Jealousy: The Stealth (and not so Stealth) Killer

Frederick Engels

If we are not jealous of our neighbor’s wife, we are jealous of his attainments, money, house, car, influence, job, friends, or popularity. We want what he’s got, and we tend to hate him for it.

Communism had the perfect solution, albeit limited and superficial. They would equalize everybody and everything. After debunking Marxist theory, historian Robert Royal then exposes their underlying motivator – jealousy:

• The only reason these very dubious theories seemed like revolutionary bedrock to Marxist believers was that they justified hatred of bourgeois societies and gave sanction to the “inevitable” revolution ahead, after which, even more implausibly, religion and state, both mere bourgeois instruments of repression in the Marxist view, would wither away. That passionate desire for revolution, whatever the facts, lay behind the vehemence and even violence with which the Communist gospel was preached. (The God that did not Fail, 233)

Why did Marxism motivate the Communists to such a genocidal extent – the extermination of the 100,000,000 who would not see the light of their reason? Jealousy and hatred! However, these wicked seeds were camouflaged by the covering of an idealistic optimism. In the Condition of the Working Class in England, Friedrich Engels argued:

• Necessity will force the working-men to abandon the remnants of a [Christian] belief which, as they will more and more clearly perceive, serves only to make them weak and resigned to their fate, obedient and faithful to the vampire property-holding class.

However, the “working-men” never did exalt themselves to Engels’ enlightened heights, and when reason fails to win hearts and minds, coercion and violence are introduced.

Marxism continues to fail to address our inner struggles. Instead, the Marxist has readily partnered with jealousy, hatred, bitterness, with periodic exterminations of Christians, bourgeois, and others among the “weak and resigned.”

So what then is the answer to jealousy? The assurance that we are already rich and have everything we need! Where does this assurance come from? From the very light that the Marxist had tried to extinguish!

There is a truth that will set us free (John 8:31-32), as Jesus promised. It is the knowledge and assurance that we have God, and, having God, we have everything:

• For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. (Colossians 2:9-10)

It is this truth that has set me free! I need no longer covet what belongs to my neighbor or even my brother. I am already rich! Does this mean that I am no longer tempted? No, but now I have a defense. I know better!

In a sense, Engels was right. We are “resigned to [our] fate, obedient and faithful.” However, this resignation does not make us “weak,” but confident enough to resist evil. Why? We know that our true riches do not belong to this life. We also know that if we lose our life, we have an eternal inheritance in heaven. This enables us to be bold – the very reason that the Marxists had been eager to eliminate us and still are! In every Marxist nation, Christians regularly undergo persecution!

It takes courage to love our oppressors – a courage that Christ grants, and a courage that further enrages our oppressors.