of tending and folding round the Shepherd's person those who already have been led to Christ, even as "preaching" is the ordinary mode of adding to the church. It is with the eye and heart of a true pastor that the apostle here regards his children in the faith; while he seeks to arouse them to a just sense of the danger to which they are incessantly exposed, through the snares which the watchful hatred of the adversary spreads, so thickly and enticingly, on each side of the "narrow way."

qana, 'to be inflamed.' The warm affection that cannot bear to see its loved one enticed by another, as a man is jealous of his wife, Num. 5:14; as Paul felt for the Corinthian saints, 2 Cor. 11:2; and as God regarded the people and the land which He had chosen, and upon which He had placed His name. Ps. 79:5; Ezek. 39:25; Joel 2:18; Zech. 1:14; Zech. 8:2. "Jehovah, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God." Ex. 34:14.

Paul in his godly jealousy for the Corinthian believers would desire that they should be presented "as a chaste virgin to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:2). The words used by the Spirit of God in this verse are of tremendous significance. "Chaste" involves bodily purity and moral blamelessness — but additionally carries the thought of that which is marked by awe, something quite uncommon to the trend of things in this ungodly world. It also has the further thought of being costly in a sacrificial sense. If we would yield joy to the heart of Christ, then essentially the flesh must be refused! Burdened thus in his desire for the glory of his Lord in the saints, the apostle is marked by godly jealousy — a glowing with fervent heat.

The thought of this stirred the Apostle very deeply. Elijah had been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts in his day, and here we find Paul jealous with a jealousy which was of God on behalf of Christ. When the Gospel he preached is truly received, it fairly wins the heart of the convert for Christ, so really so that he could say, "I have espoused you … that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." This is figurative language but it is quite transparent as to its meaning. Paul so preached, and we all ought so to preach, that the hearts of those who believe are wholly captivated by Christ. But that is only the beginning.

"Would that ye might bear with me in some little folly; but even bear with me. For I am jealous as to you with a jealousy of God; for I betrothed you to one husband to present a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craft, your thoughts should be corrupted from the simplicity that is towards Christ. For if indeed he that comes preaches another Jesus whom we preached not, or ye receive a different spirit whom ye received not, or a different gospel which ye accepted not, ye might well bear with [it]. For I reckon that I am in nothing come short of those surpassingly apostles; but if even ordinary in speech, yet not in knowledge, but in every [way we were] made manifest [or, manifested it]† in all things towards you. What! did I commit sin in humbling myself that ye might be exalted, because I gratuitously announced the gospel of God to you? Other churches I spoiled, receiving hire for service towards you. And when present with you and in want, I have not been a burden to any one (for my want the brethren on coming from Macedonia supplied); and in everything unburdensome to you I kept and will keep myself. There is Christ's truth in me that this boasting shall not be stopped‡ unto me in the quarters of Achaia. Wherefore? Because I love you not? God knows. But what I do I will also do that I may cut off the occasion of those desiring an occasion, that wherein they boast they may be found even as we. For such [are] false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ: and no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light: [it is] no great thing then if his servants also transform themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works." (Vers. 1-15.)

He apologises first of all for having to speak, not of Christ only, but of himself. Yet if any one might be jealous over the Corinthian saints, he surely who betrothed them (such is his expressive figure) to one husband, to present in them a chaste maiden to Christ. Such is the destiny of the saints; they are loved, washed, sanctified, justified, in view of this intimate relationship to Christ, which was most real and sure to the apostle, not so to those who lowered the standard of future hope and present separateness and conscious nearness in love and holiness to Christ by allowance of ease in this life, and of association with the world in its objects and ways, its philosophy or even religion. It is not only that here have we no continuing city and seek the coming one, but that we are now espoused to one husband even Christ, and are called to judge not conduct only but unsuitable thoughts and feelings. And as Paul had thus espoused the saints at Corinth, could he be otherwise than jealous at the creeping in of so much that was inconsistent with presenting them a chaste virgin to Christ?

Verses 2-6. It is a sublime description. God is a jealous God. The jealousy of God has for its source the love of His elect people. (See Zech. 1.) "For thou shalt worship no other god; for the Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God" (exodus 34:14). He is jealous over His people lest they serve other gods. And because He is a jealous God, a holy, a sin-hating God, He must be an avenger of what is against His character. He will take vengeance on His adversaries and reserveth wrath for His enemies. Destructive criticism has invented an infidel theory as if the God of wrath and vengeance were the product of the mind of man, and that Jehovah is some tribal deity, corresponding to the tribal gods of the surrounding heathen nations. Thus criticism rejects the Jehovah of the Bible and invents its own god, rejecting the threatenings of coming wrath and judgment as taught in the Old Testament and in the New in connection with the coming of the Lord, branding these revelations the result of the false apocalyptic teachings of the Jews. God is the God of Love, as much as He is the God of Wrath. He must be that or He would not be the God of Light and Holiness. He cannot afford to let evil go on forever. He is the Lord slow to anger. His patience is great, but He will not acquit the guilty, who continue to sin and do evil. Verses 2 and 3 describe His righteous government. Then follows a beautiful poetic description of His majesty, a description suited to the finite mind of man.

The Israelites had been told that their God was a jealous God (e.g. Ex. 20:5; 34:14; Deut. 4:24; 5:9; 6:15; Josh. 24:19). He did not want their affections to be here, there and everywhere. He did not want to share them. He wanted them wholly for Himself.

It is no coincidence that the vow of the Nazarite in Numbers 6 follows the "trial of jealousy" in chapter 5. What husband who truly loves his wife could bear the thought that her affection lay elsewhere. God is jealous over us. That jealousy is expressed in the Song of Solomon, chapter 8:6: "Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave..." It is a jealousy born of love, a love that has caused the Lord Jesus to go into death in His desire to possess us wholly for Himself. His love did not waver in the face of death and His jeal­ousy over us was indeed cruel as the grave. But then that verse in the Song of Solomon speaks about the fire that burns: "for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame." How awful it was for the Lord Jesus to suffer that terrible judgment, that vehe­ment flame, that was poured out upon Him when He was forsaken of His God.

But, thank God, there is a bright side of the picture. There is mercy as well as judgement; and our God, blessed for ever be His holy Name, is something more than "a consuming fire and a jealous God." True, He is a consuming fire, because He is holy. He is intolerant of evil, and must consume our dross. Moreover, He is jealous because He cannot suffer any rival to have a place in the hearts of those He loves. He must have the whole heart, because He alone is worthy of it, as He alone can fill and satisfy it for ever. And if His people turn away from Him, and go after idols of their own making, they must be left to reap the bitter fruit of their own doings, and to prove, by sad and terrible experience, the truth of these words, "their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another."

"Jealousy is cruel as the grave, the coals thereof are coals of fire, which has a most vehement flame."

There is something wonderful about the jealousy of Christ. The more a man loves the more he is jealous of any rival who attempts to steal away the heart of the one he loves from him. The intensity of Christ's love makes Him jealous of every influence that would dull or corrupt the affections of those who are espoused as a chaste virgin to Him. (See 2 Cor. 11:1-3.) How hateful must every influence appear to Christ that weakens our heart's affection for Him. The flame of His jealousy is like "a most vehement flame" because His love for His spouse is so great He cannot bear that any should steal her heart away from Him.