"What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, 'He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us?' But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'” James 4:1-6
This passage is the description of the combatants in their “pleasure wars.” One group was involved in the embrace of a worldly system which minimized the character and standards of God and led to a type of “wisdom that was earthly, spiritual, and demonic” (3.15).
There was another group who pursued the Lord with a desire to worship and honor him and embrace a wisdom that is from above, that is “first pure, then peaceful, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (3.17).
James 4:5 is a lynchpin argument in this text. It is a difficult verse to understand, but the central argument in the passage is vitally important for the believer to understand: “The specific details of the verse have been much debated, but we understand the general force to be that God is a jealous God and will brook (tolerate, allow, endure) no rivals.” Curtis Vaughn, James, pg. 86
“God’s jealousy means that God continually seeks to protect his own honor…It is healthy for us spiritually when we settle in our hearts the fact that God deserves all honor and glory from his creation, and that it is right for him to seek this honor. He alone is infinitely worthy of being praised. To realize this fact and to delight in it is to find the secret of true worship.” Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, pg. 205-206
“...God’s jealousy is praiseworthy zeal on his part to preserve something supremely precious.” J.I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 189
“So here’s the bottom line: the jealousy of God is the measure of zeal for happiness in him. His anger at our spiritual adultery, at having other lovers besides him, is a reflex both of his zeal for his own worth, but also of his zeal for our joy. If we turn away from him as the greatest treasure, we turn away from our greatest pleasure.” John Piper
The honoring of God and the well-being of His people are eternally linked (Deuteronomy 30:19-20; 1 Samuel 12:14; Matthew 7:24-27; Proverbs 3:4-8; Romans 8:13).
1. The accurate understanding of the jealousy of God is a tonic to a life of worship and thanksgiving.
"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, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." Exodus 20:4-6
2. The understanding of the jealousy of God is an arresting (captivating, transfixing) teaching which prioritizes our pursuits.
“…every preference of a small good to a great, or partial good to a total good, involves the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice is made…You can’t get second things by putting them first. You get second things only by putting first things first.” C.S. Lewis, "First and Second Things," God in the Dock, pg. 280
"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26-27
3. The knowledge of the jealousy of God gives the believer (mother, father, leader, teacher, friend) a relational track to run on.
"I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ." 2 Corinthians 11:1-3
4. This doctrine helps us fight the insidious, masquerading effects of Satan (2 Corinthians 11:14-15); therefore, let us delight.
5. God’s commitment to honoring His name in our welfare underscores the fact that he is in the process of shaping us into the likeness of Christ (His is a love that will never let us go) (Ephesians 2:10).