When we read in passages such as Exodus 20:5, that God is “jealous,” we are to understand divine jealousy in a Trinitarian way. The Father yearns for the dignity of the Son and Spirit, such that he is angry at anything and anyone who slights them. The Son is likewise passionate for the honor of his Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit burns with zeal for the respect of the Father and Son. Love, at the most sublime level, is the ardent regard each divine person has for the members of the godhead. As such, God's communal love necessarily involves antipathy for idolaters who defame the Trinity by their sinful substitution of creation for Creator. But it is the effulgence of divine love which also brings sinners back into communion in the life of the Trinity, through redeeming grace.
