Jealous God

Jenson ( Systematic Theology: Volume 1: The Triune God , 47) notes that ancient gods were generally not jealous: “The gods in general have no final stake in their individual identities and will arrange them to suit our religious needs. Thus Greece knew Kourai, and Canaan knew Baalim, by the score, regularly by one another’s names and at one another’s sanctuaries and, vice versa, any one god was likely to accumulate a penumbra of other gods’ names.” He adds wryly that “declining modernity is in full concord with antiquity in this principle.”

Yahweh, of course, is a jealous God, and that is yet another sign to Jenson (surprise!) that the God of Israel “is truly identified by the temporal events of Exodus and Resurrection. In time, each thing must indeed be ‘itself and not another’ or not be at all; temporal entities must be jealous of their identities or cease. Usual gods care little for their identities just because they are not personally invested in time; indeed, their deity consists in their immunity to time, from which devotees hope they may rescue us also.”

As we would expect, Jenson says, “Not so the God of Scripture,” who is jealous precisely insofar as and because He is invested in time as God of Israel, exodus, Jesus, and resurrection.